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Reporting War
and the Effect of New Media
Reporting War
and the Effect of New Media
Heidi Kingstone highlights the concerns and
challenges facing war reporters in the rapidly
changing world of the mass media
Feature
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W
hat happens to truth
during war is a question
that journalists and
others have asked for
decades, and one that remains relevant.
With newspaper readership in decline,
cuts across the industry, the rise of
social media, and the 24-hour news
cycle, reporting from war zones has
inevitably changed.
The pressure on journalists, local as
well as foreign, is far more intense than
ever, and correspondents are no longer
seen as neutral or as invulnerable as
they once were. With fewer available
resources, reporters are stretched and
have to serve more
outlets.
Changes in technology
have also altered the
industry. A television
crew of three would
once arrive with a truck-
load of equipment. Now
a lone ranger reporter
only needs a handheld
camera and a satellite
connection.
Foreign correspondents
on the other hand are
often parachuted into
a country they know
little about to report
on complex subjects
of which they can
only skim the surface.
Within 30 minutes of arriving they can
be doing a piece to camera from a hotel
rooftop before leaving a few days later.
With the advent of social media the
world has opened up at the same
time as the appetite for foreign news
has shrunk. We also consume news
differently. Newspaper and magazine
content was decided by editors and
journalists and delivered to us in
bundles. Today disaggregation allows
consumers to pick and choose the
news they want in the format they want
it. We can also access considered expert
analysis in the blogosphere, as well as
news and opinion from the other side.
New media has given rise to a poten-
tially infinite number of new prisms
through which to view war. In parts
of the world prone to paranoia and
conspiracy theories, social media has
made things worse.
New media has made sourcing and veri-
fication more difficult; technology has
put so much power into the hands of
people who can communicate the event
that it can become the truth.
What came out of Iraq from US and
UK soldiers says John Lloyd, contrib-
uting editor to the Financial Times and
Director and co-founder of the Reuters
Institute for the Study of Journalism at
the University of Oxford, was often very
interesting, but of course subjective.
One African-based journalist with a
recent string of exclusives acknowl-
edges she has got them at a price.
There are many parts of the country in
which I operate where the real stories
of war and conflict are happening.
They dont get reported because the
military restricts access, so I cant go
without a military escort. I have been
able to use my access to position myself
as someone who can get exclusives. I
do some editing and blur the lines to
create an image that what I have gotten
has been on my terms, when I know it
has not.
She continues: I dont explain to the
audience that I am not in complete
control and that the itinerary has been
totally dictated by the military. I dont
tell them that I have been allowed 15
minutes and restricted to three streets,
and that I am always in their presence.
I get the story of the conflict, but what
the viewer sees is totally manipulated.
I cant tell them because I dont want
to undermine my own credibility. As
journalists we are now brands, and I
have to shape mine. On a positive note,
the military in this country has a lot of
pressure on it from the media, and cant
do whatever the hell it likes as it did in
the past.
The truth is no different when it comes
to embedding journalists with the British
military, particularly in
Helmand, Afghanistan.
Frank Ledwidge is a
criminal barrister, a
former Naval reserve
military intelligence
officer who has written
two books on the
British militarys role in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
His swingeing criticism
is levelled at this system
of embedding, and the
BBC for its compliance
with the narrative the
military and the govern-
ment pushed.
Journalists who
request embeds have to
be cleared by diplomats
or military officers, says Ledwidge, and
they have to sign the Green Book. This
document governs their behaviour. They
agree as well to their material being
vetted whether its audio, video or print.
The authorities look for a) information
that could assist the enemy, under-
standable, and b) bias. Who decides the
bias? Some young army officer.
Ledwidge, who has served in the
Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, refers
to the ongoing situation in Helmand,
which was and is a complete mess.
The narrative of both the military
and the BBC embeds, not necessarily
specific journalists, was that our boys
were doing a great job, and that we
were winning. The brutal reality is
that, nothing has been achieved and
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nothing has been achieved at very great
cost, he says.
A perfect example is a headline that
ran in a 2007 New York Times article:
Marines in Afghanistan have routed
Taliban. The article stated that the
British reported a similar finding.
This was far from the reality. In fact no
foreigner could go to the region without
being killed or kidnapped.
That journalists can get caught up in
the story is nothing new. During the
war against the Soviets, western jour-
nalists travelling with the Mujahideen
lionised resistance leader Ahmad Shah
Massoud - hardly objective reporting.
We also have a tendency to paint
people as heroes or villains and to tell
a simple story, even if it is often very
complicated.
Ledwidge argues in relation to embeds
in Helmand, where the bulk of the
British forces were based: the BBC
failed to report accurately what was
going on. Its their duty and in their
charter, which mandates them to report
independently, but they have allowed
themselves to be censored and coopted.
There has been no push back, no
protest, no open discussion about the
Green Book.
US reporters rarely do British embeds
because, as Ledwidge points out, they
have a quaint belief in freedom of
information. US Marines and others
can talk relatively freely to the press
while British soldiers are mandated to
speak from a script. If they deviate, if
they step out of line, he says, they lose
any chance of promotion. That speaks
to me of fear.
His more recent concern is about Syria.
Very few British outlets have reported
on the fact that the intelligence used
to make a case against the president,
Bashar al-Assad, is to a great extent
based on Israeli signal intercepts. This
might not invalidate the information,
but it needs to be challenged. We
are taking their intel without it being
scrutinised. Why havent we heard the
debate that must be going on within the
Services, he asks?
Other ways of controlling the press
can be equally insidious. Just ask
Jean MacKenzie, who reported on the
collateral damage in Helmand, and as
a result became persona non grata.
MacKenzie believes that in response to
her reporting the British government
pulled the funding for her project,
although that cannot be proven. A
highly respected American journalist,
she worked for many years in Afghani-
stan as the director of the Institute for
War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), an
initiative that builds local journalistic
capacity in conflict stricken areas.
The British talk a good game about
promoting freedom of the press, but
when push came to shove freedom was
not a good thing if it made them look
bad, says MacKenzie, who works for
the online site GlobalPost. Im not sure
when reporting shifted to propaganda.
There are of course many excellent
journalists who know very well what is
going on, but some are simply arrogant
and others are seduced by access. Its
very seductive to be taken to a battle
scene that no one else has access to,
or to have an exclusive interview with
a high ranking commander, she says.
Reporting through the fog of war can be
especially difficult in a complex place
like Afghanistan where you have to
know about and pick through tribal and
ethnic loyalties, regional and political
affiliations and religious differences.
Its also horribly corrupt. Afghans will
tell you what you want to hear because
everyone is peddling a point of view, and
its difficult to unravel when you are in
the middle of a war zone and thinking
about safety on top of everything else,
MacKenzie says.
How do we even choose which wars to
cover? Usually they are the ones with
easy access, close to an international
airport, with nice hotels, and a good bar
that you can return to after a hard day
in the field. Thats why Israel-Palestine
gets more coverage than Kashmir,
says Jonathan Foreman, author of
Aiding and Abetting, a book that
dissects the ineffectiveness of foreign
aid. Its much more difficult to access
Kashmir, and Congo is never going to
be covered because its uncomfortable
and dangerous.
The methods used have also become
more secret. Nobody could have
covered the attack that killed Osama
bin Laden, says Lloyd.
According to him, politicians have
become anaesthetised to the medias
call of something must be done. Its
not like it was in the 90s, he adds.
Journalists dont have the moral
polemical power to force political
or military decisions. This has been
reduced significantly.
Social media has become an effec-
tive means of organisation - ie, galva-
nising many people, letting them know
where to gather for demonstrations,
but as a form of propaganda, its too
diffuse, lacking a central, controlled
message, with too many conflicting
and competing agendas. Its capacity
to actually set the agenda and win
converts is overplayed. People tend to
rely on mainstream media rather than
social media for news.
During the invasion of Iraq in 2003,
Major Gen Tim Cross was the most
senior British officer involved in plan-
ning, briefing then Prime Minister Tony
Blair on a number of occasions. He
says: The medias job is to influence
opinion, but its not going to shape
strategy. Its not good or bad, the media
just is. Its not a conspiracy, although it
may be incompetent at times.
Over time, as journalism moves more
completely onto the Net, the edges
between new media and old media
will blur, says Lloyd. Whether this will
mean that objectivity is more difficult,
or easier, is a really open question: the
BBC/NY Times mission to tell the truth
has followers in the new media too.
Heidi Kingstone
is London based foreign
correspondent and
features writer. She has
lived in Afghanistan, and
reported from Iraq and
Sudan. She is currently
writing a book on Afghanistan.