Lecture on the media and the war on terror, Gothenburg, March 2013

1. Communication in the public sphere:
The ‘war on terror’ and the news media
London, July 7, 2005

2. Photographer Tim Hetherington, killed in Misurata, Libya, April 2011
Reporter Marie Colvin, Killed in Homs, Syria, February 2012

3. Iraq invasion, March 18, 2003

4. London, February 15, 2003

7. Apologies for Iraq coverage
• New York Times, May 26, 2004 – apology to readers
• “Editors at several levels who should have been challenging
reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent
on rushing scoops into the paper.”
• “Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their
strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted.”
• “Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent
display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into
question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no
follow-up at all.”

8. Examples:
• Front-page article: Iraqi defectors described a secret Iraqi camp
where Islamic terrorists were trained and biological weapons
produced
• Front-page article: an Iraqi defector said he personally worked on
secret facilities for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons
as recently as a year ago
• Front-page article headlined: "U.S. Says Saddam Hussein
Intensified Quest for A-Bomb Parts“
• “Other stories pushed Pentagon assertions so aggressively you
could almost sense epaulets sprouting on the shoulders of editors.”

9. NYT reporters
Judith Miller and
Michael Gordon

10. BBC apology – to the government
• January 29, 2004: “On behalf of the BBC I have no
hesitation in apologising unreservedly for our errors” –
Lord Ryder, Chairman (the “regime change tape”)
• A BBC reporter had accused the government of “sexing
up” the case for war on Iraq
• The insistence by the government that this report was
flawed led to the suicide of its source and a public inquiry
that ruled against the BBC
• The BBC’s leaders resigned and their replacements
apologised to the government

11. Who are they writing about? (UK media, 2011-2012)
Weapons of mass destruction deployed The regime uses genocidal rhetoric.
by a Middle East regime are a threat to Its leaders are hardline, backward
this country, Britain’s prime minister has fanatics committed to the
warned. destruction of Western civilisation.
The country’s military is using its
The regime is training al-Qaeda
control over global crime networks to
terrorists for 9/11-style revenge
push heroin and other hard drugs into
attacks on London, it has a huge
Western countries to damage our
capability to commit spectacular
young people.
atrocities abroad.
Its terrorists planned an attack on
It is racing to produce a nuclear weapon the 2012 London Olympics.
– and there is a 1,000-page dossier to
prove it. Western rulers are looking on in horror,
debating whether to use military force
This rogue state is interfering across to stop the threat once and for all -
the Middle East, arming our enemies aware that if they leave it too late the
and threatening our allies. consequences could be catastrophic

12. Lance corporal Mathew Ford.
440 British soldiers have died
in Afghanistan so far.

13. Jugroom Fort rescue, Helmand, January 2007

14. Headlines
• “It was an extraordinary tale of heroism and bravery of our airmen,
soldiers and marines” – Ministry of Defence
• “Daring operation showed this was ingenuity and bravery of the
highest order” – BBC
• “Rescue bid by heroes strapped to helicopters” – Daily Mail
• “Heroes of Helmand”, “a mission that carried echoes of Saving
Private Ryan”, “a mercy mission that has already etched itself into
contemporary military folklore” – the Observer
• The Guardian said the mission evoked “the heroes of the second
world war”

16. Mathew Ford’s rescue dramatised as a video game

17. What really happened:
• Ford was shot by a British soldier, who shot 4 other soldiers too
• They lost the body
• The soldiers were badly briefed, didn’t know what they were doing
• Commanding officer was sacked
• There was no need for a daring rescue
• Helicopters expended £1.5m of ammunition during the rescue
• Mission “bore all the hallmarks of a classic clusterfuck” – pilot of
helicopter who rescued Ford

18. The ‘rescue’ of Jessica Lynch
April 2003:
• The Pentagon
claimed Lynch
had been seized
after an ambush
by Iraqi troops,
had stab and
bullet wounds,
interrogated in
hospital
• Navy Seals
stormed the
hospital under
fire, rescued
Lynch and took
her away by
helicopter

19. The first televised war
Associated Press
photographer Huynh
Cong "Nick" Ut took
this photo on June 8,
1972. Crying children,
including 9-year-old
Kim Phuc, center, run
down Route 1 near
Trang Bang, Vietnam,
after an aerial napalm
attack on suspected
Viet Cong hiding
places

20. Vietnam, 1963-75
• Liberals AND conservatives in the US believe the media
played a decisive role in turning the public against the
Vietnam War and thereby influenced its outcome
• Belief: any war that is televised will lose public support
• Conservative version: the media were villains by
covering it in a negative way
• Liberal version: the media were heroes by covering it in
a negative way

21. Daniel Hallin, professor of media studies in California, author of
“The ‘Uncensored War’: The Media and Vietnam”, 1986
• 1. Coverage was actually highly supportive of the war in the early
years, up until the TET offensive in 1968 – “the free world against
communist totalitarianism”
• 2. Coverage was in fact highly sanitised: only very few occasions
when viewers saw the “true horror” on their TV screens
• 3. Until the My Lai trial in 1970, atrocities were absent on television
• 4. There was a clear change in tone in news coverage from about
1968, more sober, more sceptical, greater emphasis on casualties
• 5. The media were followers, not leaders, in opinion change
• 6. Extremely important factor was the change in elite opinion
• 7. Collapsing morale of American troops

22. ‘Embedding’ – for and against
600 journalists were embedded with troops in Iraq during the invasion

23. Arguments against embedding
You only see one side of
the story
Ross Kemp: I get my first
opportunity to talk with the
locals. [To the interpreter]
Ask him what he would like
to see done?
Afghan man: Our question
is: what have you done for
us since you have come
here? You have destroyed
our homeland, you have
killed our people and
demolished our houses. We
have supported you, but
what have you done for us?
Kemp: [clearly frustrated]
Obviously the battle to win
hearts and minds is not
going to be an easy one…
(from Ross Kemp in
Afghanistan, Sky, 2008)

24. More arguments against embedding
• Screening - 2009: US officials in Afghanistan admitted that any
reporter seeking to embed with US forces is screened to see if it is
“positive,” “negative” or “neutral” towards the army
• Censorship - In Helmand, embeds are required to email their copy
to the British army’s press information centre for inspection
• Self-censorship - Seymour Hersh: “It is very hard when you're with
a group of guys for two weeks or three weeks or a month before
they go into combat, and the third day of combat, they panic and
shoot up a carload of people at an intersection. You're not going to
tell that story.”

25. Reasons to be an embed:
• Danger - Terry Lloyd, unembedded British television news reporter,
was killed in Iraq by US troops (March 22, 2003)
• Now almost impossible to cover conflict independently without
being embedded
• It is the only way to see what is happening, even if it is only a partial
picture
• Sometimes you need to be there to get the story
• When the army is in crisis, soldiers want the truth to get out

26. • Christina Lamb was
embedded in Helmand in
July 2006 when she was
nearly killed in a Taliban
ambush
• Her report for the Sunday
Times newspaper
revealed to the country
that the British army was
involved in a real war

27. Photographer Jason P Howe was present when a British soldier lost his legs, March
2012. Since the photo was published, the army has banned him from embedding

28. The ‘war on terror’ at home

29. • September 2005 – Danish newspaper publishes
cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed
• Protests across the Islamic world lead to 200 deaths

30. “Islamophobia”:
• Resentment at Muslims getting “special treatment”
• A feeling of superiority of white British culture over Asian Muslim culture
• Fear of a “Muslim threat”, all Muslims become a potential threat
• “The terms moderate and extremist are not much use to us when
considering Islam; they sort of merge with one another”

31. The Sun (Britain’s best-
selling newspaper),
editorial comment,
July 23 2011:
“We must ask
ourselves whether –
like Norway – we offer
too cushy a life to
bogus asylum seekers.”
cushy = easy
bogus = illegal

32. London, July 7, 2005