Role of Photography and Media in the War - Essay Example

Pictures That Reveal War's Brutal Reality:. Byline: By DAN O'NEILL South Wales Echo Every war gives us its iconic image: a photograph, perhaps THEphotograph capturing the zeitgeist, the spirit of the time. Before photography, of course, painting didn't so much depict the death and drama of the battlefield as idealise it. A much-praised canvas showing the Charge of the Light Brigade makes that desperate, doomed attack on the Russian guns in the Crimea look a noble, bloodless exercise. That war in the 1850s was also caught by the first primitive cameras. No action, just acres of sepia emptiness. But when it was over, photographs hinting at the horror: Crimean War veterans holding up false limbs for the delectation of the visiting Queen Victoria. And then there was the Great War. Mud, mud, inglorious mud. Despair seeps up from those old photographs of seemingly limitless stretches of desolation pitted with horse-swallowing shell holes, criss-crossed by flimsy wooden paths, spectral trees stripped of their branches, the smell of death rising. The Spanish Civil War offered one of the most enduring images of all, caught by the camera of the legendary Robert Capa - a Republican soldier at the instant of death, the moment of truth, the bitterest truth of all. Consider those dots on the ravaged beaches of Dunkirk, foggy film showing a triumphant refusal to lie down and die. And has the Nazi evil ever been more heartrendingly captured than by the photograph of a small, scared boy, hands above his head, surrounded by impassive storm troopers in the Warsaw Ghetto Vietnam Its anguish vivid in the shape of a nine-year-old, naked girl, face contorted with terror, running down a long, long road, soldiers in the background, smoke drifting lazily up in the distance. Photographs like that sickened America and, say the armchair warriors, lost them the war. And now we see again how potent a picture can be. Not long ago it seemed certain that the lasting image of war in Iraq would be Saddam's toppled statue. Instead, for millions, it is now a grinning 21-year-old girl holding a dog lead attached to the neck of a naked, cowering Iraqi. That photograph will give Lynndie England unwanted immortality. And maybe help end America's occupation. We have come a long way since the painting of that glorious Charge. -1- The Media and British Politics in the Twentieth Century: Graham Goodlad Asks If the Media Did More to Support or to Challenge Politicians during the Last Century. by Graham Goodlad That the mass media grew in importance during the twentieth century cannot be doubted. The late Victorian period witnessed an enormous expansion of the press, stimulated by improved technology and by the mid-century removal of the so-called 'taxes on knowledge', the stamp and paper duties which had raised the price of newspapers. By 1901 there were 21 major daily newspapers being produced in London. Although this number was to fall in the next few decades, as a result of closures and mergers, the press would remain a power in the land, courted and feared by politicians of all parties. After the First World War new media came to rival the press in their capacity to reach a mass audience. The cinema came into its own in the inter-war period, providing newsreel images which enabled the public at large to gain its first visual appreciation of the country's political leaders. The establishment in the 1920 of the BBC made possible the supply of radio, followed later by television, directly to voters' homes. From 1955, with the emergence of independent television, the BBC's monopoly of broadcasting was challenged by the rise of commercial channels. The appearance of satellite and cable television from the late 1980s further extended the variety of media available to the public. The role of the media in politics remains an area of intense debate. Although the press and broadcasting have rarely, if ever, been direct causes of political change, arguably they have done more than merely reflect their environment. The historians James Curran and Jean Seaton regard the media as both catalysts and symptoms of change. To what extent did politicians manipulate the media for their own ends, to transmit their messages to the electorate and to divine the state of public opinion Or were political agendas driven by media pressures Was the media explosion of the twentieth century an opportunity or a threat as far as politicians were concerned Friendly Editors and Hostile Press Barons Late Victorian and Edwardian newspapers were noted for their partisan attachment to one or other of the two dominant political parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals. A German visitor noted in 1904 that 'the chief weapon of the various Parties is the Press'. It is hard to gauge the extent to which readers shared the political prejudices of the newspapers they bought. Nonetheless, as the older media of the pamphlet and the church or chapel pulpit declined, and before radio and television made their mark, the press was the best available means of shaping public opinion. It was common for leading politicians to cultivate close relations with sympathetic editors of 'quality' newspapers. For example the Liberal leaders, Asquith and Grey, associated with J.A. Spender, the influential editor of the Westminster Gazette between 1896 and 1921. A slightly later example is that of Geoffrey Dawson, editor of The Times in 1912-19 and 1923-41, whose close association with leading members of Neville Chamberlain's government helps to explain the paper's staunch support for the appeasement of Nazi Germany. The Times persisted in this stance even after the September 1938 Munich agreement, when other pro-Conservative papers such as the Daily Telegraph became more critical of government policy. Dawson deliberately downplayed the favourable reaction to the resignation speech of Duff Cooper, the one Cabinet minister to leave the government in protest at Chamberlain's dealings with Hitler. Such collaboration was facilitated by the narrowness of the pre-1939 governing elite, whose members shared common backgrounds and interests. Dawson himself was a near neighbour of the Yorkshire landowner Lord Halifax, who served as Foreign Secretary in the Chamberlain government. In the early twentieth century party agents often subsidised press allies, and some politicians sought to win direct control of leading papers. Lloyd George arranged a take-over of the Liberal Daily Chronicle in 1918 and made an unsuccessful bid for ownership of The Times in 1922. The Daily Herald, founded in 1912, was controlled and funded by the Labour Party and the trade union movement. From the 1920s, the increasing costs of print technology and the need to attract revenue from advertising made it unrealistic for parties to be directly involved in the running of newspapers. The changing situation favoured the growth of newspaper chains controlled by a small number of powerful 'press barons' such as Lord Northcliffe, founder of the Daily Mail and owner of The Times in 1907-22. Individuals such as Northcliffe tended to maintain close control over the political line taken by their editors. Their wealth gave them independence of the political parties. They were prepared to transfer their political allegiances as they saw fit, and to use their newspapers in political campaigns. For example Northcliffe's Times played an important role in precipitating the resignation of Asquith as Prime Minister during the Cabinet crisis of December 1916. The rise of these tycoons forced politicians to evolve new and more indirect strategies for influencing the press. Honours and appointments assumed increasing importance as a means of courting the press. Lloyd George, who became Prime Minister in the wake of Asquith's downfall, flattered Northcliffe by inviting him to head a special diplomatic mission to the USA in 1917. Four years later Lloyd George experienced the fickleness of the press barons, when Northcliffe and his younger brother, Lord Rothermere, led a press campaign against government expenditure, successfully backing 'Anti-Waste' candidates in three by-elections. The publicity generated by the so-called 'squandermania' crusade helped to bring about the drastic public spending cuts recommended by the Geddes committee (the 'Geddes axe') in 1922. The best known example of political intervention by the press came in 1929-31, from the owners of the two most successful popular newspapers. These were Lord Rothermere of the Daily Mail and Lord Beaverbrook of the Daily Express, who together called for 'Empire free trade'-a proposal to turn the British Empire into a self-sustaining trading bloc through the adoption of preferential tariffs. This was a direct challenge to the Conservative Party leader, Stanley Baldwin, whom they aimed to displace. Rothermere and Beaverbrook went so far as to sponsor a new political party, the United Empire Party, which scored a highly publicised by-election victory at Paddington South in October 1930. The imperial theme of the press campaign appealed to Conservative instincts and Baldwin was forced to shift his ground towards the Empire free trade position. At the same time the episode demonstrated the limits of the press as a direct political weapon. By overplaying their hand the press lords enabled Baldwin to gain the sympathy of public opinion, as the plucky victim of arrogant financial interests. His famous description of his tormentors as aiming at 'power without responsibility-the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages' helped Baldwin to survive the campaign. A Changing National Press The press magnates who came to prominence after 1945 tended to involve themselves less in party politics than their pre-war equivalents. Commercial success, rather than political influence, was the motive of a man like Roy Thomson, who bought the Sunday Times in 1959 and The Times in 1967. Newspapers became less partisan, commonly expressing a view at election time instead of maintaining a continuous editorial loyalty to a particular party. The situation changed again in the final quarter of the century, with the arrival of a new type of media magnate, typified by Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Sun from 1970 and The Times from 1981. Murdoch built up a global portfolio of interests, encompassing book publishing and television broadcasting as well as newspapers. His papers gave strong support to the Conservative governments of the 1980s, partly because Thatcherite policies coincided with the interests of big business. The populist style of the tabloid Sun was well adapted to the increasing emphasis in general election campaigns on personalities. Thus on polling day in 1992, the front page headline, 'If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights', accompanied a mocking cartoon of the Labour Party leader. Politicians were anxious to win the favour of the tabloid press, seeing it as a crucial means of access to public opinion. John Major, when Britain was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on 'Black Wednesday' (September 1992), telephoned the editor of the Sun to enquire how the paper would handle the crisis. Its support for Tony Blair's Labour Party in the 1997 general election highlighted the fickleness of the tabloid press. Most popular newspapers followed the shift in public opinion, as the Conservatives ran into a series of disasters and Labour gained credibility as a potential party of government. By then political parties could not rely upon the stable press loyalties that had sustained them in the first half of the century. The newspapers of the 1990s reflected an electorate which no longer subscribed to life-long political allegiances, but increasingly viewed parties in the manner of shoppers, weighing up the merits of rival brands. Objective Broadcasters The appearance of radio in the 1920s added a new dimension to politics. In the early years broadcasting laid claim to greater objectivity than the press in its treatment of political issues. The BBC's first Director-General, Sir John Reith, took seriously the concept of public service broadcasting, aiming to build up the Corporation as a national institution, highly regarded for its standards of accuracy and fairness. At moments of crisis, however, this meant a willingness to undertake self-censorship, in order to avert direct government intervention. Thus in the General Strike of 1926--the most serious domestic crisis of the inter-war years-Reith acceded to government pressure and denied the leaders of the Labour movement--and also the Archbishop of Canterbury--an opportunity to put their case over the radio. By contrast Reith struck up a friendly relationship with the Prime Minister, Baldwin, even helping him with the text of his address to the nation, in order to bolster him against right-wing ministers who wanted to commandeer the BBC. The pre-war BBC remained a cautious guardian of official values. Government control over the future of the licensing system, upon which the Corporation's funding depended, was no doubt an important constraint. Thus in the inter-war years broadcasting did not reflect dissenting views within the governing party, which for most of this period was the Conservative Party. During his self-imposed spell in the political wilderness in the 1930s, when he was at odds with government policy on Indian self-government and appeasement, Winston Churchill was repeatedly denied access to the microphone. This deliberate avoidance of controversy persisted into the 1950s. The post war BBC was prepared to give the official Opposition the right of reply to the government of the day, but it did not involve itself in internal party issues. For example Aneurin Bevan, champion of the Labour left, was not invited to speak on radio after his quarrel with the party leadership in April 1951. The BBC's approach to the coverage of general elections was in accordance with this stance of studied impartiality. The three main parties were allocated time for election broadcasts by their own spokesmen on radio and (from 1951) television. There was no direct coverage of election campaigns, however, until the 1959 contest. In this context the arrival of independent television was an important force for change. ITV broke with convention in 1958 by following the progress of a by-election. Gradually the broadcasters themselves became more involved in the coverage of political events, and party managers lost their initially tight control over interviews and discussions. Interviewers such as Robin Day became less respectful towards politicians and more prepared to ask difficult questions. Photo-Opportunities and Pitfalls Politicians sought to exploit the potential of the new media. In the 1920s, Stanley Baldwin's ability to strike a reassuringly informal note in radio talks gave him an advantage over his Liberal and Labour opponents. Lloyd George and Ramsay MacDonald, who were at home with the old-style mass meeting, found it harder to adopt the relaxed, conversational style that was appropriate for 'fireside chats' over the radio. In the next generation, Harold Macmillan was the first Prime Minister to grasp the importance of television. His prospects of re-election in 1959 were undoubtedly assisted by his decision to invite the TV cameras into Number Ten Downing Street on the occasion of US President Eisenhower's visit. A stage-managed conversation between the two men enabled the Prime Minister to appear as a national statesman, on equal terms with a leading world figure-an opportunity denied to the Leader of the Opposition. On the other hand, politicians found that television could be a double-edged weapon. Labour's Harold Wilson was noted for his skill in presenting himself on television, and this was a factor in his victory over the less 'media friendly' Conservative leader, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, in the 1964 General Election. In power, however, Wilson became convinced that he was the victim of biased reporting on BBC current affairs programmes. This culminated in a public row over the documentary 'Yesterday's Men', shown the year after Labour's 1970 defeat, which gave an unflattering portrait of Wilson and his principal Shadow Cabinet colleagues. Resentment at the choice of title, and the interviewing techniques used in the programme, permanently soured relations between the Wilson camp and the BBC. Another Prime Minister noted for her ability to project herself through the media was Margaret Thatcher. With the aid of a talented public relations adviser, Gordon Reece, she acquired a sophisticated command of image-making. The slick electoral campaign run by the Conservatives in 1983, assisted by the commercial advertising methods of Saatchi and Saatchi, contrasted sharply with the amateurish, homespun style of the Labour leader, Michael Foot. Yet, like Wilson before her, Mrs Thatcher became embroiled in a series of confrontations with broadcasters. She clashed with the BBC over its failure to report the Falklands War in a sufficiently patriotic way, and for not denying terrorists in Northern Ireland 'the oxygen of publicity'. In 1988 Mrs Thatcher was equally incensed with the independent company, Thames Television, for its coverage of an incident when SAS soldiers shot dead IRA terrorists on Gibraltar. The programme 'Death on the Rock', which questioned the government's version of events, was famously described by the Prime Minister as a case of 'trial by television'. Her attempt to suppress the programme led to accusations that she wanted, in the words of the Sunday Times, 'to control what viewers can watch both in terms of moral tone and when broadcasters threaten to expose or embarrass the government'. Spinning Out of Control Changes in the media had a direct impact on the nature of twentieth-century politics. The arrival of television, in particular, compelled politicians to think more about their public image. It encouraged a focus on the rival party leaders, which reminded many people of American presidential contests. As the extended reporting of parliamentary proceedings disappeared from the pages of newspapers, and it became necessary to make a favourable impression on the television news bulletins, the short, memorable utterance or 'sound bite' assumed growing importance. By the 1980s election campaigns were increasingly conceived in terms of their visual impact on the voters. The staging of party conferences became an important concern in the era of Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock. Party leaders approached such events with an eye to the way in which they might enhance their own standing. The refusal of successive Prime Ministers to submit to televised debates during election campaigns stems partly from a disinclination to award their rivals an equal platform. Downing Street had a Press Office, charged with handling the Prime Minister's relations with the media, from the 1930s. The prominence of the Press Secretaries employed by Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair provoked accusations of an increasing politicisation of the government news service. The 1990s saw the arrival of a new breed of professional public relations expert, the so-called 'spin doctor'. Under Blair in particular, news management became an increasing preoccupation, leading to claims that the presentation of policy was becoming more important than the content. Yet the experience of those leaders whose handling of the modern media has been uncertain teaches a clear lesson. As public access to new sources of information continues to widen, and the speed of communication increases, politicians' careers depend to an extraordinary degree upon their responses to the media. Issues to Debate * How politically important were the brothers Northcliffe and Rothermere before the Second World War * Was the BBC politically neutral as between the major parties * Which 20th-century British politicians have manipulated the media most successfully Timeline 1896 Lord Northcliffe founds the Daily Mail, the first popular national daily newspaper 1922 First radio broadcast by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) 1926 The BBC is transformed into a public corporation 1929-31 'Empire free trade' campaign waged against the Conservative Party leadership by press lords Beaverbrook and Rothermere 1951 The first televised party election broadcasts 1955 Launch of independent television 1959 The first televised General Election campaign 1970 The Sun comes under the control of Rupert Murdoch 1989 Launch of Rupert Murdoch's satellite television company, Sky TV (BSkyB) The televising of House of Commons debates begins Further reading Michael Cockerell, Live from Number Ten: the inside story of Prime Ministers and Television (Faber, 1988) James Curran and Jean Seaton, Power Without Responsibility. the Press and Broadcasting in Britain (Routledge, fifth edition, 1997) Stephen Koss, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain: Volume 2: The Twentieth Century (Hamish Hamilton, 1984) James Margach, The Abuse of Power: the War between Downing Street and the Media from Lloyd George to James Callaghan (W.H. Allen, 1978) Colin Seymour-Ure, The British Press and Broadcasting since 1945 (Blackwell, second edition, 1996) Dr Graham Goodlad is Director of Sixth Form at St John's College, Southsea, and a regular contributor to History Review. -1- Dueling Outlets: Proliferation of the Media in Iraq. by Sean Creehan In the midst of continued guerilla warfare against coalition forces, escalating terrorist activity throughout the country, and shortages of even basic resources like electricity and water, there is at least one sign that US President George Bush's war in Iraq has had some positive impact. An Iraqi media once completely controlled by Saddam Hussein's regime now enjoys freedoms unheard of just six months ago, and the number of news sources is burgeoning. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Worldwide reports that some 180 newspapers and other publications are currently available to Iraqi readers. The fare ranges from the Iraqi Communist Party monthly journal to tabloids with full-page spreads of international pop stars. Even a national radio and television network has formed at a time when local stations are slowly struggling to get off the ground. While the recent changes in the media market reflect significant progress, this first step poses many new problems. Civil libertarians in the United States often point to the US Constitution's First Amendment, which grants freedom of the press, as one of the hallmarks of a healthy democracy. Part of the argument is that a well-informed populace is the best defense against tyranny, and a thriving free media helps educate the public. Yet though the Iraqi people may be receiving more information than ever before, the quality of the country's infant journalistic institutions is far from topnotch. Of course, one might easily raise a similar critique of the US media (or that of any other state), particularly regarding coverage of divisive and controversial issues. Why then even raise the issue so prematurely if the debate could carry over to any state's media The difference in Iraq is the heavy-handed role of the US-led coalition--and perhaps a UN presence in the future--in creating a vibrant Iraqi civil society. The practices of the media in Western states may be questioned, but in the here and now, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) wields an immense power to create practices that heretofore have never existed in Iraq, or, for that matter, in a large swath of the Middle East. What, then, are the current problems, and what is the CPA's proposed solution Most troubling is the paucity of sources that attempt (or even pretend) to undertake objective, facts-based journalism. Rumors are often reported without substantiation. For example, one recent paper reported that Jews will soon be hoarding Baghdad real estate in the hopes of creating a new West Bank-type settlement, while another asserted that US soldiers were raping women and spreading AIDS. The August 29, 2003, bombing of a Shi'a mosque in Najaf saw no shortage of accusations of US covert involvement. The rapid rise of news outlets in what was previously a media vacuum filled only by Saddam's voice has created a chaotic picture of daily events. Even a potentially accurate report, like one detailing Israeli contingency plans to use Iraqi airspace for air attacks against Iran in the event of a nuclear crisis, loses credibility in this kind of environment. The CPA explicitly prohibits any material that incites violence, promotes ethnic tension, or encourages opposition to its authority through false information, and it has conducted several raids on organizations. One paper, AlMustaquillah ("The Independent") was shut down for promoting the killing of Iraqis who cooperate with the CPA as "religious duty." In this instance, CPA intervention seems justified, but in a country still ravaged by violence and lack of basic resources, it will not always be easy to decide when media outlets cross the line. One way the Coalition intends to fill the vacuum with a stabilizing force is through its own media network. Efforts began even before the Coalition's military victory, as the US Department of Defense funded a fledgling radio network broadcast from a C-130 cargo plane. At present, the US-backed Iraqi Media Network (IMN) has AM and FM radio stations along with a television network that can reach two-thirds of Iraqi households. While part of the IMN'S stated mission is to foster journalistic values for the broader Iraqi media market and create a highly regarded, independent institution in the mold of the BBC, it has undergone harsh criticism as a mouthpiece of the CPA and its propaganda. In the immediate future, the IMN will continue to suffer this stigma in part due to the immediacy of the Coalition's control over the country. Until the CPA returns Iraqi sovereignty to the hands of a democratically elected government, its media arm will be unable to provide a model for objective journalism. Indeed, Newsweek quotes one IMN official who described the organization's news program as "completely unprofessional." Indeed, IMN's television director quit at the end of July 2003 in protest of the network's limited funding. The latest effort to stabilize Iraq's new media is the appointment of a new media commissioner, Simon Haselock, to govern the press and broadcasters, establish training programs for journalists, and oversee the transformation of IMN into a state-run media organization. While the stalwart conservative Weekly Standard calls Haselock's appointment "bad news for the Iraqi free media," the move seems relatively benign at present. Establishing oversight of the Iraqi media rather than continuing the ad hoc supervision of the CPA is a positive step, and training journalists is clearly a necessity in light of the wildly inaccurate reports issued everyday on the streets of Baghdad. Whether a new commission will accomplish its goals is yet to be seen. The stakes, for both Iraq and its neighbors, however, are clear. As the daily Al-'Adala noted in late August 2003, there is no small irony that "the [Arab] media sheds crocodile tears over democracy in Iraq while there are many questions about applying the same standards in most of the Arab countries." The point is apt, but while many Iraqis might dismiss their neighbors' hypocritical cries, the Iraqi media cannot dismiss their own critical role in fostering a healthy, informed democracy and stemming the tears both inside and outside Iraq. -1- Read More