Irish journalists reporting from the war speak to us and our concerns and feed into debates at home, writes Michael Foley
'The British public has no interest in a war that drags on indecisively. A few sharp victories, some conspicuous acts of personal bravery on the Patriot side, and a colourful entry into the capital. That is The Beast's policy for the war." So declared Lord Copper, the proprietor of The Beast in Evelyn Waugh's novel of journalism, Scoop, written in 1943. One wonders if some modern-day proprietors and even a few generals have not been dusting down their copies of Scoop prior to the invasion of Iraq.
The war was to be short and sharp. Embedded reporters would be on hand to witness the liberating forces entering the flower-strewn streets of Baghdad. If that was the plan, then one might understand why this country's largest and most profitable media organisation, Independent News and Media, decided not to send journalists to cover the war and instead rely solely on those working for its British sister publications and other agencies. What was the point, it was going to be over soon? For those who did send journalists, The Irish Times, RTÉ, the Sunday Tribune, the fact that the war is now expected to last months rather than weeks must cause their accountants to have palpitations.
War is expensive for the media and with so much coverage available on a 24-hour basis, it might be that some media organisations, even those with wealthy owners, such as TV3, assume there is little more their reporters and camera crews could add. Given the downturn in the economy, the fall in advertising and the increased competition, any argument that will save sending staff to the Middle East will be carefully considered, if not jumped upon with alacrity.
Modern warfare is fuelled by public opinion. When that is withdrawn or has not been managed or manipulated, politicians fear for their popularity and young men and women refuse to fight. That is why the battles for the hearts and minds, being fought with briefings and press releases, are as bitter, if not as bloody, as those on the battlefield.
Journalists have to sift through the fog of spin, from both sides, to find what is really happening. They are also forced to produce an increasing amount of news, for 24-hour television, comment on events that have only taken place or verify rumour. Often there is only time to report the rumour, to take as gospel the word of a military source, to supply the posed photo and to take part in outrageous public relations stunts such as filming soldiers handing out, or throwing, food aid.
If this war has taught us anything, it is that instant, real-time modern television coverage is very bad at covering war. Television just does not have the subtlety to explain complexity. It forces the viewer to try and make sense of what is often a series of unconnected images. Given that there are more journalists covering this war than any war in history, it has to be the limitations of the major news medium, television, which accounts for the public's dissatisfaction with the coverage, a view which is emerging from most polls, as well as anecdotal evidence.
In the 12 days of war so far, the public is still in the dark. The amount of real information is small. There have been so many stories that have turned out to be untrue, or have not been verified, that at this stage all we know with any certainty is that any victory is some way off.
Just think of some of the stories that have been reported so far. The port of Umm Qasr was reported taken nine times: last Thursday the BBC reported that several hundred tribespeople were killed by Iraqi forces in Kurdish-controlled areas of the country. This was never followed up or even mentioned again.
There was the chemical factory reported by the Jerusalem Post and Fox TV, which turned out not to exist. There were repeated claims that Nassiriya had been taken. The hand grenades thrown by a US soldier into a tent in a US base were first reported as a terrorist attack, while the claims about the number of dead continue to contradict each other. On it goes, with claim after claim being reported as fact and few reporters asking the hard questions.
No wonder most of us view what we see with something more than scepticism. One now presumes a TV image of British soldiers feeding a stray dog is posed, or that a marine giving sweets to a child is a PR stunt. We have become so cynical that all we believe are images we assume someone would rather we did not see, such as setbacks for British or American troops.
Given such an environment is it any wonder that 86 per cent of respondents to an Irish Times On-Line poll answered No to a question asking if they trusted the media's coverage of the war?
This is all very sad because there are some brave and very fine journalists covering this war. There are those journalists who have questioned claims made by the military authorities on either side. The journalists in Baghdad are risking their lives every day; the so-called embedded reporters are not always the tame hacks they have been accused of being. Many journalists are acting as witnesses under very difficult conditions.
Within all this complexity is there any need for separate Irish journalists reporting for Irish media, or would they just add to the noise without giving any extra meaning? Journalists are meant to witness, interrogate and interpret. That means they must know the questions we want answered and those questions might not be the same as those of a readership or audience whose troops are taking part. Questions relating to the UN, to our neutrality, to humanitarian aid might have a priority here in Ireland. If the context of reporting is to include the audience on this small island, it can only be done by Irish journalists.
There is another crucial reason, that of trust. Journalism at its best cannot exist without trust. Journalists expect the audience to take on face value that which they report. The anonymous source might not exist; the quote attributed to a British soldier in Basra could just as easily be concocted in a Kuwait hotel room; the harrowing, but anonymous account of life under Saddam might owe more to creative fiction than to fact; the sights and sounds of troops preparing for battle might even be a file picture of a military exercise.
Those journalists whose work has been tested by readers and viewers over years become crucial to our understanding at times of crisis. When the world appears to be more confused than ever, when scepticism gives way to cynicism, it is then we need the voices of honest journalism. We know those Irish journalists reporting from the Middle East, they speak to us and our concerns and feed into debates taking place here at home. If we can trust them, they can help us make sense of events. It is just a pity there are not more of them.
Michael Foley is a former Irish Times journalist who lectures in journalism at the Dublin Institute of Technology