[Media-watch] TV is fair

[david Miller]

for a positive view of the TV news coverage of the war including such gems
as:

Much will be written in the months and years to come about the bias of the
media in this war. From this viewer's perspective, formed on day 21 as
cameras filmed Iraqi civilians and US marines working together to tear down
a statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad, it seemed that the three UK
channels preserved as high a level of impartiality and detachment as could
be expected in the circumstances.

And
At the end of it all, as the troops entered Baghdad and the Iraqis came out
of their homes to celebrate, my feeling is that the BBC did a typically
thorough, detached job on covering the three weeks of the war.

See:

http://www.tbsjournal.com/nair.html
The Iraq War As Seen In Britain:
UK Satellite Coverage

By Brian McNair 

The widespread availability of real time news is a recent feature of the
British media environment. CNN has been around since the 1980s, and Sky News
was launched in 1989, but for years neither had significant reach in a
country where cable TV was under-developed and satellite was slow to take
off. In 1997, BBC News 24 came on air, and ITV News Channel began
broadcasting in 1999, bringing to three the number of UK-based 24-hour news
outlets available to the British viewer. By the late1990s the cabling of
Britain was much more advanced, and digitalisation on satellite, cable and
terrestrial platforms had begun in earnest. As the invasion of Iraq began on
March 20, most British households had access to one or more of these
services: the first time that war had been conducted by British forces in
such circumstances.

The unique nature of the Iraqi conflict was heightened by the decision of
British and US political leaders to allow unprecedented media access to the
battlefield. More than seven hundred journalists were 'embedded' with front
line units in Iraq itself. Hundreds more were installed at media centres in
Qatar and Doha. Together they provided real time, round the clock coverage
of what became, to a degree only hinted at by coverage of Gulf War I, the
first virtual war.

Since the launch of CNN in June 1980 the development and expansion of
24-hour news has been event-driven. Successive political dramas, natural
disasters and military crises have pulled more and more viewers into the
reach of 24-hour news providers-the Challenger space shuttle explosion, the
first Gulf war, the O.J. Simpson arrest and trial, the wars in former
Yugoslavia, 9/11. Thirty-three million people in Britain watched BBC News
24's coverage of the September 11 attacks. By then, nearly seven million
people were watching some 24-hour news at least once every week. Gulf War
II, then, as it loomed into view last August, was always going to be a
moment of intense competition for Britain's three providers, as each fought
for the increased audiences likely to tune in to one or another of them.

This competition, it has to be said, was never going to be one fought
between equals. BBC News 24 is part of the world's largest news
organisation, with a budget and resources to match. Sky News is poorer, but
still with access to the assets of Rupert Murdoch's immensely powerful News
Corporation, and with the advantages of established longevity and
familiarity on its side. ITV News Channel, on the other hand, is both the
most recent addition to the UK's 24-hour news, and its least resourced,
existing mainly to give its parent Independent Television News (ITN) the
appearance of parity with the BBC and Sky in a new technological era where a
24-hour presence is seen as a hallmark of quality. Before the Iraqi invasion
began, ITV News Channel's audience was barely measurable by the usual
indicators, reaching only one 500th of the multi-channel market. BBC News 24
and Sky News were more successful, reaching between 0.65 and 0.9% of the
multi-channel audience on average.

When the conflict began all three channels saw their audiences increase
dramatically: ITV News by 400 percent to 0.9 percent of the audience, BBC
News 24 by 500 percent to 3.2 percent and Sky News by an astonishing 820
percent to 8.3 percent. All those viewers who subscribed to Sky for the
football and the premium movies had, it seemed, discovered a reason to watch
the news. BBC benefited from its traditional status as the national news
provider of choice, to which people turn at moments of crisis, and
frequently transferred its 24-hour service to the free-to-air BBC1. ITV,
though sharing in the general trend of rising audiences, remained a very
poor third in audience share.

These differences in audience share were not a reflection of major
differences in the quality of the respective channels' coverage. Each
channel has its own identity, comprised of such elements as studio design
(BBC News 24 goes for subdued red strap lines, for example, while Sky News
prefers a bolder blue) and the verbal style of news readers and announcers
(Sky has a more self-consciously dramatic approach, closer to CNN than the
BBC). All three channels combined the standard mix of talking heads in
studios, supported by graphics and maps, roving reporters on the ground, and
library footage. 

BBC News 24 was able to field the greatest number of correspondents, and to
tap into the immense newsgathering apparatus of the parent corporation. Sky
News, too, wore the resources of News Corp on screen. But all three channels
had correspondents on the ground in Iraq and at Coalition media facilities
in the Gulf states. Some of the most obvious differences in coverage were
the accidental consequence of which channel's correspondents happened to be
where on a given day. A macabre, unintended competition for the most
dramatic and compelling stories emerged. None of the news channels sought
out violent death, but it came to them in different ways, and provided them
with poignant scoops which marked out significant moments in the campaign.

In the first days of the conflict ITN news reporter Terry Lloyd was killed
in a suspected friendly fire incident. He was a "unilateral," unattached to
any front line unit, and his death (and that of his colleagues) was an early
indication of what would become a remarkable feature of this war: the high
number of journalistic casualties. As an ITN correspondent, Lloyd's death
featured strongly in ITV News' coverage for several days, including
eye-witness reports, exclusive footage, and obituaries from his friends and
associates. 

Sky News had no unilaterals, but one of its embedded reporters became
involved early on in a British assault on Iraqi positions in the south. In
the ghostly green light of a night vision camera, Sky News viewers watched
transfixed as troops entered a building held by Saddam's men, killed them,
and exited. One British soldier was on fire, barely feet from the reporter,
who kept up a running commentary throughout. The flames were doused and the
soldier was not seriously injured, but the episode demonstrated the visceral
immediacy of the coverage of this war, and showed Sky News determination to
be at the heart of the action.

BBC News 24, meanwhile, had more reporters on the ground than any other
British organisation. One of them, the veteran John Simpson, was travelling
in a convoy in Northern Iraq on Sunday April 6, when a US war plane
accidentally bombed it, killing a reported eighteen people. Among the dead
was Simpson's translator, who joined a growing list of friendly fire media
casualties. Here, tragic chance provided BBC News 24 with exclusive footage
of the horrors of war. The footage, as I watched it shortly after the
incident, showed dead soldiers, body parts, vehicles on fire, injured being
lifted out of the fire zone, and voices warning the journalists to "get
back. It's cooking." Through it all, Simpson calmly gave his report of what
had happened. 

This carnival of horrors was not a ratings gimmick, of course, and no news
organisation would have wished its employees to be involved so directly in
such an incident, regardless of the pictures. In truth, all three UK
channels did a good job of conveying to audiences back in Britain the
violence and chaos of modern hi-tech warfare, in which troops and
journalists alike appeared to be at greater risk from their own side than
from the enemy. 

Much will be written in the months and years to come about the bias of the
media in this war. From this viewer's perspective, formed on day 21 as
cameras filmed Iraqi civilians and US marines working together to tear down
a statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad, it seemed that the three UK
channels preserved as high a level of impartiality and detachment as could
be expected in the circumstances. The BBC adhered throughout to the formula
"the British say," "the British are on the outskirts of Basra." This style
is traditionally intended to convey its impartiality vis-à-vis the UK
government, even at times of war. But there was no neutrality expected, nor
offered, in coverage of Saddam's activities. The badness of the Iraqi regime
was a given from the start, for all three channels. ITV and Sky were more
likely to use words like 'evil', and to convey a more committed attitude to
what was happening than the BBC, reflecting the different political
constraints under which they operate. All media organisations operated under
military restrictions, of course, and their correspondents were often used
in the service of Coalition propaganda.

Criticism of the war plan was regularly covered, however, especially in week
two when the main wobble occurred. Amidst sand storms and determined Iraqi
resistance, US troops appeared to be getting bogged down, and UK news
channels made no effort to hide that fact. Anti-war protesters and critics
of the Coalition's management of the war were reported extensively. In
addition to the unprecedented access extended to journalists, then, this was
a war in which, from the UK perspective at least, there was no attempt by
media organisations to downplay or dismiss opposition to the war policy.

At the end of it all, as the troops entered Baghdad and the Iraqis came out
of their homes to celebrate, my feeling is that the BBC did a typically
thorough, detached job on covering the three weeks of the war. ITV News
Channel did its best with few resources, but was never in a position to lead
the pack. Sky News, I suspect, will emerge from the conflict with its
audience and its reputation enhanced. If coverage of this conflict is any
indicator, in years to come it will be Sky, rather than ITV News Channel,
which offers the most serious competition to the BBC in the UK's 24-hour
news market. TBS 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian McNair is reader in Film & Media Studies at the University of
Stirling, Scotland. He is the author of many books and articles on
journalism, including News and Journalism In the UK, 4th edition, Routledge,
2003. 
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