BOTTOMLESS GULF OF NEWS
The media: Paul Johnson
on the nuances of the greatest show on earth
WRITING to the Times, as Chairman of the History and Archives Specialist Group of the Royal Television Society, Leonard Miall, formerly of the BBC, intoned: 'The comprehensive television coverage of the Gulf War by both BBC and ITV has been oustanding.' Oh dear! Hasn't the poor old boy heard of Sky or Cable News Network? CNN is the one top people worldwide watch now. According to France-Soir, even President Mitterrand, who normally prefers to ignore les Anglo-Saxons, conde- scends to turn it on in his ground-floor war-room (he has another set tuned to CNN in his 'Jupiter' room in the bomb- proof basement of the Elysee). CNN's Baghdad coverage, however, is a little suspect because of the secret deal it has done with Saddam Hussein to be sole Western outlet of news. from Iraq. I prefer Sky, which is also providing 24-hours-a-day news coverage, with updates every ten minutes, has no bias in any direction, so far as I can see, and provides chunks from the US networks, some of which are excellent. ITV has struggled to keep going during the night but much of its consists of tedious discussions, in which fat and ugly Amer- ican peace-ladies figure prominently. The BBC, defeated, simply provides Ceefax during the night hours, when a lot of the action occurs.
At least the BBC has produced one of the heroes of the early days of this war in the shape of John Simpson, who stuck it out in Baghdad till forcibly removed. He is a cool customer and I take off my hat to him. His descriptions of dodging Iraqi security men and watching a cruise sail past his hotel window will rightly go into Miall's archives. Perhaps more important, his judgments of the Saddam regime and what is likely to happen to it carry conviction. Simpson is merely one of a splendid cast of characters which have been emerging in this television war. We all know General Schwarzkopf, or Stormin' Norman, strid- ing hugely into the hotel to brief the press, surrounded by a piratical crew of security men, armed to the teeth. The French rather like our own force commander, General de la Billiere, whom France-Soir describes as apiculteur d'origine francaise; his height, the paper adds, is a la dimension de l'ancien empire britannique. Another hero-figure is my old Israeli chum Ben- jamin Netanyahu, with whom I have taken part in the anti-terrorist conferences held by the Jonathan Institute. This was set up to honour the memory of his brilliant elder brother, killed while leading the Tntebbe raid. Benjamin, the most articulate (in English) member of the Israeli govern- ment, is succinct, deadly, sombre or funny as required, and has therefore been wall- to-wall on the television screens through- out. His opposite number, and a leading villain of the show, is the fat Iraqi Paris envoy, also fluent in English, with his little piggy eyes and huge talent for mendacity. He squares perfectly with my adaptation of the famous definition by Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639) of an ambassador: 'A dishon- est man sent to lie abroad for the bad of his country.'
With television providing instant up- dates, newspapers are often out of date by the time they reach readers at breakfast and incautious headlines tend to cover papers in ridicule. 'Defiant Saddam Hits Back', was the Independent's lead on Mon- day, 'Scud Missiles Said to Have Breached Saudi Defences.' But by the time we read this we already knew that nine out of ten Scuds had been destroyed by the Patriots and the tenth allowed to fall harmlessly into the sea. The Independent on Sunday was equally unlucky, or imprudent, leading with 'Iraqi Air Force Still Intact', a man- ifest absurdity since we already knew 15 aircraft, including some of Saddam's best, had already been downed, besides an unknown number destroyed on the ground. The supremacy of television, however, has not made the better news- papers redundant; far from it. I find much of value to read in the Daily Telegraph, which has provided the best news coverage of the qualities, thanks no doubt to its editor Max Hastings' experience in the Falklands, as well as superb commentaries from its Defence Editor, John Keegan. Close behind has come the Times, and even the Guardian has had some useful perspectives from the Third World, not to speak of its hilarious Letters to the Editor, where Mrs Dutt-Pauker and her cronies have been foaming entertainingly.
In order, however, to grasp the world- wide nuances of a war which involves keeping together a coalition of 28 active participants, it is necessary to look at a wide range of papers. The quivering anxie- ty of the well-disposed Arab nations about a possible Israeli intervention is absorbing- ly reflected in that brave little daily, L'Orient-Le Jour of Beirut, which has somehow managed to survive all the catas- trophes there. 'Embarrasses, les Pays Arabs Retiennent Leur Souffe' was its headline, above a photo of Muslims praying in their gas-masks. It noted: 'La Jordanie Ecartelee Entre l'Angoisse et l'Enthusiasme', while Leba- non itself was forced into 'tine Attente Angoissante'. Meanwhile, it reported, the machinery of Levantine religion continued to function: a delegation of Maronite priests, led by le Pere Boutros Tarabey, had called on the Head of State to assure him that the entire community was praying `inlassablement pour la paix.' And if some countries fear fighting alongside Israelis, others do not like the American predomi- nance. The Globe and Mail of Toronto calculated that the Canadian premier, Brian Mulroney, in his speech to parlia- ment about the outbreak of war, deliber- ately mentioned the United Nations no less than 36 times; the United States got 'fewer than half-a-dozen side references'. Indeed the war seems to have brought Canadian suspicions of the Yanks to fever pitch. For the single best overview, however, I prefer the International Herald Tribune, which not only combines the resources of the New York Times and Washington Post, as well as its own, but gives extracts from newspapers throughout the world. I find it indispensable at times like these. On Mon- day it printed a column from the conserva- tive wit George Will which contained the assertion: 'Desert Storm will produce no Rupert Brooke'. Really? Scud, Stealth, Patriots, Tomahawks, Hornets, Apaches, Harriers, Cobras, Tornados — Cataracts and Hurricanoes too, no doubt — there is no lack of subject matter for poetry, though perhaps not so much high romance as in the mood of Gerard Manley Hop- kins's 'Dark Sonnets'.
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