The media
Innocent victims?
Paul Johnson
The deaths last week inLebanon of two members of a television crew, killed by an Israeli tank-shell, raise some important Professional issues, which should not be overlooked amid the predictable howls of rage directed against Israel by portions of the media. The Israeli tank crew say that the two cameramen took up position in a group of armed men engaged in action against Israeli forces. Some eyewitnesses deny this. We cannot yet know, and Probably never will, who is telling the truth, or whether there is a 'truth' as such in what sounds like a typically confused wartime incident. What did seem to me in need of comment was the extraordinary message sent to Shimon Peres, the Israeli Premier, by Ed Joyce, president of CBS News in New York: 'This is not the first instance, as you know, of attacks by the Israeli military on innocent journalists, but it is the most wanton and tragic, and demands your complete attention and ac- One should note the violent anti-Israeli tone, confirming Israeli accusations (sub- stantiated in a compilation by Zeev Chafets, former boss of the Israeli govern- ment press office) that many media people have shown an overall bias against Israel during the Lebanon operations. But I note also that use of the word 'innocent', which seems to me quite inappropriate. It is a fantasy, entertained by many journalists, that in the event of war they have an automatic God-given right to cover it; to receive every facility from both sides, both in compiling that material and getting it home; to be given military protection and to have their safety guaranteed; and then to pronounce moral judgment on the proceed- ings. Some journalists seem to think they now have a special extra-territorial (almost extra-terrestial, you might say) status, akin to diplomats, UN officials or Red Cross representatives, so that they may sit above the battle, like Jove, divinely immune, While hurling editorial thunderbolts where they choose.
But journalists covering a war might be described in another way.. They occupy about the same moral position as arms salesmen and suppliers. That is, they are there for the money. Whatever they may say, newspapers and television networks welcome wars and exploit them. Wars raise circulations and ratings, provided they are covered in an exciting manner. o great sums are spent to provide coverage, and the journalists involved are highly re- warded and paid extra for the risks under- taken, and their dependents are amply insured if anything happens. If they get good stories (in print or film), that is stories stressing the horror and slaughter and pathos of war, with suitable moral commentary, they are praised and prom- oted and their reputations are enhanced. More journalists have made their name from war coverage than from any other form of professional activity. In this sense they are not 'innocents'; they are partici- pants, taking part in the war for their own purposes and in their own interests. Parti- cipants, that is, so long as their tour of duty lasts; once it is over, they can climb abroad a first-class jumbo, sip a glass of cham- pagne and forget about the whole thing. 'Oh, what a lovely war!' For remember: journalists choose to take these assign- ments, they opt to be there: the vast majority of the ordinary participants on both sides do not. - Moreover, while the journalist is partici- pating in the war, it is in his interests to dramatise it. That is not conducive to reducing its horror and casualties. It is significant, I think, that antagonism be- tween the media and authorities in war, especially limited wars or low-intensity operations, where media people wander, around almost at will, has enormously increased since the advent of television coverage. I have always thought photo- graphers to be rather cold-blooded crea- tures, clicking away while the wounded moan and the dead lie unburied. No doubt they would claim this is the only way they can transact their professional business. But they are positively warm-hearted com- pared to television cameramen and those who direct and egg them on. The need to get 'good pictures' is so paramount in their minds that they will stolidly, unsmilingly go about their complex trade in conditions of such appalling human misery as to over- whelm decent people with compassion and an irresistible urge to help in some way. But television crew do not help. They film. And then they concentrate on getting their film back to base for transmission.
They sometimes go further. In civil conflicts they have been known to set up acts of violence (or pseudo-violence) for more convenient and effective filming. They sometimes maintain their own con- tacts with terrorists and refuse to help the legitimate authorities, even though they know horrific crimes will remain unsolved, and others be committed, as a result of their silence. They frequently give terrorist leaders opportunities to air their views to millions, and thus to raise the morale of their followers, and prolong and intensify the slaughter. The effect of intensive and unrestricted television coverage on a civil conflict is always to make it bloodier and more protracted. The television producer is the terrorist's best friend, for he provides the mass-publicity which is the life-support system of terror. There can be no doubt that in Ulster, for instance, televised sensa- tionalism — civil war as electronic theatre — has egged on the extremists and thus has been wholly murderous and destructive in its consequences. In what sense, therefore, can the people responsible for such cover- age be described as 'innocent'?
The Lebanese war is Ulster on a much larger scale. The Israelis can legitimately complain that, almost from the start, the television coverage has tended to exagger- ate the scale of the violence, especially that for which Israeli forces are responsible, and so in turn to increase it. The selection of coverage, filming and editing have often been contrived to produce a bellicose soap-opera, with horror as the theme and Israel as the villain. The attention, and the moral indignation, of the networks have been concentrated throughout on the doings of the Israeli forces, and not on the Arab terrorists or the Arab governments. When the Syrian government massacred 30,000 of its own citizens, in one of the worst atrocities in the history of the Middle East, the television networks did not cover the event at all. If Israeli soldiers, who do not want to be there, who are paid a pittance, and who are frightened for their own lives, take pot shots at journalists hovering in action zones on the lookout for well-paid scoops, we must not be sur- prised.
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