'Balance' in Bosnia
Sir: Your recent leading article (19 June) states that the armed presence of British troops in Bosnia has allowed coverage of the war by journalists. This ought to be a ridiculous proposition, but is a simple state- ment of fact — the war has been covered by the British press almost exclusively from the media village by the British base in Vitez, where the military's armoured vehi- cles, repair facilities, medical expertise, satellite communications and reasonable food are on call for journalists in distress. This anxiety to report from under the Army's wing has compromised indepen- dence and restricted coverage to those areas in which the British battalion is deployed. By and large reporting has con- sisted of pictures or accounts of atrocities several days after the event, with comment from British soldiers. This is good stuff on 'our lads', but it is not coverage of the Bosnian civil war.
Unwilling or unable to get out and about among the various factions and report the facts, the press has substituted 'balanced' reporting, in which all sides in Bosnia are given column inches or air time to trade allegations of atrocities. With the exception of Penny Marshall's ITN coverage of con- centration camps (which needed no assess- ment or counter-allegations), British press coverage has been better suited to a gener- al election than to a European civil war. However attractive the flak-jacket image, it has not produced the insight which former generations of reporters gave us into Biafra, Bangladesh or Cambodia.
K C. Roberts
97 Philbeach Gardens, London SW5
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