Reporting War and Conflict

Janet Harris, Kevin Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780415743679
• eBook ISBN: 9781317611684
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Reporting War and Conflict brings together history, theory and practice to explore the issues and obstacles involved in the reporting of contemporary war and conflict. The book examines the radical changes taking place in the working practices and day-to-day routines of war journalists, arguing that managing risk has become central to modern war correspondence. How individual reporters and news organisations organise their coverage of war and conflict is increasingly shaped by a variety of personal, professional and institutional risks.

The book provides an historical and theoretical context to risk culture and the work of war correspondents, paying particular attention to the changing nature of technology, organisational structures and the role of witnessing. The conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are examined to highlight how risk and the calculations of risk vary according to the type of conflict. The focus is on the relationship between propaganda, censorship, the sourcing of information and the challenges of reporting war in the digital world. The authors then move on to discuss the arguments around risk in relation to gender and war reporting and the coverage of death on the battlefield.

Reporting War and Conflict is a guide to the contemporary changes in warfare and the media environment that have influenced war reporting. It offers students and researchers in journalism and media studies an invaluable overview of the life of a modern war correspondent.

1

Risk and war journalism

The opening chapter ¹ discusses the practice of war reporting in the context of ‘risk society’. It provides a brief discussion of the concept of the risk society and the different ways in which it has been interpreted in relation to war and conflict. The conceptualisation of the role of the media in the construction of risk in modern society is discussed. Two particular aspects have been taken up in the scholarly literature: the role of the media in the amplification of risk and the risk assessment made by media practitioners in the execution of their work. How risk is calculated and negotiated in everyday life is the particular focus of the chapter. The extent to which risk perception is a matter of personal and social factors is considered, and their relevance to professional and work practice is evaluated. Unlike most other professions, journalism embraces risk-taking in its daily working routines. A particular framework has determined the attitudes of war correspondents to risk and risk-taking and why risky behaviour is encouraged or embraced by the profession. War correspondents make calculations of risk at a number of levels – personal, professional, organisational and social – which are central to understanding the daily practices and routines of war reporting. These calculations have consequences for how war and conflict is covered and the kind of knowledge of warfare we receive.

The risk society

Risk is a concept that has been deployed across the social sciences to underpin much contemporary research. There are, however, substantial differences in how risk is defined and used between and within different disciplines, and as Karen Henwood and her colleagues (2008: 421) point out, “[m]ultiplicity, variability and incongruity in the meanings of risk” are “encountered throughout the research process”. Deploying risk as a concept to understand the work of journalists, let alone war correspondents, is fraught with problems. Like many concepts that have been used successfully in analysis of the media – such as ‘moral panics’, ‘public sphere’ and ‘hegemony’ – it has become sufficiently elastic to embrace a variety of circumstances in a number of ways. There is insufficient space in this book to discuss and unravel the different conceptualisations of risk, but it is important to stress at the outset that “what is perceived as risk and how that risk is perceived will vary according to the context in which, and from which, it is regarded” (Henwood et al., 2008: 422). However, the starting point for most discussions of risk is the notion of the ‘risk society’, which is associated with the German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1992).

Beck deploys this notion to explain how modern societies react to the industrial, technological, medical, environmental, social, chemical and nuclear hazards and dangers that confront them. These are perceived to be growing at an alarming rate as a result of the process of modernisation. Beck argues that modernisation is eradicating the structures of industrial society and creating, in its place, a risk society. He differentiates between the hazards of previous ages and the risks of contemporary societies, arguing that “the historically unprecedented possibility, brought about by our own decisions, of the destruction of all life on this planet … distinguishes our epoch” (Beck, 1991: 22–3). The natural hazards of the past such as earthquakes, plagues and volcanoes are distinct from the human-made risks of contemporary society. Risk society is “where we switch the focus of our anxieties from what nature can do to us to what we have done to nature” (Beck, 1998: 10, citing Giddens). Nothing could be done about the hazards of the past as they were seen as acts of God, nature or the supernatural. Contemporary risk is the product of human agency in a society in which something can be or is expected to be done to protect individual citizens. Beck argues that risk is a consequence of the increased capacity of modern societies to offer security from the potential risks of everyday life.

Risk permeates the lived experience of most people in Western societies. Nearly every aspect of our lives, work, relationships, food consumption, health, travel, leisure and security are subject to risk concerns. A number of scholars in political science and international relations have speculated on how the rise of the risk society has influenced the conduct of war (see Coker, 2009; Heng, 2006b; Rasmussen, 2006). This has generated a rich discussion from which a number of points of relevance for the work of war correspondents can be drawn. First, the risk society has implications for the ways in which war is understood. Beck (2000) asserts that the end of the bipolar world of the Cold War has led to the disappearance of specific enemies and the emergence of generalised dangers and risks. The notion of a distinct ‘threat’ from an opponent with particular intentions and specific capabilities has been replaced by a world of potential non-specific risks which need to be managed (Heng, 2006a). Set-piece conflicts between nation states are being replaced by the projection of military force in the context of a world of shadowy networks and rogue states. Uncertainty increasingly characterises this form of war. The global risk society is characterised by a “bewildering array of risks”, and calculating how these risks might “become identifiable threats” preoccupies military thinking (Heng, 2006b: 11). Confronted with uncertainty, the military and government have come to interpret security by the prediction, anticipation and management of potential risk. Discouraging or preventing action shored up the notion of deterrence that dictated superpower strategy during the Cold War. However, in the age of the risk society, the proliferation of an array of ‘unknowns’ means that military strategy is less concerned with the fixed certainties of the threats and dangers of yesterday and more concerned with the fluid uncertainties that characterise modern life.

There are numerous problems attached to the prediction of unspecified threats and risks. Christopher Coker (2009: 2) draws attention to the costs and human failings involved. Events such as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the 9/11 attacks were predicted, but the problem was the “failure to act” on the predictions. The costs involved in taking pre-emptive action are deemed significant in a world which is dominated by speculation about possible scenarios. The news media and journalism play a crucial role in the speculation about potential dangers, threats and risks. In the 24-hour news culture much of what appears in the news media is a mixture of facts, information, misinformation, disinformation and speculation. Much of the research into the impact of rolling news has focused on the consequences for policymakers going about their business (see Livingston, 1997; Robinson, 2005). Some scholars have focused on the generation of a product labelled “global news” (see Clausen, 2003; Cottle, 2006). There has been less evaluation of the nature of news in a 24-hour news culture (Cushion and Lewis, 2010). What is evident from the work that has been conducted is that the promise of more airtime to overcome the brevity of conventional news culture and investigate and explain more fully the context to the events of the day has not been realised. The emphasis on the breaking news story has resulted in the opposite: “disposable news reaches its apotheosis in the repetitive rush of the 24-hour news cycle” (Cushion and Lewis, 2010: 6). Speculation plays a considerable role in filling airtime surrounding the updating of breaking news events. The visual component of 24-hour news provides evidence of the news media at the heart of unfolding events while speculation props up the words that accompany the pictures. Journalism in this news culture can be described as a licence to speculate, a capacity that is enhanced by new technology which, through personal blogs, allows correspondents to present their views and feelings about dangers and threats.

Second, the risk society at war envisages that warfare should be prosecuted safely. The notion that warfare can be conducted according to a set of rules and regulations has a long history which includes The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the first multilateral treaties governing the conduct of warfare. Subsequent treaties have added to these conventions, although for most of the 20th century many, if not most, of the rules specified under the conventions have been violated. However, the advent of new technology in the late 20th century led to the discourse of the ‘clean war’. Martin Shaw (2005) describes the new Western way of war in terms of the unwillingness to accept deaths of Western combatants and the desire to avoid civilian casualties. There is a growing public and political expectation that civilian casualties and collateral damage should be at an acceptable level. The military, as one NATO commander stated on the eve of Operation Desert Storm, are told “to avoid our own casualties and fatalities … [and] collateral damage to the extent possible and … bring it to a quick end” (quoted in Osinga and Roorda, 2016: 56). High-tech warfare is supposedly “bloodless and antiseptic” (Kellner, 2000: 221). Laser-guided smart bombs provided the image of high-tech precision bombing during the first Gulf war. The notion that targets and buildings could be taken out with limited loss of life was promoted by the US military. Videos were released to indicate that “US bombs always hit their targets, did not cause collateral damage and only took out nasty military targets” (Kellner, 2000: 220). Civilian loss of life, when exposed, such as with the death of a large number of ordinary men, women and children in the Amiriya bunker in 1991, was explained away as the Iraqis using civilians to protect military targets. Human failings were responsible; not the smart military technology. Despite the rhetoric of clean war and the promotional images of smart bombs, it was found after the war that less than 10 per cent of the bombs dropped during the war were ‘smart’ and that more than two-thirds missed their targets (Kellner, 2000: 221). However, the first Gulf war was an important stage in the history of war propaganda as it marked “a deliberate attempt by the authorities to alter public perception of the nature of war itself, particularly the fact that civilians die in war” (Knightley, 1991: 5).

The notion of a clean war has put the safety of civilians and combatants at the centre of military planning in a risk society. Reassuring Western publics is nevertheless fraught with problems. A number of high-profile attacks in cities such as London, Madrid and Paris since 9/11 have accentuated the widespread sense of anxiety which has been labelled as a “culture of fear” (for example, Altheide, 2013; Furedi, 1997; Glassner, 2009). The post-Cold War world is perceived to be more dangerous. The result is that citizens in Western democracies believe they are more at risk than ever before despite their security in statistical terms being higher than at any other time in the last century. Fear is fuelled by the stream of news of the daily atrocities which are reported from many parts of the Global South, a more prominent feature of the everyday lives of people in this part of the world. Governments drawing attention to the state of threat at any given time enhances fear and uncertainty.

The news media play a crucial role in reporting the casualties of war, and their capacity to report scenes from the battlefield has been accentuated by the technological changes of the last few decades. War correspondents can report live and direct from the battlefield and hold to account official interpretations of the impact of military action in a more direct way than ever before. Increased capacity has not been accompanied by increased commitment to report warfare. News organisations have been pulled in different directions in responding to their enhanced capacity to report from the battlefield. On one hand, they have become more cautious in showing casualty images and pictures, particularly of soldiers from their own countries. In 1993 grim images of US servicemen killed in Somalia were aired on US TV screens, but a decade later, pictures of the bodies of US service personnel slain in an ambush in the Iraq War were not broadcast because they were ‘too shocking’ to be shown to the US public. The debate about showing images of dead combatants, particularly if their families had not been informed, has accompanied the rise of television and new media. This discussion has to be seen in the context of the growth of official efforts to manage images of death, destruction and warfare since the early 1990s. Military and political unease has been enhanced by the ability of ordinary people “to access the soldiers’ own images and stories directly through war blogs, mass emails and popular video-sharing sites”, which “throws in to sharp relief the way in which mainstream media and government cover the realities of war” (Anden-Papadopoulos, 2009: 921). On the other hand, news organisations – print and broadcast – in the digital world are increasingly dependent on visual images. Demand for such images has been accelerated by increased competition in the global news market, the need to fill more time and space in the round-the-clock news culture and the growth of alternative newsgatherers and disseminators such as citizen journalists. The pressure on correspondents to produce more compelling images has been accompanied by the increased emphasis they place on their role as the “witness who arouses conscience” (Seib, 2002: 121). Human rights have become ever more central to global politics, and correspondents have increasingly identified their job in terms of documenting violations of individuals’ civil liberties and of the collective rights of peoples and marginal groups, including providing personal testimony in the international legal processes against abusers. War reporting has moved from acting as eyewitnessing conflict to bearing a moral and ethical responsibility to record the suffering of the victims of war (see Mellor, 2012a, 2012b). This has led to journalists becoming more involved in conflict and taking more risks to get the story.

Third, information in the age of the risk society is central to military strategy. Martin Bell (2008: 229) describes how military commanders on the ground during the Gulf War in 1991 placed the media presentation of their operations as one of the highest priorities. They knew, as Bell emphasises, that the failure to win the war of words and images could lead to military defeat. This is in part a legacy of the Vietnam War, which for many soldiers across the world was lost not on the battlefields in south-east Asia but in the living rooms of the American people. Graphic pictures of the fighting and the deliberate misrepresentation of the war by the American news media were held responsible for the country’s first military defeat on the battlefield (see Williams, 1992). The truth of such claims is a matter of dispute, but the failure to manage the media and control the flow of information about the war shaped military, public and media perceptions of the reporting. More significant has been the need to respond to the changing nature of war and warfare and the rise of the risk society. David Miller (2004a) highlights the development of the Pentagon’s total spectrum dominance outlined in their Joint Vision 2020 statement. This states that “US forces are able to conduct prompt, sustained and synchronised operations with the combination of forces tailored to specific situations and with access to and freedom to operate in all domains – space, sea, land, air and information” (quoted in Miller, 2004a: 3). Total spectrum dominance is, as Miller describes, more than another form of spin and propaganda; rather, it places news management and information control at the heart of military operations, integrating them into the command and control systems of the modern armed forces.

The 2003 assault on Iraq witnessed the ‘weaponisation of information’. A variety of mechanisms were developed to build up ‘friendly’ information and to denigrate ‘unfriendly’ information. Supporting friendly information provision was manifest in the information centres established across the region and worldwide. A PR campaign was launched to gather public support at home and abroad for the use of military force. Perhaps the highest profile of the efforts to promote the official perspective was the embedding of journalists with military units on the ground. Putting journalists into uniforms and locating them on the front line with the armed forces was not “innovative” as some claim (Paul and Kim, 2004: 3). However, the extent and degree to which this took place in Iraq represented a significant departure from previous conflicts. Reporters from a variety of countries were embedded with US and Coalition army units, travelling with them, seeing what they saw and standing side by side with them under fire (see Paul and Kim, 2004). The unprecedented access is seen by some as facilitating the reporting of the Iraq War: journalists were given “remarkable access”, the military gained “much more favourable coverage” and the public “saw a type of picture that they had never, never had an opportunity to see before” (Brookings, cited in Paul and Kim, 2004, 110). The embedded media system may have been a “win-win-win” plan (Brookings, in Paul and Kim, 2004: 110), but it accentuated the risks to war correspondents in a number of ways. First, it located more reporters simultaneously on the battlefield than in previous conflicts. Second, it forced journalists who wanted to be unencumbered by restrictions to act unilaterally to report the war independently. Denied a number of facilities, including transmission and transport, unilateral reporters put themselves at risk to get to the story and get their stories back. Several celebrated correspondents, such as ITN’s Terry Lloyd, were killed. But it was perhaps the targeting of outlets that carried alternative accounts of the war, the unfriendly reports, that has most enhanced the risk.

The second component of information dominance is the “ability to deny, degrade, destroy and/or effectively blind” enemy capabilities (Winters and Giffin, quoted in Miller, 2004a: 11). No distinction is made between the information actions of adversaries and independent outlets or media. The intention is to ensure that any obstacle to attaining total information dominance is removed. This has led to accusations of targeting journalists, with the US attacks on Al Jazeera’s offices in Kabul (2001) and Baghdad (2003) and the Palestine Hotel (2003), where most international reporters based in Baghdad stayed, the most high-profile examples of such a policy. In 2005 the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that US military fire was the second most common cause of the death of journalists in Iraq (cited in Paterson, 2014: 5). The Israeli Defence Force has been blamed for the deaths of several journalists in recent years as part of its clampdown on the press. The International Press Institute stated that the shooting of an Italian photojournalist “seemed to be part of a concerted strategy by the Israeli Army to control the press” (quoted in Paterson, 2014: 103). This is in addition to the deaths of journalists at the hands of terrorist groups in the Middle East and the Arab world. It is not only that journalists are deliberately targeted and killed. They are also increasingly threatened, coerced, hassled and intimidated on a regular basis with a level of violence previously unknown (see Cottle et al., 2016). On today’s battlefield the neutrality of the war correspondent is no longer accepted by the warring parties. They are part of the conflict and considered as legitimate targets. The BBC’s Kate Adie has talked about the “compete erosion of any kind of acknowledgement that reporters should be able to report as they witness” (quoted in Paterson, 2014: 8).

The advent of new information technology has further imperilled the lives of war correspondents. The contributions of the mobile phone, the Internet, satellite dishes and so on to facilitating modern war reporting have been well documented. Less attention has been paid to the dangers such technology has brought into the lives of correspondents. Surveillance is an essential component of the new information strategies of Western states. Digital surveillance takes many forms. Satellite phones can be monitored, and the location of the caller can be identified (see Sambrook, 2016: 30). The deaths of the celebrated war correspondent Marie Colvin and the photographer Remi Ochlik are attributed to government forces being able to locate and target the reporters from the use of a satellite phone. New technology has also allowed warring parties to communicate directly to their followers and the public. This means that journalists are becoming less useful as conduits of information and propaganda, further undermining their neutrality on the battlefield. Alan Rusbridger, former editor of The Guardian, emphasises that “there is no such thing as confidential communication” and draws attention to the inability of correspondents to maintain the confidentiality of their sources because of the threat of surveillance (quoted in Ponsford, 2014), an additional risk to their ability to do their job.

The risk society has had a profound impact on the conduct of war, which it can be argued has had a destabilising effect on war reporting. It has propelled the war correspondent to the centre of the battlefield, no longer an observer of events but an actor in the struggle between warring parties. Changes in professional attitudes and organisational needs have played their part in the transformation of the role and practice of war reporting. The notion of bearing witness and the competitive demands of the 24-hour news culture are two factors behind the transformation. However, the shift in information policy and the advent of new technology are just as significant. Gover...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Risk and war journalism
• 2. Bearing witness: Morality, risk and war reporting
• 3. Organisational and occupational risks and war reporting
• 4. Technology and risk management: Telegraph, telex and Twitter
• 5. The media on the battlefield: Risk and embedding
• 6. Asymmetrical risk: Reporting post-war Iraq
• 7. Risk and reporting new forms of war and conflict
• 8. Risk and the reporting of death, dying and the casualties of war
• 9. Gender, risk and war reporting
• References
• Index