Wartime reporting
We've long since ceased to be amazed at the near real-time delivery of news.
And modern life has been conducted in the full gaze of the media for such a long time it's become routine. So it's difficult to imagine what it must have been like before TV and radio took hold of our collective consciousness and shaped our world.
As on the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme it set me wondering how modern media coverage might have affected the tide of events.
July 1, 1916, was the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army - 54,470 casualties, 19,240 of them deaths. Whole battalions were wiped out in less than half a day. "Pals" units - men from the same town who enlisted together - suffered catastrophic losses.
Had that been fed back immediately to the British public - for all the patriotic fervour of the time - how might public opinion have been affected? Would politicians of the day have been able to sustain the offensive? Would Haig have been relieved of his command?
By the time the Somme slaughter came to an end the Allies had advanced only five miles, the British had suffered 420,000 casualties, the French 195,000 and the Germans around 650,000.
It's fanciful to speculate on whether the war might have been brought to a swift conclusion if the peoples on all sides had known the true horror of what was happening. But it does bring into sharp focus the crucial role of the media in helping to create an informed and functioning democracy.
Comments
Indeed. Within a democracy the news equips people with the tools they need to act as responsible citizens. We are fortunate enough that the real-time delivery of news quickens this process.
The real-time delivery of news has its drawbacks as well. Had it been a live report the chances are that the first reports would have gone something more like "We're hearing unconfirmed reports of casualties of between 50,000 and 150,000..." There's a difference between giving people considered news items and reading off every small rumour of calamity that somebody heard off of somebody else, and the reporter is immediately called on camera for a live spot rather than being allowed to go and actually investigate.
Critics of the media who carp about the media being biased when the media reports news promptly which the critic(s) view as being adverse to the critc(s) view would do well to read Mr Brannan's words & Mr McKenna's comments.
Mr McKenna's comments read like a ´óÏó´«Ã½ bulletin or a live feed.
Prompt truthful reports to which the public has access accelerate the downfall of regimes based on lies.
A leader who lies or is incompetent may fall from power in days, sometimes hours, regardless of the efforts of such a leader's supporters & sychophants to spin & obscure the truth.
The elected official who still holds office but has no power faces failure every day. The media does not create the conditions it reports.
real time news? When I was living in Madrid last year and I heard of the London bombings, the first thing I did was look at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ News website. It was so delayed in reporting vital information I learnt more from watching Spanish News (and I don't speak much spanish at all!).
The delay was incredible, and frustrating.
Wartime Reporting - Quote: "... the crucial role of the media in helping to create an informed and functioning democracy."
I find most of your reporting on front line actions naive - all written as though the Health and Safety Executive has a role on the battlefield.
Unfortunately the war reporting by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ in recent years has not always been informed - at least not balanced. I really find that your war reporters have a jaw-dropping lack of knowledge or understanding of war fighting, the difference between peace-making and peace-keeping and how the front line miltary functions.
I recall the reporting on the last invasion of Iraq. Reporting was clouded by politcal views and political correctness. Every individual military tragedy was reported as a stratgic defeat - all far too sensationalist. There seemed to be a view that wars, whatever the justification, can somehow be fought without casualties. You seem to have lost the journalists who had some experience and empathy with those who had to do the bloody jobs.
Please learn to separate the necessary challenge of political decisions (and failures) from what it takes to succeed under fire when the rules of engagement leave you paralysed. When the fear of possible politically-driven prosecution sees you thrown to the wolves by those who sent you into mortal danger.
Please stop the self-congratulatory stuff - find some journalists to report on the battlezone who actually understand what is going on, how battles are fought, how and why the military copes with casualties and why the enemy has to be killed. The failures are not the Army - its the politicians and the civile servants at the MoD.
The danger with 'real time' reporting and 'eye witness' contributions is that what takes precedence in the rush to publish is the availbility of material - any material - rather than verified, balanced facts.
If the casualties at the Somme had been reported real time it is certainly possible that the war would have ended sooner.
We would have surrendered and the Germans would have won. I doubt such news would have filtered back to the 'free' press in Germany.
I simply can't believe we would have won either World War with the current drive for instant reporting and judgement... in WWII I can just imagine the following: "I'm talking to you from the beaches of Normandy where the Americans are bogged down, taking heavy casualties, the sea is red with the blood of young soldiers. This is turning into a quagmire."
Larry said: "The media does not create the conditions it reports"
You're exactly correct - assuming that the media report a condition accurately, without sensationalism, exaggeration or bias. Your comment also assumes the media are interested in truth more than in ratings, readers, or their personal agendas. Both of these are, I think, poor assumptions.
-S
Your point is well made, but I come back to the fact that journalists in the ´óÏó´«Ã½ are under threat. The need for immediate news, podcasting, blogging is all very well, but it is a 'house of sand' without the solid foundation of excellent journalists.
If I had to choose I would prefer news which is 'right' rather than to have inaccuracies 'right now.
During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, every major American news network was on site in Baghdad providing live coverage of the tank helping Iraqis in toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein in the center of Baghdad and the wild cheering crowds watching it. It symbolized the fall of a most hated and cruel criminal regime and let us know at least for that moment our sacrifices were appreciated by some people who had lived through a nightmare. Where was ´óÏó´«Ã½ at that moment? Nowhere in sight. Go back to sleep, you're not needed.
Not only would the Kaiser have kept the news from his own people, he would have also manipulated the free press of the UK. There would have been invented atrocities, photo ops for journalists invited to his side of the line where they can photograph the staged events. He would have used all sorts of claims and faked evidence to undermine the faith of the British and French people in their troops.
Sort of like al Qaeda plays Western journalists for fools today...
Where were ´óÏó´«Ã½ reporters and camera crew on the night the US air bombardment of Iraq began signaling the start of the war in 1991? CNN was right there on a high floor of a hotel in the heart of Baghdad with the most amazing live coverage broadcasting the air attacks and anti aircraft fire in great detail. It may be a smart strategy in checkers to keep your kings in the back row but in news reporting, the place you want them is on the front line.
So you think it would've been a good thing to stop the offensive on the Somme? Our national interest would've
been better served by a media induced collapse in civilian and military morale? read Forgotten Victory by Dr Gary Sheffield, or are you one of those ones who thinks the best place to find rational analysis of the First World War is a Wilfred Owen poem? If the modern ´óÏó´«Ã½ reported on great victories like the Summer offensive 1918 or D-Day they would be seen as defeats due to the lack of military knowledge of the people you send to report on war.Casualties alone are not at all indicative of military failure, look at the Russians on the eastern front in WW2. Western civilisation will be left unable to defend itself by the ignorance and bad faith of the modern media...