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Public Service Broadcasting in Europe and the Coverage of the Iraq War |
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Introduction The question of the public good and national interest is never so rigorously tested when issues such as national security and conflict are high on the political agenda. When a country decides to go to war it frequently divides members of national parliaments, sections of the public; and in the case of the recent military action in Iraq all of these as well as international organisations such as the United Nations and the Member States of the European Union. In cases such as the coalition's invasion of Iraq in 2003, governments have put forward a variety of arguments to justify aggression on a grand scale against the Iraqi state in the name of regime change and the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, the second of which have failed to materialise. Government action in the name of the public and national interest is crucially legitimised by public support. Where public support does not underpin a policy in the public or national interest then it would have little legitimacy. In this respect going to war in the contemporary world is one of the most controversial policy decisions a government will make. Public opinion is extremely fragile in such situations and rapid swings in public opinion are not only prone to change support for the government, but, once a government decides to go to war it is extremely difficult for them to politically withdraw their commitment even if public opinion does swing. This makes the stakes extremely high for governments during modern warfare, as in the absence of immediate threats to their internal borders, military resources are deployed on the basis of a set of arguments, usually dressed up by governments with issues such as national security and international humanitarianism, that are highly volatile issues with the general public. The media therefore play a key role in covering governments' policies at such times. And politicians are only too aware that negative coverage can sway public opinion against the government and positive coverage can sustain support for them. Ultimately, they play a crucial role in either legitimising or undermining the decision to use the military in the public's view. What I would like to focus upon is the role of European public service television in providing an objective lens for public debate. In doing so I will assess two of the key principles of public broadcasting- independence and objectivity, drawing upon the analyses of television coverage of the war presented by a number of studies. The governments of the Europe Union Member States were divided on the response of the USA to Iraq. This polarisation between, what at the time were 15 Member States resulted in a split between influential Member States such as Italy, Spain and the UK who supported the campaign and others such as France and Germany, who took up a position of opposition as the governments followed an anti-war policy, whilst a number of countries were agnostic. This makes any discussion of the role of public service television in Europe difficult and if the differences in the national models of public service broadcasting are also considered, nearly impossible in the scope of this paper. However, I will draw out some of the issues in discussion and try to evaluate the role of public service broadcasters, their successes and failures during the campaign. European political and public opinion A Eurobarometer public opinion survey demonstrates a range of attitudes towards the US Administration in its "fight against terrorism" throughout Europe. This ranges from a negative view recorded in Greece, France and Spain to a more positive response in countries such as Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK, though more recent polls in these latter countries demonstrates that public opinion is shifting towards less support generally right across Europe. Chart 1: Public opinion on the role played by the US "the fight against terror" 2003 in EU (old members only)  Source: Eurobarometer 2003 Reflecting the divide between the Member States' governments and policies towards Iraq public opinion was deeply divided on the issue of how to tackle the question of international terrorism in the aftermath of September 11th 2001. Very few European countries in the Eurobarometer survey demonstrate wholehearted public support for American foreign policy and at the very best a majority of approximately 60 per cent is recorded. When it comes to the question of supporting the war in Iraq, support against the campaign increases, and has continuously done so over the past year as public opinion has become far more sceptical towards the whole affair and withdrawn its support for the war. Table 1: Response to the question was your country's decision to go/not to go to war right or wrong?
As table 1 illustrates the public in France and Germany overwhelmingly believe that the use of force was wrong and the public have even increased their support for the view that their governments took the right action in opposing military action against Iraq. In the UK there has been a huge shift of 13 percentage points towards the belief that the UK government was wrong. Only in the US, one year after the campaign started is there still support for the view that the government there was right to go to war in Iraq. There is therefore a huge divide between public and political opinion in the Member States and between political and public opinion within some Member States such as Italy and Spain where the public were against the war, but their governments supportive of it. We are left with a situation characterised by divided politics and changing public opinion. The importance of public service television Iraq is a distance of some 2000 miles away from what is approximately the geographical centre of the Europe Union, Berlin. It is in many ways a world apart from Europe. We therefore rely almost wholly on the media to communicate an impression and view of the Iraqi state, events there and its people. We can assume, given the spatial distance between Iraq and the public living in Europe that the public's image of Iraq is largely built upon what they listen to, read and watch in the media as they communicate national and international political debate. A poll in Italy at the time of the military campaign suggested television is the key medium where people access their news and information and it is also the most trusted of all mediums. The Italian respondents also replied that they relied heavily on television as the principal source of news and information at the start of the military campaign for in-depth information and news far outweighing alternative media outlets. Chart 2: Italian use of media at the start of the campaign against Iraq. Response to the question which media was the most reliable and accurate source of information?  Source: Osservatorio sul sistema dei media in tempo di guerra e, 2003 A survey of the British public conducted by MORI asked respondents which medium (television or newspapers) they trusted the most and 55 per cent of those questioned replied that they trust television more than newspapers. A further 27 per cent replied that they trusted the press and television equally, but only eight per cent responded that they trusted newspapers more than television (MORI, 2003). Due to the significant position of the public service broadcasters in Europe their services must be understood as key to this trust. Television is therefore the central vehicle where people are able to access current affairs and political debate and it is trusted more than any other media. Moreover, public service broadcasters are key to this relationship, as despite declines in audience share over the past two decades, they remain the most popular television broadcasters in Europe. As the audience share in chart 3 demonstrates, with the exception of the Walloon region of Belgium, the public service broadcasters all retain over 30 per cent audience share, and many of them enjoy an even higher percentage. In terms of their sheer popularity then, they are important, but evidence suggests they are also the most trusted broadcasters and this indicates that they are a major driving force behind this relationship with the public. Chart 3: Television audience share of public service television broadcasters 2002/2003  Note: UK is for the BBC only and excludes Channel 4. Source: Ward 2004 Of the main UK television channels a separate survey also shows the value placed on the BBC by the public during the period of the war. In response to the question "Which media outlet gave the best, most informed coverage?" 47 per cent of the poll replied the BBC. Its main commercial rival ITV only polled 10 per cent and although The Sun tabloid newspaper was read by 45 per cent of the sample, only 6 per cent replied that the publication was the best source of news about the war (Lewis 2003a, 2003b). The ideal role of public service television One of the key philosophical principles of the concept of public service broadcasting is independence and programme autonomy. A whole infrastructure is built around this principle of independence including regulatory boards of governors, funding mechanisms and legal instruments that set out the remits of these broadcasters. Not only should a sphere of television be independent of the state, however, but the public service principle has also separated the market and commercial interests from public service broadcasters in order to ensure that in theory at least, the broadcasters are independent of any external forces that might distort the nature of the services they provide. However, independence also entails responsibility. In this sense public service broadcasters have a range of obligations that they should fulfil in return for their privileged position in the television landscape. The remits set out the obligations and responsibilities of public broadcasters and establish both the range of activities carried out and how these activities should be undertaken. One of these objectives is political balance in the content of programming and a guarantee that public broadcasters should remain editorially impartial and objective in their coverage. Independence and impartiality as well as accuracy and reliability are not, however, to be taken for granted. And these principles are never more under pressure than during periods of warfare when the governments and the military are tied between depending on the media to carry out their democratic function in the knowledge that if they were seen to be overtly censoring the media protests and suspicion would ensue. At the same time, the sensitive nature of war means governments are wary of the media and employ a number of tactics to promote a vision of war that supports their case, in the knowledge that negative coverage of their involvement can lead to pubic opinion turning against the campaign and crucially undermining the legitimacy the government has. This is even further complicated when, as in the recent case of the Iraq war, some opposition parties in parliament support the government's decision to go to war. Although I do not wish to generalise in the context of the EU, in the British parliament at least, there was a consensus between the Cabinet and the major opposition party, the Conservative party, that means the BBC's obligation to provide political balance in its reporting, covering the main political parties, leads to reporting a majority consensus in support of war between the main parties (albeit with dissent from some sections of the parties themselves). The challenges of reporting war Media coverage of wars will always be challenging for broadcasters as deploying journalists in the centre of conflicts in far flung places inevitably leads to a greater reliance on one of the warring parties for a whole range of resources. Increased reliance comes in many guises and includes the safety of journalists, access to important events, as well as access to information about the strategies and progress of the campaign, of which reporters are dependent upon for effective newsgathering. The normal relationship between the state and media therefore shifts at times of war to one whereby the state's gatekeeper role is increased as it largely controls access and information flows that broadcasters are reliant upon. This allows the state, to some extent, to dictate the terms of trade with the media in a number of ways. In an age of highly developed communication strategies employed by governments the opportunity to steer the media in times of conflict is seen as vital by governments to ensure public opinion remains supportive of the campaign, because without it the carpet can very easily be swept away under the government's feet. Military conflict zones are obviously extremely dangerous for journalists. According to figures in a recent book on UK media coverage of the Iraq war, citing the International Federation of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists, 17 journalists were killed in the Iraq war and this count has since reached 20. In four separate incidents seven of these journalists were killed by "friendly fire". Reported attacks on journalists have reached unprecedented levels. Over the past 12 years 1100 journalists have been killed and although most of these journalists were attacked for local reasons and as a result of their investigations into organised crime and corruption a significant percentage have lost their lives on the "front line" (Tumber and Palmer, 2004). War zones are therefore increasingly dangerous places for journalists and the terms of trade that respected the freedom and independence of journalists to cover wars has eroded. One of the reasons that more journalists are killed in war zones might well be that there are simply more journalists on the ground reporting events, but never the less they remain places of extreme danger for journalists and civilians alike. The development and refinement of communication management by Western governments and the military that seeks to restrict reporting also leads to a greater degree of reliance by journalists on government resources. Such strategies have led a number of critics to point to the role of "embedding" journalists with military units. Such a system has been widely criticised as diluting the distance that journalists usually maintain in their reporting. It also allows movements to be restricted to certain areas and as the military feed information to journalists it allows them to put a positive spin on events. At the same time they provide the protection necessary to ensure journalists' safety. This also allows the military and governments to favour certain media outlets and punish critical journalists by excluding them from the events. Modern methods of controlling the media have been developed and refined over the past two decades. Today they represent a barrier to journalists who are at the same time reliant on these instruments as well as fully aware of the possibility that they can be used by the state to communicate the right kind of message. Organised press conferences only serve to add to this impression that the military feed the media a diet of information in times of war. Given these restrictions and obstacles what can we expect from the media? Is it really possible to be fully objective and independent, given that primary sources and crucial access decisions are left largely in the hands of the military? The coverage of the Iraq war There have unfortunately been no pan-European studies of the content of the media and the few studies that have been conducted nationally arrive at different conclusions. In this respect an assessment of the output of the broadcasters in Europe that have been monitored is complicated due to the fact that the three studies of television output during the period of the campaign appear to arrive at different sets of conclusions. The UK study of Tumbler and Palmer's central objective was to assess the sources that the two main television channels' news bulletins in the UK used in the reporting of the conflict. Their range of television coverage was limited to the two largest channels in the UK, BBC 1 and the ITV network, and given important channels BBC2 and Channel 4 and the final terrestrial channel, Channel 5 are absent from their analysis it must be seen as a partial assessment of television coverage. Table 2: The distribution of sources relied upon by UK broadcasters in their early evening news bulletins
There are striking similarities between the balance of sources that the two main channels draw upon in their coverage. Although the BBC relies less on government sources and includes a marginal range of other sources from the UN and governments from other European Union Member States as well as a greater amount of Iraqi civilians, the dominance of sources from the coalition governments is clearly overwhelming. This suggests a clear reliance on the broadcasters of these sources that dwarf all of the other sources drawn upon. A second and more comprehensive study of the main UK terrestrial broadcasters' news bulletins (BBC, ITN, Channel 4 and Sky News) conducted by Cardiff University whose full details are as yet not published suggested, in the coverage of important elements of the war such as Iraqi casualties that would challenge the Government's position on the war and illustrate the human harm caused, the other main channels' news bulletins provided far more coverage than the BBC. The advertising funded public service broadcaster Channel 4 was likely to draw on these sources the most with 44 per cent of its coverage of Iraqi people focusing on civilian casualties. This compares with 30 per cent on the satellite broadcaster Sky, 24 per cent on ITV, and 22 per cent on the BBC. Following this pattern the other channels were also, according to the initial findings of the report, more likely to draw upon alternative sources that were critical of the campaign such as the Red Cross (Lewis, 2003a, 2003b). The study concluded that the BBC's coverage was, despite the Government's accusations that the BBC's war coverage demonstrated a bias against the war, actually pro-Government. Italian public broadcasters are presented with different and far more profound problems than those faced by the BBC. They are widely seen to suffer from political interference and the current situation is critical as the state and public service broadcaster relationship has been one of continuous interference and tension that has been constantly raised by the European institutions, most recently in a report of the European Parliament and the International Federation of Journalists. These weaknesses in the independence of RAI were highlighted during its coverage of the war. Italy witnessed some very large demonstrations against the campaign (an estimated 3 million people attended an anti-war march in Rome on the 15th of February 2003). The public service broadcaster RAI refused to broadcast coverage of the demonstrations across Italy resulting in the resignation of the Chairman of RAI, Lucia Annunziata (during her mandate, she was fiercely opposed to RAI's General Director and to the other members of the Board, who are very close to the centre-right government). The Osservatorio di Pavia monitored coverage on RAI for a week beginning the 20th of March 2003. Their analysis suggests that the government enjoyed considerably more airtime than the opposition parties during this period (49.5 per cent government and 32 per cent opposition party), suggesting that the pro-war government received a greater degree of coverage and therefore overall coverage was positive towards the campaign. A wider study by Media Tenor on television coverage, and the only study to have an international sample, monitored the media coverage of the campaign on the three main German channels, ABC and the BBC. The data from Media Tenor suggests there is a striking difference both between European and US broadcasters and between German and UK broadcasters themselves. Overall, throughout the monitoring period, ABC's coverage was largely positive towards US military action. The extreme of this is the German commercial broadcaster RTL, though a breakdown of the 11 days coverage monitored, demonstrates a wide fluctuation in RTL's content tone. The public broadcasters' ARD and ZDF provide more balanced coverage of the event than RTL, although they are largely negative in their coverage (reflecting public opinion in Germany) and they are consistently so. Chart 4: Coverage of the military action in Iraq (20.3-2.4.2003) on ARD, ZDF, RTL and ABC  Note: 0 neutral, + positive, - negative Source: FAZ/ Media Tenor, 2003 The key events of the two weeks determine the tone of coverage and the fluctuations. These events are reflected in negative coverage when Baghdad was being heavily bombed and the Iraqi government claimed that a missile had hit a market killing civilians (which clearly had parallels with the bombing of a marketplace during the Balkan wars). To a more positive tone on German and US television on the 1.4 and 2.4 when media coverage becomes more positive the news stories were breaking on speculation that Saddam Hussein had been killed and the base of "Chemical Ali" taken by the coalition forces, as well as the rescue of an American soldier Private Lynch, the story of which was to be later revealed as one that was highly fabricated by the US Government. Chart 5: Coverage of the military campaign in Iraq on selected broadcasters  Source: FAZ/ Media Tenor, 2003 Overall, across the weeks monitored Media Tenor found that the most balanced coverage of the Iraq war was delivered by the BBC. German broadcasters tended to follow political and public opinion and their coverage was negative. The BBC, according to the study, remained almost completely balanced. ABC's coverage was positive, supporting claims that it was very pro government in its reporting. Assessment: successes and failures A conclusive assessment of the coverage of public service broadcasters is problematic as the different methods and questions employed by the studies all lead to different conclusions. However, some conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, public service broadcasters all, to some degree, relied on government sources -- this is unsurprising, but one study does suggest that in the UK the BBC was more reliant on these sources than any other of the main broadcasters -- though this is a contested point. Whether or not it relied on these sources more than other broadcasters is an important question, but even if it had performed better, the reliance on government sources is seen to distort the independence of the coverage. This led to the BBC reporting a number of unconfirmed events that later turned out to be wrong or exaggerated. In assessing the BBC's coverage of the war its Board of Governors summed it up as: "There were times when military sources (forecasting the imminent fall of Basra for example) were not treated with enough scepticism; other organisations had made technological advances that sometimes provided more vivid television coverage, and current affairs special programmes did not make the expected impact" (BBC Annual report, 2004).Recognising this as a problem is an important step, but changing the reliance on government and military sources is another question. As the Cardiff study demonstrates it was possible to collect sources of news from other areas away from the military's communications machine. The other broadcasters in the UK, especially Channel 4 successfully balanced these sources and were seen by the study to be the most critical in their coverage. And this must be seen as a failure in the BBC's coverage of the Iraq war. Governments are responsible for protecting the interests of the public in the name of the public and national interest and therefore they are not only accountable to parliament, but also to the public. The media play a dual role in this crucial relationship; not only do they ideally communicate to the public a range of political debate and arguments, they also act as a critical and objective lens to policy decisions made by governments. There is probably no other time when broadcasters' independence comes more under scrutiny and pressure than at times when the government decides to use armed force against another state. The recent occupation of Iraq is no exception to this rule and it has demonstrated once again the tensions that arise between the state and broadcasters when highly controversial policy decisions are questioned by the media. Given these restrictions on the media in conflict zones what can we expect from broadcasters and specifically the public service ones that have a remit to guarantee they are independent, balanced and objective? Criticism of the performance of some of the public service broadcasters in their coverage of the Iraq war is justified (Miller, 2004). This criticism, however, needs to be put in the wider context of the pressures on broadcasters at times of war and the restrictions modern warfare presents for broadcasters. Let me state that I do not believe public service broadcasters willingly act in collaboration with governments as propaganda machines as has been suggested by Miller. I believe that where robust public service broadcasters are in place and stable structures and funding mechanisms support these institutions, editorial responsibility lies with the broadcasters themselves. Where these structures are not in place public service broadcasters are vulnerable either from commercial or state interference. It is clear from the content analyses provided by two of the studies mentioned above that strong public service broadcasters such as the BBC failed to remain fully independent in its reporting of the Iraq campaign due largely to its reliance on government sources. However, according to Media Tenor the BBC's coverage was balanced and objective during the Iraq war, though the debate about this will continue. German broadcasters were far more negative in their coverage and ABC very positive in its coverage. What is interesting is the editorial swings of the commercial broadcasters with RTL and ABC's tone of coverage demonstrating more fluctuation than the public service broadcasters' coverage. Perhaps it is wishful thinking, given the highly pressurised modern television world with the need for an almost insatiable demand for information and news around the clock that public service broadcasters can act in complete isolation of government in war situations. A government that has the resources of the state at its disposal and is well aware of the damage negative media coverage can inflict upon public opinion will employ those resources at its disposal in the knowledge that when a government goes to war, the arguments on which it bases the decision to enter into the conflict will be tested in the public domain. We should not forget, however, that governments that attempt to mislead the public are governments that are failing to meet their role as elected representatives of the public. Attempts to manipulate media coverage of the Iraq war to meet with what is essentially their own self-interest are a serious breach of trust. It is difficult to envisage the problems with reporting war changing in the near future given trends in the recent past. They are increasingly difficult places to report from and broadcasters are not military units and simply do not have the resources that would allow journalists to act completely independently of one of the belligerents. Over the past two decades we have also witnessed an increasingly cynical set of communication strategies developed by the military and governments in war situations. It is difficult at the present time to see how the governments that have employed these strategies in an attempt to support a positive portrayal of the wars that they enter, will dismantle the barriers that they have erected. It is not only the public service broadcasters that are put under pressure in these situations, but the very foundations of our liberal democracies- free speech and the right to criticise and question the government that the public elects. References BBC.2004. BBC Annual Report. Eurobarometer. 2003. Public Opinion in the European Union No 60. Autumn 2003. http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb60/eb60_rapport_standard_en.pdf. Accessed 2 July 2004 Justin Lewis. 2003a. The Guardian. September 30. 2003. Justin Lewis. 2003b. The Guardian. July 4. 2003. Media Tenor. 2003. Coverage of the Iraq war on German, UK and US television broadcasters. Media Tenor. MORI. 2003. MORI survey for the Times. 2003. Osservatorio sul sistema dei media in tempo di guerra e. 2003. University of Rome. Italy. Osservatorio di Pavia. 2003. L'informazione in guerra. La copertura del conflitto in Iraq sulle reti RAI. 2003. Pew Centre. 2004. A year after the Iraq war Survey. http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206. Accessed 26 July 2004.
David Ward is the Director of the Centre for Media Policy and Development. The centre is a non-profit research institute that investigates a range of issues related to media policy and the mass media. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of the Communication and Media Research Institute, University of Westminster, London. He has published widely on European media policy, public service broadcasting models and industry issues, including a book on EU media policy. His latest work will be published in 2005 and is an edited collection entitled "Global media systems: liberalisation and deregulation". Contact david.ward@cmpd.eu.com www.cmpd.eu.com |
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