At 9:36 AM +0100 99.4.22, GRAHAM SIMON GARDNER wrote:
Obviously the media hypes up his 'high barbarity' - I don't think anyone
is naive (or innocent) enough to think of the media as a defender of truth
- but please, lets have a bit less of the belief that this hype means,
ipso facto, there is no truth in it.
At 4:48 PM +0100 99.4.22, Wolfgang Zierhofer wrote:
All the other statements, including the source of the text may be true or
not. However, the character of the whole document does not support it's
credibility, but rather the opposite. The main goal of the text is to
stimulate emotions. It does not contribute any reliable information, it
provides no arguments to increase the plausibility of the statements, and
finally, it is not designed to report events but to accuse indirectly.
Can we conclude a report is credible if it contains events or evidence?
I don't think so. Events can be selected, dismissed, as well as seen from
different perspectives. Which events are picked up, and not others,
largely depends on our initial aims to present certain views.
Which media we choose to see and believe them as credible
is, to some extent, a matter of political/ideological selection.
What is wrong is that the game of media presentation is played
on the ground of unequal relations of power and economy.
In the contemporary global economy, even 'independent' or
'grassroots local' media can be devised by a hegemonic power.
I have hesitated to forward articles, but I do this now.
Sorry folks who have seen them.
S.K.
A Soldier's View:
REPORTERS PRESENTING DISTORTED VIEW OF WAR IN KOSOVO
By Lewis Mackenzie
The Vancouver Sun April 15, 1999
P.R. firms make combatants' cases to the public. One firm claims it
introduced the terms "holocaust, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and
concentration camps" to the lexicon of the war.
BELGRADE The media coverage of this war, which according
to NATO is not a war, is becoming less and less relevant to an
audience that would opt for balanced reporting if it had the choice.
During the Second World War and Korea there were often days
of delay between the events and their coverage. We saw clips of the
war in movie theatres before the Saturday matinee feature film.
In Vietnam there was no declaration of war and therefore no
restrictions on the media. If they could talk their way on to a
helicopter they could get anywhere.
Their reports dominated the supper-time newshour in the U.S.
War came into the living room as "entertainment."
The British learned from the American experience and during the
Falklands War kept a tight grip on the media with surprisingly little
protest from the reporters who clearly understood they could
contribute to a speedy victory.
In the Gulf War, the U.S.-led coalition, mindful of the Vietnam
experience at one extreme and the Falklands at the other, worked
out a compromise that saw the use of media pools whereby some
journalists were given access and subsequently shared their
experiences and film with their colleagues.
By the time the war in Yugoslavia exploded on to the scene,
most of the combatants had hired North American public relations
firms to spin their case to the public.
One Washington-based firm continues to brag on its Web site
that it successfully introduced the hot terms "holocaust, genocide,
ethnic cleansing, and concentration camps" to the lexicon of
journalists covering the war.
And so we arrive at the current war in the Balkans and yet
another variation on the theme. The international media in the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia are concentrated in Belgrade in
general, and the Hyatt Hotel in particular.
We all watch international and local television, monitor the radio
and newspapers, and interview local citizens and government
officials when we have the opportunity. The remainder of our
colleagues are located in neighbouring countries such as Macedonia
and Albania, with a few in Yugoslavia's Montenegro.
By now you will probably have recognized the uniqueness of the
reporting on this particular conflict: Absolutely no one, on either
side, is reporting from where the actual fighting and alleged human
rights abuses are taking place Kosovo!
It is as though the province did not exist, even though it's the
reason we are all here. I considered asking permission to drive from
one end of the province to the other, along with a CTV news crew.
However, knowing that if my request was approved we would
undoubtedly have a military escort, I decided that NATO fighters
would probably have a difficult time seeing a 12-inch PRESS sign
from a few thousand feet and at 965 kilometres per hour. Not a
good idea.
The media have a phenomenal influence on public opinion. A
few weeks ago one U.S. congressman said that although more than
90 per cent of his constituents could not find Kosovo on a map, 74
per cent wanted to bomb anyway. When it is all over, hopefully, the
media will be brave enough to judge their coverage objectively in
preparation for the next living room war.
One of these wars, we will get it right.
Retired major general Lewis MacKenzie commanded UN troops
during the siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian civil war of 1992.
A Soldier's View:
REPORTER REPRIMANDED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH
By Lewis Mackenzie
THE VANCOUVER SUN TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 1990
BELGRADE During the past few days, I have observed the
contingent of foreign journalists here in Belgrade aghast at the
controversy surrounding John Simpson, a well-known and
respected BBC journalist.
Earlier in the week, Simpson filed a piece that showed a
small group of Belgrade residents gathered on a sidewalk in the
downtown area berating Simpson and proclaiming that Serbia was
united against NATO. I saw the news item and knew it accurately
reflected the mood of the city.
Within 48 hours, the piece was condemned in the British
House of Commons as pro-Serbian propaganda that did not
accurately reflect the true picture in all of Yugoslavia and that
somehow Simpson was aiding the enemy.
I think it is important to remember that we are not currently
engaged in the Second World War, where our actual survival is at
stake. In fact, none of the NATO countries conducting the war
against Yugoslavia is under any measurable degree of threat.
During the Second World War, journalists were quite
understandably part of the weaponry employed by the Allies. They
were confined to one side in the conflict and their reports were
designed to alleviate concern at home and embellish success at the
front and mislead the enemy. All very understandable.
Starting with the Gulf War, the allies have had reporters on
both sides, a bizarre but natural development, given that both sides
felt they could exploit the media presence and 24-hour news
coverage to their own good.
And so we come to this war with a large contingent of
journalists in Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro reporting on the
horrific plight of the refugees, and a relatively small number here in
Belgrade reporting on what is going on in the capital of the country
being attacked and seen as the cause of the conflict.
While our movements have to be cleared ahead of time, we
have, in fact, travelled outside of Belgrade on numerous occasions.
Articles that are sent out of the country including this
one are not censored; however, there is some evidence that if the
rhetoric were considered "Serb-bashing," one's welcome here
would soon disappear.
The important thing to remember in all this controversy
about John Simpson and presumably, the rest of us, is that we are,
in fact, in Belgrade and all we can report from firsthand knowledge
is what is going on in Belgrade and the mood of the capital's
citizens. To suggest that we should adjust our reporting of fact in
order to assist NATO's objectives is somewhat distasteful, even to a
retired general.
Surely, individual members of the public are wise enough to
absorb the information flowing out of this region and draw their
own conclusions.
Sunday, our CTV team visited a middle-class family in
Belgrade to film their routine during an air raid warring.
The father is out of work as a result of the war and receives
no compensation. The three children (aged 14,12, and five) shared
with us their feelings when they hear and frequently feel the bombs
explode. They became emotional and started to cry while all the
time supporting each other. It was a tough thing to film.
Undoubtedly, same viewers will immediately condemn the
piece as Serbian propaganda and will miss the message that this is
just another innocent family, like millions around the world
experiencing the horrors of war and wanting nothing more than to
have their children survive.
If we were in East Timor we could show a similar family
there. We just happen to be in Belgrade.
Maj-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, now retired, commanded UN troops
during the siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian civil war of 1992.
SEEING YUGOSLAVIA THROUGH A DARK GLASS: POLITICS,
MEDIA AND THE IDEOLOGY OF GLOBALIZATION
By Diana Johnstone
COVERT ACTION QUARTERLY No 65, Fall 1998
(This is not a whole article. Interested person can see this
either on the oriticnal journal or on the Znet website:
http://www.lbbs.org/ZNETTOPnoanimation.html )
Media Momentum
>From the start, foreign reporters were better treated in Zagreb and
in Ljubljana, whose secessionist leaders understood the prime
importance of media images in gaining international support, than in
Belgrade. The Albanian secessionists in Kosovo or "Kosovars"
[10], the Croatian secessionists and the Bosnian Muslims hired an
American public relations firm, Ruder Finn, to advance their causes
by demonizing the Serbs [11]. Ruder Finn deliberately targeted
certain publics, notably the American Jewish community, with a
campaign likening Serbs to Nazis. Feminists were also clearly
targeted by the Croatian nationalist campaign directed out of
Zagreb to brand Serbs as rapists [12].
The Yugoslav story was complicated; anti-Serb stories had the
advantage of being simple and available, and they provided an easy-
to-use moral compass by designating the bad guys.
As the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina got underway in mid-1992,
American journalists who repeated unconfirmed stories of Serbian
atrocities could count on getting published, with a chance of a
Pulitzer prize. Indeed, the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for international
reporting was shared between the two authors of the most
sensational "Serb atrocity stories" of the year: Roy Gutman of
Newsday and John Burns of The New York Times. In both cases,
the prize-winning articles were based on hearsay evidence of
dubious credibility. Gutman's articles, mostly based on accounts by
Muslim refugees in the Croatian capital, Zagreb, were collected in a
book rather misleadingly entitled A Witness to Genocide, although
in fact he had been a "witness" to nothing of the sort. His
allegations that Serbs were running "death camps" were picked up
by Ruder Finn and widely diffused, notably to Jewish organizations.
Burns' story was no more than an interview with a mentally
deranged prisoner in a Sarajevo jail, who confessed to crimes some
of which have been since proved never to have been committed
[13].
On the other hand, there was no market for stories by a journalist
who discovered that reported Serbian "rape camps" did not exist
(German TV reporter Martin Lettmayer [14]), or who included
information about Muslim or Croat crimes against Serbs (Belgian
journalist Georges Berghezan for one [15]). It became increasingly
impossible to challenge the dominant interpretation in major media.
Editors naturally prefer to keep the story simple: one villain, and as
much blood as possible. Moreover, after the German government
forced the early recognition of Slovenian and Croatian
independence, other Western powers lined up opportunistically
with the anti-Serb position. The United States soon moved
aggressively into the game by picking its own client state -- Muslim
Bosnia -- out of the ruins.
Foreign news has always been much easier to distort than domestic
news. Television coverage simply makes the distortion more
convincing. TV crews sent into strange places about which they
know next to nothing, send back images of violence that give
millions of viewers the impression that "everybody knows what is
happening". Such an impression is worse than plain ignorance.
Today, worldwide media such as CNN openly put pressure on
governments to respond to the "public opinion" which the media
themselves create. Christiane Amanpour tells the U.S. and
European Union what they should be doing in Bosnia; to what
extent this is coordinated with U.S. agencies is hard to tell. Indeed,
the whole question of which tail wags the dog is wide open. Do
media manipulate government, does government manipulate media,
or are influential networks manipulating both?
Many officials of Western governments complain openly or
privately of being forced into unwise policy decisions by "the
pressure of public opinion", meaning the media. A particularly
interesting testimony in this regard is that of Otto von Habsburg,
the extremely active and influential octogenarian heir to the defunct
Austro-Hungarian Empire, today member of the European
Parliament from Bavaria, who has taken a great and one might say
paternal interest in the cause of Croatian independence. "If
Germany recognized Slovenia and Croatia so rapidly," Habsburg
told the Bonn correspondent of the French daily Figaro [16], "even
against the will of [then German foreign minister] Hans-Dietrich
Genscher who did not want to take that step, it's because the Bonn
government was subjected to an almost irresistible pressure of
public opinion. In this regard, the German press rendered a very
great service, in particular the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and
Carl Gustav Str喇m, that great German journalist who works for
Die Welt."
Still, the virtually universal acceptance of a one-sided view of
Yugoslavia's collapse cannot be attributed solely to political designs
or to sensationalist manipulation of the news by major media. It
also owes a great deal to the ideological uniformity prevailing
among educated liberals who have become the consensual moral
conscience in Northwestern Euro-American society since the end of
the Cold War.
______________
Seiko Kitajima
Faculty of Humanities, Hirosaki University
1 Bunkyo-cho, Hirosaki-shi, Japan
Tel.& Fax: 81-(0)172-39-3285
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