There is a scene in Apocalypse Now in which a Television news team is filming and telling passing soldiers not to look at the camera “Go through like you’re fighting”. This is it:
A deliberate bit of irony by the director Francis Ford Coppola and probably very near the truth of the situation. If you consider the numbers of reporters and press crew at any given tragedy, you can be overwhelmed with information and astonished by the multitude. Watching the BBC newscasts from the Middle East there are at the very least 7 people on the ground. (Reeta Chakrabarti, Jeremy Bowen, Orla Guerin, Lyse Doucet plus camera operators and sound technicians). The BBC is not the only crew reporting. There are ITN and Channel 4 crews and probably other newspaper reporters as well. There must be at least 50 or so press from the United Kingdom alone, if not more. The French, German, Spanish, Italian, Scandinavian, Dutch, United States, Canada, Japan etc will no doubt have sent reporters and support staff as well, together with all the equipment and assorted paraphernalia to cover the story. There could easily be a thousand people wearing flack jackets with PRESS scrolled across them. Where do they stay? What hotels and bars are the hangouts?
That single crew portrayed in Apocalypse Now is clearly a very modest portrayal of what the situation must actually be like. I would guess there are at least 10 crews on the job at any one time. They could easily be mistaken for a military troop or company of men. Is it any wonder not more are killed, or that any survive at all? Does that single word PRESS emblazoned on the vest really act as a shield? Does the sniper, on seeing the word in his/her scope, shift the gun barrel away in another direction? These are questions to ponder and give us pause.
This international polyglot crowd must have significant impact on the local population suffering the effects of whatever horrific trauma they are experiencing. The interaction between the victims and the representatives of the press must be extremely sensitive. There must be some element of resentment by the intrusion. Indeed, I have it on good authority, from a reliable unnamed source, an informed anonymous participant, that the BBC is not at all liked by the Israelis. “BBC You Lie!” is a quote.
Whether there is any possibility of impartiality on the part of the members of the press in a war zone, is difficult to assess. The sight of the casualties, dead and wounded, particularly children, must take its toll. The perpetrators of these atrocities on either side of the spectrum are to be reviled. To let one’s political, tribal or religious affiliations colour one’s human reflexes or instincts is a questionable position to adopt. Likewise the appearance of impartiality or objectivity can appear callous in the extreme. Thus, can one fail to note the resentment felt by victims watching and listening to the press talking to camera? Depending on the news agency, there will be an agenda. CNN will be very different from Fox News as from Al Jazeera, the BBC, CBS, CBC, Le Monde etc.
The other issue, of course, is the focus of the spotlight. The eyes of the world are turned towards the headlines. At the moment they are on the Middle East. They have turned away from Ukraine and Russia. Not that the situation there is not being reported, it’s just that it is not, at present, on the front page. Surreptitious activity is likely to occur if the gaze is diverted. Alliances are fragile and actions by others are sometime welcomed and then vilified. As an instance in point, so long as Putin supported al-Assad and bombed the Syrians, the Israelis welcomed the action; now, in the Russian support of the Palestinians, it is a very different story.
Politicians often speak of the winds of change, by which they mean different courses of action may follow on from one course and take one in the completely opposite direction, or simply go off at a tangent. The political will is a whirlwind spiralling like a tornado across the landscape. Alliances come and go. As to Britain it is recorded that on the 16th August 1681 the following comment was published by Heraclitus Ridens: “He makes no more of breaking Acts of Parliaments, than if they were like Promises and Pie-crust, made to be broken.” I confess I have difficulties finding out just who he was referring to, but it seems just as appropriate today as it did in the 17th Century. Charles II was on the throne but died 4 years later on 6th February 1685. We now have Charles III on the throne, so the goings on in Parliament appear to mirror the past situation.
The camaraderie of the press is well illustrated in films such as It Happened One Night, The Front Page or His Girl Friday, Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop, Olivia Manning’s Levant Trilogy, De Maupassant’s Bel Ami, All the Presidents Men, Ace in the Hole and a number of others depicting the reporter’s crusade to expose wrongdoing in the search for truth. There is no doubt that a free press is essential in any society which must be kept informed. Sadly, much of the information is propaganda and opinion, facts and objectivity are hard to come by. For a citizen to navigate through the oceans of information, s/he must remain vigilant and do their own research, educate themselves in seeking the truth, and not rely exclusively on the current press. Whilst one likes to think of the BBC as being utterly reliable in providing true facts, it is not always told the truth. It has a world-wide reputation as a provider of objectivity and various cross sections of opinion, although it has a tendency to lean towards support of the establishment and the current government. In short, a bit conservative in its outlook, even though it’s meant not to have an opinion. On the whole I still think we can rely on it, just don’t look at the camera.
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