Russel’s war reporting was far closer to the truth than anything the public had been permitted to learn. He reported the hardship suffered by the troops and told how ill-equipped and poorly prepared they were for war. He also shocked the public by reporting to them the horrors of the war hospitals, where around 30% of the 56,000 allied forces were their suffering from dysentery, cholera or malaria.
Russel was denounced a charlatan and his editor, John Thadeus Delane, came under heavy political pressure. Russel was also accused of aiding Russian intelligence through his reporting, which put him under high suspicion from the troops on the front lines. He was deeply critical of many aspects of the war, from the soldiers to the tactics used. It became clear to the army well before the war ended that allowing Russel so close to the action was a mistake, but by then it was too late. Russel had inspired many, and five years later when the American Civil War erupted 500 reporters turned up to the action, declaring to the world the birth of the war correspondent.
Russel continued to report what he saw through the American Civil War, with the result being that the reporter was ‘wearing out his welcome’. This spurned the military to set up a formal system of censorship and start to fight back against the media. The United States Secretary for War, Edwin M. Stanton manipulated casualty figures, reducing losses, and threatened proprietors with court-martial if they did not support the government.
This retaliation from the military set way for the formalisation of patterns of censorship and indirect political and military control.
The American Civil war also saw new and remarkable developments in the use of audience manipulation, as there was a real battle for international support through the media, with both sides engaging in explicit and concealed propaganda for their cause. The progress of communications and the newspaper industry, as well as the development of the use of photography gave the public a new hunger for war reporting, and left the journalist eager to fight to feed their public.
The Boer War saw further use of the government using the media for propaganda purposes. Cinematographers were first being used, and a release of an early news reel showing a British Red Cross team coming under enemy fire caused huge excitement with the British public. However, it was later revealed to be fake, as it had been staged by actors on Hampstead Heath. The Government had sponsored it to rally public support.
The military began to impose strict censorship at the point of access to the military telegraph. This first demonstration of censorship on such a grand scale set the pattern for military bias that has been of concern ever since. Correspondants were also manipulated by the military into sending dispatches acceptable to the commander This sparked off huge complaint from the media world, with the problem being summed up by Edgar Wallace of the Daily Mail,
“If I wanted to cable from here that the situation from unusually optimistic, do you think that the censor here would offer any objection to it going? But if I wished to send the truth that the country around is full of boers and rebels are joining the commandoes daily, would the censor pass that without being called to book by Kitchener in three weeks time…..So much for censorship.”
The First World War was like no other war the country had seen before, or in fact since. It was a bloodbath, but the need was so great for national support that the truth was so often buried from the public to save them from the real horrors. There was huge pressure for press freedom, and throughout the war groups of correspondents including photographers and war artists were placed on attachment with the British armies in Flanders, the Middle East and Gallipoli. To match this there was a growth in government controls, but it became apparent that they were not always necessary. The media themselves saw the importance of national patriotism and sense of duty, and the Great War saw the press in total commitment to the government’s war aims. The press often willingly participated in propaganda and mass conspiracy to keep the truth from the public, and to foster hatred for the enemy. The truth was poor planning and mechanised slaughter.
“The last war, during the years of 1915, 1916, 1917 was the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth. Any writer who said otherwise lied. So the writers either wrote propaganda, shut up, or fought.”
As the war progressed the death tolls became more horrific, but the press were far too ingrained in the mould of uncritical support to back off. It was seen to be in the best interest for everyone if it stayed in such a way.
“If people really knew the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don’t know and can’t know. The correspondents don’t write and the censor would not pass the truth.”
In today’s modern society we are fully aware of the horrors that went on in the Great War, and indeed other conflicts long gone. This has had a huge impact on general opinion our nation has of war. The most recent conflict in Iraq showed proof of this, as we seemed to be a country divided. Huge rallies were organized in opposition to war, and millions signed petitions against action. The press were also divided. The Mirror lost many reader’s through its grave opposition to war, and was accused of lack of patriotism and support while The Sun kept up its usual standards of gaining support and moral for “our boys”.
There is still continuous questioning over any press coverage of the front lines, and the public are ready to be sceptical about any facts they are given. The government here and in America were striving for public support to invade Iraq, and with lies and cover-ups still emerging.
Headlines early in the Iraq conflict said that Airborne forces captured an Iraqi airport in northern Iraq so that they can move supplies and troops in to create a northern front. What the public did not hear is that the airport was abandoned, and that it was captured almost a month before the war began, and that in two weeks, Special Forces practically rebuilt the airport to make it ready for moving supplies.
War reporting is stuck in a vicious cycle. The military and not telling the whole truth to the press, the press are not telling the whole truth to the readers, and the readers who reply on the media to know what is happening can not trust any of it.
It will not be until the conflict is completely over in Iraq that the military and the media will give the public a full picture of what really happened, much like in World War One.
“There are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies, and statistics”
Bibliography
Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty
Don’t Mention the War, David Miller
The Media and the Military, Peter Young and Peter Jesser
News of War, Rupert Furneaux
The Media at war, Susan L. Camithers
Reporters under Fire, Edited by Lamdrum R. Bolling
War and the Media, Propaganda and Persuasion in the Gulf War, Phillip M. Taylor
Tides of War, World News Reporting 1931-1945
John Pilger, Introduction in Phillip Knightly The First Casualty
Earnest Hemingway in Men at War, source Phillip Knightley The First Casualty
Britsh Prime Minister, Llloyd George, December 1917. Source The Media and the Military, Peter Young and Peter Jesser
Benjamin Disraeli. Source, internet.
