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frontline coverage
How television ‘won’ the war. Ewart Needham reports on
a trailblazing event at BAFTA
Award winning current affairs journalist, Roger Bolton, chaired the first BAFTA event of the 2003 autumn season, which looked at the recent conflict in Iraq and how the three main UK news providers had approached the first “live” television war.
A four minute obituary tape supplied by CNN opened the event honouring the many jour- nalists and camera teams who have died in the conflict, pro rata, more than in any other war.
The panel, with Roger Bolton, were: Nick Pollard, Editor Sky News; Adrian Van-Klaveren, Head of News Gathering BBC News; and Jonathan Munro, Head of News Gathering and Deputy Editor of ITN News.
BAFTA members were treated to a visual bombardment of pic- tures and sounds that had been brought to viewers’ homes 24/7 during this war.
It was fascinating to see again the images of war and the fall of Iraq so brilliantly produced by the UK’s major news networks.
Bolton opened the question- ing by asking what level of advance help they had received from the Ministry of Defence.
Despite lessons learnt from the first Iraq war, the military seemed ill-prepared for the second and they took quite a while to respond to requests from the media. Eventually, after many meetings plans were drawn up to include “embedded” journalists, those who would be permanently based with military units.
All three news organisations felt the “embedded” system had worked well with only the most modest restrictions being placed on journalists. However, there was room for better and more informed briefing in future.
Previously the Ministry of Defence had tried to control all outlets of information, for exam- ple in the Falklands conflict. However, this was not possible in Iraq because all the networks
had journalists in Baghdad, plus other areas and had full access to Arab and US networks output.
Generally the “embedded” material was pooled across all the News providers and this was something that had been agreed for some time.
It was felt that the “unilater- als”, those journalists who were in Iraq on their own, were more at risk from both enemy action and friendly fire, even though they had security advisers with them. They were however vital to giving a broader view of the war.
The unsung heroes of the war were the cameraman who not only had to get the best pictures but also carry around with them an incredible amount of equip- ment, whilst looking after their own safety.
The panel discussed the changes to TV reporting technol- ogy since the first Iraq war, saying the advance of more portable satellite news gathering kit (SNG) and videophones had made reporting battles “live” a reality.
Bolton asked whether the net- works had “delayed” live materi- al? Only the BBC had done this, fearing that there was a real dan- ger of viewers at home seeing sol- diers killed on live television. Both Sky News and ITN said that they would do this in any future conflict.
During another question about the role that the Arab television channels had played, the subject of showing dead bodies was dis- cussed. Although the BBC and the ITC have standard guidelines on this subject it was felt these should be amended in future to allow news networks to show, at suitable times, the true horror of war.
Following very comprehensive and frank presentations from the BBC, ITN and Sky, Bolton asked the question, “what would you do differently next time?”
Pollard said: “In addition to the time delay on live broadcasts, they would be less inclined to let the military get away with waffle and saying nothing at briefings”.
Replied Van-Klaveren: “Having looked at the pictures that we had available, there is nothing that we didn’t use. We certainly didn’t sanitise the output. What we did find was that our camera- men are shooting things in a more general way that they think London will use. We need to look at that. We would want to do more on the unseen war and give more analysis. This was the most horrible war in terms of jour- nalists killed. We must do more to give training and limit risks”
Munro, added: “We must also do more to reflect the news of war
at home and to have a broader coverage. If there is a next time, cut away earlier from Budget speeches when the statue of Saddam is being torn down in Baghdad!”
The “How Television Won the Iraq War” event was chaired by Roger Bolton, Managing Director of Flame Television and produced by Ewart Needham.
Photos l-r: Roger Bolton, MD Flame
TV; Adrian Van-Klaveren, BBC Head of News Gathering; Jonathan Munro, Associate Editor ITN News; Nick Pollard, Head of Sky News
events extra
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