The Death of War Reporting: New Life for Martin Bell

Testing his themes on the "Comment Is Free" section of the Feb. 4th UK Guardian, Bell began a broadside on what he views as the decline and fall of news during the last decade:

The death of war reporting is an inevitable consequence of the increasing danger out there. The worst that could happen in my time was to be caught in the crossfire of someone else's war. Today's practitioners are targeted and singled out for kidnap and execution. The death of Terry Lloyd of ITN in Iraq was a chilling reminder to us all: today's war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan offer no foothold for independent and free-ranging journalism. Nor is it only the westerners who are at risk. The Arabic news channel al-Arabiya lost 11 of its staff, killed by both sides, in the first three years of the war in Iraq. Al-Jazeera was criminally targeted by the Americans, in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

He notes the reporting of historical events is now replaced by what he calls "necro-news".

They are about the victimisation of girls and young women. The death or disappearance of anyone from a toddler to a princess is the signal for a media obsession with these stories to the virtual exclusion of all others. The coverage is mawkish, exploitative and highly speculative.

These stories are easy to do, and galvanize the audience with terror that can be held at a distance, like a cinema thriller. He decries what appears to him as the rise of what appears to be news but is not, especially during the past decade, and finds the BBC not without its share of guilt.

The present leadership of BBC news seems bent on betraying the traditions it inherited. My message to them is that it is not to late to repent.

And this is why Mr. Bell believes that:

"...the readers of The Times in 1854 were better informed about the war in the Crimea than the readers of any newspaper, or the viewers of any TV network, about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan today."

After 33 years as a well-known broadcaster for the BBC, with assignments in 80 countries, Bell has taken up a new career as author. He recently penned the introduction for a new edition of "Dispatches from the Crimea", by William Howard Russell. Bell also served a short stint as a "back bench" Member of Parliament, and brings his political experience to bear on a scathing indictment of the Blair administration:

"The proclaimed cause of war was a falsehood," Bell thunders. "If a government could not be trusted to tell the truth on a decision as important as sending the armed forces to war, which is the most serious decision it ever takes, what else could it not be trusted on?"

As a guest of the Oxford Literary Festival,
Bell was interviewed by the Oxford Times, where you can find a review of his latest work, "The Truth That Sticks: New Labour's Breach of Trust".

David Roknich,
Editor

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