A Journalist's Weblog:
Monitoring Suppression of Press Freedoms Around the World
Sunday, August 31, 2003
Trading Safety for Freedom, Objectivity for Patriotism: How Sept 11 Has Changed Ideas of Freedom, and how the Media has Played Along
These days the stakes have never been higher and we need to realise that, in some ways, the world of information flow did change after the terrorist attacks on the US on Sept 11, 2001. And it has continued to change. There is a new hunger for international news. A need to understand the wider world. A realisation that the world is connected and events in one country can have an immediate or an eventual effect on all of us.
The way the news works has changed indeed. It seems with every war, governments learn ever quickly how to use information and the media for their own gains. See Vietnam and the lessons learnt from the horrifying black and white photo of a screaming girl, the skin falling off her back, her face contorted in an endless scream of fear.
Then comes the Gulf War with its video game imagery and herded journalists, managed like tourists on an African Safari. How sanitary and how neat. No bullet-to-the-forehead-photos, just green blips indicating a precise bombing, and the almost beautiful dance of white streaked firelight in the Baghdad Blitz.
The most recent change in the way we see news is the creation of the "embedded journalist". As ABC Mediawatch commented in a March broadcast certain journalists were so embedded that they seemed to think they had joined the marines.
It was simply too much for this force to take on by itself so they had to call in air strikes and artillery to try to clear away. Now we'll try to push in on the main objective.
- Martin Savidge, CNN, Friday 21 March 2003
We?
The media has been increasingly subject to scrutiny and subjugation since the War on Terror began. The Patriot Act, passed in the US in response to Sept 11, is much like Australia's ASIO bill and Singapore's Internal Securities Act.
It defines terrorism in over-broad terms and gives the FBI new powers of search and surveillance of personal information; including personal email and terms entered into search engines. US citizens as well as foreigners can be detained indefinitely without charges.
The American Center for Constitutional Rights denounces the act, saying "the principles of free speech, due process, and equal protection under the law have been seriously undermined" by its enactment.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press points to section 215, the section most likely to affect journalist freedoms.
The section "allows prosecutors to obtain 'any tangible thing -- not just 'business records', as the Department of Justice keeps saying -- from anyone for investigations involving foreign intelligence or international terrorism. (The pre-PATRIOT law applied to specific types of business records of agents of foreign powers.) The person or business receiving the order is forbidden from telling anyone that the FBI sought or obtained the 'tangible things'. Since the order authorized by Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is obtained from the super-secret FISA Court, the order is essentially unappealable."
It is frightening to think that the automatic response to an event like Sept 11 is to trade freedom for safety, objectivity for patriotism and news judgement for marketability.
As it turns out, it was one of the world's most-watched media channel that started such an idea. Jack Gordon puts this very succintly in his prize-winning essay, Milksop Nation.
Twelve hours hadn't passed since the first airliner struck the World Trade Centre on September 11th 2001 before the talking heads on CNN turned their attention to the subject of how much freedom Americans would be willing to give up in order to feel more secure. I evidently missed the explanation of how they came to see this as the first and most obvious question written in the flames still rising from the rubble in lower Manhattan. As suddenly as the planes that had slammed into the twin towers that morning, the issue simply materialized in the vestments of the story’s anointed spin.
It is the pictures in our head that forms our perceptions of the world and none so influential to our perceptions than the media, theorised Walter Lippman the bastian of American Journalism. In this instance, the medias has certainly done well to formulate that equation that Safety = Giving up Personal Freedoms.
Graphics and promotions are an important backdrop, but ultimately the editorial values of the news channel have a much more significant role to play in defining the news brand to viewers.
CHRIS CRAMER
President of CNN International Networks
Dependable, comprehensive, fast, impartial, trustworthy: all words that many news editors would like to attribute to their channel.
But what really defines a news brand? What makes a consumer choose one news channel over and above another? Or does the viewer really care?
We are all increasingly overloaded with information.
Confession time here: I check my Blackberry wireless e-mail at least two or three times during the night and have been known to leave it on by my bedside and fire off replies when I should be sleeping.
Before I go to bed I check out the next morning's British newspapers from my home in Atlanta and do the same to the US media first thing in the morning. My home has 400 TV channels, there is satellite radio in my car - and then, of course, there are the 18 TV monitors in my office at CNN
Add to this the explosion of 24-hour news channels available all over the world in myriad languages and you conclude that access to news will no longer be driven by just which news programme is on air at a particular time of day.
And in this world of remarkable choice, channels cannot just be recognised by their logos and programme style. I believe that the viewer is far more discerning than that.
On air graphics and promotions are an important backdrop but ultimately the values of the news channel have a much more significant role to play in defining the news brand to viewers.
A news brand stands, quite simply, for journalism.
It is journalism and editorial values that bring viewers to their channel of choice. If that journalism meets their expectations, they will stay with the channel and, more importantly, keep coming back.
Editorial integrity, values and beliefs are at the very core of the brand of any news provider. At CNN, for example, our brand is about journalistic credibility: the strength of our reporting, the experience of the reporter, the skill of the cameraman or woman and that of the news editors who handle their output. It is about the technology with which we equip our journalists to enable them to deliver the latest news from the field. And, importantly, it is about how we look after these journalists in the field. How we help them deliver the story and deliver it safely without risking their lives in the process.
If it is to stand the test of time, a news brand should be about reliability and accuracy. A position of trust with viewers needs to be earned. A reputation as a channel of record can only be achieved through the standards set by its journalism. The viewer understands the difference between a channel which set its brand standards by the speed with which they throw material to air, without necessarily checking its veracity, and channels of authority and record.
That is why colleagues at Sky News have been so distressed at the recent incident concerning the apparent fabrication of a missile launch during the war against Iraq. They quickly realised that years of effort in defining and strengthening their brand were greatly damaged. Though all information brands have made mistakes - and the audience can be forgiving if the mistakes are admitted and rectified.
These days the stakes have never been higher and we need to realise that, in some ways, the world of information flow did change after the terrorist attacks on the US on Sept 11, 2001.
And it has continued to change. There is a new hunger for international news. A need to understand the wider world. A realisation that the world is connected and events in one country can have an immediate or an eventual effect on all of us.
Add to that the seismic events since Sept 11 - the war in Afghanistan, new upheavals in the Middle East, dark days in West Africa and the war against Iraq - and 24-hour news operations are constantly being put to the test. Now more than ever consumers need a trusted impartial news source.
Each and every story can set a test for editorial values and judgments and, in this context, every news editor must remember that a reputation arrives on foot but leaves by racehorse. A wrong decision can seriously undermine the trust of the readers, listeners or viewers.
On these occasions the independence, integrity and diversity of news channels are at a premium. And it is this, more than anything else, that will define our brands to our viewers. We have a duty as journalists to retain and build upon the trust that we have earned from audiences. They rely on us for news and we have a responsibility to deliver this as accurately and as speedily as possible. In that order - speed follows accuracy.
One worrying trend is the increasing over-use of certain, once respected, news phrases. Like "Breaking News'' or the use of the word "exclusive''. Breaking News should be just that, major and meaningful and sudden. Exclusives should be major stories obtained solely by one news organisation, not a different shot or camera angle or interview sequence. If we over-promise to the consumer and under-deliver, we cheapen the currency and gradually erode the brand and damage the valuable connectivity to the audience.
Brand managers discuss brand attributes, consumer propositions and the tonality or language of the brand. In the marketer's world, brand wheels apply as much to a news channel as they may to a soap powder. But whilst these have a role to play in providing consistent "look and feel'' for the channel, I would argue that they are not part of the conscious decision-making process by the news consumer.
For a news viewer there is a more fundamental decision to be made. They understand journalistic standards. And it is journalism they turn to. They tune into a channel where they are assured that they will get a level of quality and depth of news that is relevant to their needs.
If there is no dependable comfort for the consumer as they make their choice, then why on earth would they trust a channel enough to watch? And the choice is not random. It is not about who has the brightest colours or the most attractive presenters or the coolest graphics. It is driven by news values - which is the ongoing challenge for any news brand. And an ongoing challenge for the people who run it.
The most successful broadcast news brands are defined by their journalism. Their integrity - or the complete lack of it. The audience will decide.
