1

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

(Who Watches the Watchmen) War Propaganda in Media and the Ethics of Conflict Reporting

2

3

4

5

War Propaganda in Media and the Ethics

of Conflict Reporting By Tej Pratap (PGP 13364)

January 13, 2015

In the wee hours of 1st January 2015, a boat filled with explosives exploded and sank near

Gujarat coast after being intercepted and cornered by Indian coastguards. Indian government

claimed that the boat belonged to Pakistan and was carrying terror operatives. Within hours,

most of the news channels were filled with this sensational news, showing footages from

2008 Mumbai attacks and speculating how another boat could‟ve made it to Indian Coast.

Three days later, Pakistan rejected the charges and asserted that “It is a part of Indian

propaganda to tarnish the image of Pakistan”. While India still maintains its stand, some news

reports have hinted towards the possibility of a smuggling stint gone awfully wrong.

Figure 1: Figure showing the recent unfolding of events after the boat filled with explosives was intercepted by Indian

Coastguards.

Was it actually a terror boat sent by Pakistan? Was it merely propaganda? Or was it a

smuggler boat or a third party trying to destabilize the relation between the nations? We may

never know the truth, but this raises the important issue of how vulnerable (and less

informed) the citizens are, if the government (or any other powerful group) floats up their

propaganda through various media.

6

In this paper we‟ll discuss a brief overview of war propaganda, how it‟s implemented and

why it works. We‟ll also address some of the dilemmas and issues faced by media while

reporting war/conflicts and see if they can be resolved.

A BRIEF OVERVIEW

The oxford dictionary defines propaganda as “Information, especially of a biased or

misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view” or “the dissemination

of such information as a part of political strategy”. This motive can be achieved by using

several techniques which include (but are not limited to) using selective stories and partial

facts; use narrow set of experts to make your point; demonizing the enemy; and projecting

threat on the nation/religion/individual as the main motivation for action.

Mankind‟s tryst with propaganda is not a new phenomenon. Alexander used it to scare enemy

forces while making his final retreat by leaving behind giant-sized armours and swords.

“White people need to make the world civilized” – is another example of propaganda from

the colonization period. One of the most well-known propaganda experts in war history was

Adolf Hitler. Hitler‟s use of war propaganda resulted in convincing his country of the

National Socialism ideals, which ultimately resulted in the Holocaust and the extermination

of Jews. In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler dedicated an entire section to the discussion of war

propaganda:

“The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the

rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it

has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the

truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with

academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and

unflinchingly” (Hitler, chap V1, emphasis added).

Figure 2: Some of the examples showing Hitler's Propaganda

7

However, today with so many media sources and uninhibited access to uncensored

information across the world, propaganda has become much more apparent. Be it the war in

Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan; conflict in the Ukraine; Regime in North Korea; Indo-Pak conflict –

it‟s much easier to get access to both point of views. However, filtering what is truth and

what‟s not is still a big challenge for the individuals.

HOW IT CAN BE PROPAGATED

Renowned investigative journalist Phillip Knightley, in his article in The Guardian, has

described four major stages that are usually followed to justify the war propaganda. Let us

see and understand these through the lens of Iraq and Afghan war:

1. The Crisis: Media reports that the negotiations are unable to resolve the conflict and

we are almost at the brink of a war. For Iraq war, this started happening around mid

2001. Similar incidents can be observed before Afghanistan war too.

2. Demonization of the enemy leader: “Saddam Hussein is the new Hitler; He is a

„deranged psychopath‟ hated by his own people” - similar messages are propagated to

demonize the enemy leader.

3. Demonization of enemy as individual: The focus then moves from the leader to the

individuals of the nation. Not only e.g. Osama Bin Laden is bad, most of the Afghan

people are also bad.

4. Atrocities: Lead up to the stories, which may or may not be true – to build up the

sentiment against the enemy nation.

In justifying war, knowingly or unknowingly, some additional tactics may be used:

Figure 3: Illustration based on — The Peace Journalist Option, Poiesis.org, August 1997

8

However, the most detailed of these analyses has perhaps been provided by Johann Galtung,

a professor of Peace Studies. Danny Schechter has crisply summarized his twelve ideas in his

article on the peace website. Some major ones on how media can go wrong and propaganda

can creep in as news, are described below:

1. De-contextualizing Violence: Focussing too much on the irrational and thereby

ignoring the unresolved cause of the conflict and polarization.

2. Dualism and Manichaeism: Reducing the number of parties to just two and

projecting it as a black versus white situation. E.g. America vs. Bin-Laden; America

vs. Saddam Hussein.

3. Armageddon: Omitting several possible alternatives and projecting war as the only

available solution.

4. Focussing on Individual cases of violence: while ignoring the hidden structural

causes. For example, In case of naxal violence, we never get to hear issues like

poverty, development, government neglect, military or police repression (I am not

trying to justify Naxal violence here, but merely putting a point that media should

portray a complete picture in cases of conflict, as it is the primary source of

information for many.)

5. Confusion: Too much focus on the battlefield ignoring the larger forces that are at

work to cause that conflict. For example, in the recent incidents in Ukraine, too much

focus was built on the Russian troops building at the border etc. etc. rather than

focussing on various parties involved, their stakes and the source of conflict.

6. Excluding and Omitting the Bereaved: and projecting one-sided picture.

„Embedded Journalism‟, where the journalist travel with the military has further

substantiated this issue.

7. Omitting Reconciliation: Conflicts will re-emerge if the fractured societies are not

healed properly. Afghanistan and Iraq are living examples! When news about

attempts to resolve conflicts is absent, fatalism is reinforced.

Thus, there can be many ways in which the ideas can be propagated, but almost all of them

serve the very same purpose: Making the citizens believe in heart that the enemy is a demon

and a war is justified to free the people from his/her atrocities.

WHY IT WORKS

There are several reasons why propaganda works.

People inherently want to believe the best about themselves and their country. Any piece of

information which reinforces this belief is easily accepted. This in part explains why it is

much easier to sell your propaganda in home country rather than in foreign countries.

9

Sometimes, people have very limited information about the outside world or the counterview

– thereby leading to believe what‟s being served to them as news. A typical example can be

North Korea. Even in India, for an average person who doesn‟t have internet, it‟s very

difficult to verify any news item that he sees from other sources.

Most of the times, the propaganda items are not blatant lies – they are based on claims and

fears which appear factual and logical. This leads to further belief in them. This belief is

reinforced if nations cherished values like freedom, integrity etc. are being challenged.

Last but not the least, media management and PR is done by very professional people, who

know what they are doing. This makes propaganda much harder to detect than it would have

been otherwise.

THE ETHICS OF CONFLICT REPORTING

Shortly after the Kargil war began and journalists had begun covering some

sectors of it firsthand, an Indian editor went to see the then Prime Minister

Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He told him that he was holding back reports filed by

his reporter which described how Indian soldiers were becoming canon

fodder at the hands of those fighting for Pakistan. He was telling the prime

minister, he said, in case he was not getting the full picture from his army

officers. And he had decided not to use those stories because he thought they

would affect the morale of the army and the country. But, he told Vajpayee,

it would be difficult to keep up the censoring; the obligation to tell the

country the truth would come in at some point.

This incident, picked up from an article by Sevati Ninan, raises some very important aspects

about the ethical dilemmas faced during conflict reporting:

1. Framing: How you frame the issue is important. For example, while reporting Naxal

issue – Do you frame it as anti-national elements vs. our government? Do you frame it

as a clash of ideologies? Do you frame it as a poverty and development issue?

Different framing will have different magnitude and different kind of impact among

people.

2. Role: Are you a journalist, and therefore, should report the facts as they are? Are you

a peacemaker, and should report facts to bring peace between the parties

(withholding any information that might disturb peace)? Are you a nationalist, and

withhold information that might affect the morale of the country? Do you present the

facts as they are, or weigh the consequences before doing so?

3. How much truth? This dilemma could be observed in the 2008 Mumbai attack

reporting! Does the reporter blabber everything that he sees before him? Or should he

weigh the consequences and see which information might actually help the terrorists?

10

4. Issue of Censorship: How much of it should be censored? Should the government

censor? Or should be a self-regulating censorship? Censoring or not censoring can

have serious consequences on the sentiments towards a war or conflict. You show the

bodies of policemen killed by naxal groups and bang! People want them to be weeded

out of the nation. Should we do it? Should we not do it?

5. Source and Semantics: Who‟s the source of our information? Is it the oppressed? Is

it the oppressor? What language do we use? Should we call them „Terrorist‟ unless

the investigations have been completed? Or should we use factual words like bomber,

hijacker? (As we always say, One man’s terrorist is other man’s freedom fighter –

Should we, as the media, take a particular side?)

SUMMING IT UP

The issue of floating propaganda has been with civilization for a long time. However, with

recent increase in reach of media (and several wars), the issue has become much more

relevant and apparent. Since for most of the people, media is the only source of legitimate

information, it becomes important for the media houses and journalists to take an unbiased

stand and project a picture conveying both sides of the story, rather than providing selectively

filtered or tailored story in order to turn the sentiments towards one particular side. While the

issues of framing the issue, assuming a role, censorship, source and semantics remain in war

journalism; the media should play a responsible role by bringing up the deeper causes in an

unbiased manner.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Pak 'terror' boat intercepted off Gujarat coast — What we know so far: 10 interesting points

- The Times of India. (2015, January 2). Retrieved January 13, 2015, from

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Pak-terror-boat-intercepted-off-Gujarat-coast-

What-we-know-so-far-10-interesting-points/articleshow/45731626.cms

2. Haider, M. (2015, January 6). Pakistan rejects India's 'preposterous' terror boat allegations.

Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.dawn.com/news/1155288

3. Pakistan captures two Indian fishing boats, 12 fishermen detained. (2015, January 4).

Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pakistan-abducts-

indian-boats-jakhau-jhelelal-jalaram-msa-india-pakistan-enmity/1/411371.html

4. India using Afghan soil to carry out attack against Pakistan: Sartaj Aziz - Firstpost. (2015,

January 12). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.firstpost.com/world/india-using-

afghan-soil-carry-attack-pakistan-sartaj-aziz-2041899.html

11

5. Shah, A. (2005, March 31). War, Propaganda and the Media. Retrieved January 13, 2015,

from http://www.globalissues.org/article/157/war-propaganda-and-the-media

6. The Peace Journalism Option. (n.d.). Retrieved January 13, 2015, from

http://www.globalissues.org/article/534/the-peace-journalism-option

7. Knightley, P. (2001, October 4). The disinformation campaign. Retrieved January 13, 2015,

from http://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/oct/04/socialsciences.highereducation

8. Schechter, D. (2001, January 1). Covering Violence: How Should Media Handle Conflict?

Retrieved January 13, 2015, from http://www.peace.ca/coveringviolence.htm

9. Vidal, D. (n.d.). Propaganda in War Reporting on the U.S. War in Iraq. Retrieved January 13,

2015, from http://web.stanford.edu/class/e297a/War Reporting on the U.S. War in Iraq.htm

10. Ninan, S. (2009, February 1). The ethics of conflict coverage. Retrieved January 13, 2015,

from http://infochangeindia.org/agenda/reporting-conflict/the-ethics-of-conflict-

coverage.html

11. Nazi Posters Archive: 1933-1939. (n.d.). Retrieved January 13, 2015, from

http://bytwerk.com/gpa/posters2.htm