How the Media Back the British Var Effort

Scan page 8

treland closely mirrors the history of the British government policy. For those inside newspapers and television who, however dimly, perceive this, the state has an arsenal of weapons equal to their military strength.

Special hatred

For those liberals who seek balance' the army holds a special hatred. Editors, TV authorities and the journalists themselves are squeezed or cajoled into softening their line or abandoning it. Deaths are put at their door.

The TV films are banned, delayed or distorted. In the last resort those reporters or editors don't work again on Irish articles or films.

The army has a massive press and information department.

The RUC a smaller one. More often than not these are the sole sources of the 'news' of bombings and shootings in These departments have a history of feeding 'stories' directy into the pages of the national press, Within the establishment of the press, which is constantly haranguing the world on own virtues, there is no opposition. When in 1971 Christopher Chataway. Tory minister responsible for broadcasting reminded TV and radio that their reports on Ireland must fall within "the values and the objectives of the society they are there to serve"; , Lord Hill, chairman of the BBC replied approvingly:

• .. between the British Arry and the gunmen the BBC is not and cannot be impartial."

To be welcomed

Details of the method of suppression by the state of information or analysis of events in Ireland have been outlined in two recent pamphlets. Neither can be accepted as presenting a clear class account of the relationship between the press and the state, but both pamphlets are to be welcomed.

First hand evidence of the pressure and suppression of news or comment adverse to the army interests is, whatever the other deficiencies of the pamphlets, essential reading for all concerned with fighting for the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland.

The glossier of the two is produced by the Campaign for Free Speech on Ireland and is called "The British Media and Ireland-Truth the First Casualty".

Resigned

It is strongly represented by TV reporters and producers who have had programmes edited or censored on Ireland, from This Week reporter Peter Taylor, to Roland Joffe, director of the play about Willie Gallagher's Diplock Trial: The Legion Hall Bombing.

Many of the contributors have attempted to take on the might of the TV empires single handed. and most have failed.

Some have resigned their jobs. None gets close to pointing the way forward towards ending the censorship.

Because they see themselves as professionals defending an abstract ethic, some of the liberals who have fought these batties become totally confused over where and how to fight.

David Elstein, who is more perceptive than most, says:

"What the public knows nothing about at all is the most sophisticated process of self-censorship.

"That is when the 'brave' producer carefully stakes out the ground he thinks worth defending against institutional assault and thereby concedes all the ground which is never put in contention, and so is defined as untenable. By playing the game, the producer endorses the rules."

Colin Thomas, a BBC director, self critically describes how this liberal opposition crumbles.

He agreed to make a series of films on treland ("not what | wanted but was, I felt, better than nothing".) and filmed in Derry among other places. When he returned and looked at the film "my heart sank"

He had made a film about oppression and poverty and about unemployment. He had not included any film of the army which would not have met with the approval of the army PR department.

"It was not the fault of the film editor. I myself had failed to put on film examples of army oppression that I had learned of during my stay there: the beating up of Catholics and Protestants by soldiers coming to an end of their tour of duty; the ruthless searches of Catholic homes; more than £1,000 of apparently malicious de image done to a Catholic comm junity centre at which I had filme He then describes how most reporters explain away these 'lapses' to themselves:

"In conversations with friends I attempted to do what I had so often done in the pastclaim the small victories and disown the substantial defeat."

Eventually the film, inadequate as it was, proved too strong meat for the BBC who ordered cuts. One of these was to exclude the headstone of a grave on which a Catholic mother was placing flowers. It read: "Murdered by British Paratroopers on Bloody Sunday".

Thomas had had enough. He resigned. His only turn to the unions was to print what happened to him in the ACTT union paper.

Methods

If the breastbeating of the liberal consciences is a bit overpowering, the pamphlet does bring home in some detail the methods by . which BBC and the IBA comply with government wishes on Ireland. Mason was reputed to have barked that if he had had control of the BBC the army in Ireland would have won. By and large he has had control.

One virtue of the pamphlet is a brief introduction by David Brazil in which the reporting of the war. in Ireland is put into the context of censorship wars in general.

During the Boer war a film of a Red Cross tent being bombed was mocked up on Hampstead Heath and shown to the British public as the real thing.

During the Korean war the editor of Picture Post, Tom Hopkinson, was sacked because he refused to scrub a report from James Cameron on the treatment of political prisoners by the South Koreans. The owner, Sir Edward Hulton, claimed it would provide "aid and comfort to the enemy"

The second pamphlet, "Belfast Bulletin", is one of a series produced by the Belfast Workers Research Unit.

An introduction puts the reporting of Ireland into the context of capitalist owned press and points to the way in which claims to balance, fairness and independence are used to justify banning republican viewpoints.

There are revealing quotes from reporters and sub editors. (Sub Editor: "You don't always have time to check out the' army's account. After all it is the British army and we are on their side.")

Ignored After Bloody Sur the Fleet Stre ler of Available from WSI Hill, Lonc carried immediate eye witness accounts squarely pinning blame on the army.

In subsequent days articles began appearing 'debating' who was to blame.

In a procedure reminiscent the Blair Peach murder Belfast Bulletin 5p plus 15p p& om 52, Broadw:

Belfast 12 omen's paper of t League price 6p plus 7p , 31, Dartmouth on NW5 1HR. without any checking, and of censorship.

PHOTO: Derek Spiers, IFL "Belfast Bulletin" , headed Media Misreport N. Ireland, also contains a run down on the main capitalist papers Northern Ireland, a detailed analysis of the press coverage of the Ulster Workers Council strike in 1974, and an account of the strike and subsequent closure of Ballantynes: sportswear factory in Coleraine.

This last article is notable for ignoring almost completely the role of the union bureaucracy during the strike, occupation of the plant and subsequent defeat of the workers.

It comes to the remarkable conclusion:

"In metropolitan capitalist countries like Britain a strong trade union movement is in a better position, given militant leadership, to defend workers' gains than in an isolated dependent economy like Northern Ireland's ... The lesson of Ballentynes is that strong trade union organisation and an economy dependent on foreign capital cannot exist side by side in Northern Ireland... if anywhere."

If the Belfast Workers Research Unit think that workers are somehow able to counter capitalism without a political leadership and organisation capable of raising them to the necessary level-which means a revolutionary political party-then they will have little to offer workers on the way forward in struggle.

The British Media 50p plus 15p p&p from Information on New paper gives a lead to women's fight against Tory attacks SPEI SPG SC HBLOCA

----- pull-quotes -----

WOMAN WORKER

Ireland, 1, North End Rd., London W14 woman worker