Reporting Baghdad

The Bush bid to villainise Iraq and its leader has been ably supported by the media powerhouses.

Iraq has once again become the fulcrum of global politics. The world is polarised between the imperialist in­tentions-supported by the media powerhouses-to control Iraq's vital resources and the concerns of a con­siderate world community comprising of anti-globalisation groups, leftist organisations and the alternative me­dia. The rift in the allies of the 'Em­pire', with France and Germany back­ing out of a military action, and the mounting protests of the public across the world, have resulted in ways wherein the so-called free media is bending backwards to justify an attack on Iraq.
That is exactly what the Gulf war scenario had precipitated-a close watch of the corporate media would teach you innumerable ways to kill a story, how to twist the truth or how not to report an incident. The media is straining itself to hype the wicked ways of Saddam Hussein, while ignor­ing the stark images of malnourished, dying children in Baghdad; it has been assessing Iraq by exaggerating its strike power while not really delving into the impacts of the Gulfwar, which are seen in acute economic disparities, shortages in food and medicine, and the deteriorating school system. The media also has not been giving space to describe the apprehensions of an Iraqi populace haunted by the inevi­tability of a US military invasion. Al­though the UN weapon inspectors have not come up with sufficient evi­dence that Iraq indeed possesses a vast arsenal of mass-destructive weapons, the pro-US media is still searching for such material in a vein, to justify an attack.
Thus, a terrible under-reporting and over-reporting of events have marked the journalistic excesses on Baghdad-a crime equally grievous to that of withholding humanitarian aid to Iraq. These excesses have been car­ried out by the likes of The Washing­ton Post, The New York Times and CNN for the US, and The Financial Times and BBC for the UK. And these are the "agenda-setting media", as put by Noam Chomsky, "because they are the ones with the big resources, they set the framework in which everyone else operates". Their agenda is forever linked to the political economy and their mission is to endorse the causes of corporate globalisation and impe­rialism. Bush's words that "we must make sure that control of the world's oil resources does not fall into his (Saddam) hands, only to finance fur­ther aggression" are the greatest proof of the political character of the
immi­nent war.
Another case in point is the "moral panic" these media powers unleash. Moral panic is a condition whereby an episode, person or group of per­sons; come to be defined as a threat to societal values and interests. Its nature is presented in a stylised and stere­otypical fashion by the mass media, and the moral barricades are manned by editors, politicians, or religious or racial groups. Here a group or a per­son is identified as a 'folk-devil' against whom something must be done. All the efforts of entities like the Time magazine, CNN and BBC are now centered around creating a moral panic over Saddam the 'folk devil'. If you take a look at their websites, there is undue stress on stories highlighting the cruelty and arrogance of Saddam, and the humanitarian gestures of Bush. The BBC website creates that war like ambience with biased analyses, and a war is justified on grounds of "benevolent genocide".
Moral panic is also created through intelligent articulation of words such as "kicked out" and "expelled" to de­note the departure of the UN inspec­tors, and when it comes to Iraqi alle­gations, it is merely reduced to "Saddam says”. A recent study con­ducted by three US local TV news sta­tions on the media coverage of Iraq over a month, reported 97 stories in favour of war, and 12 against war ­mongering. Some of the terms used by these media to represent Saddam Iraq includes "Iraqi threat, "terrorist proxies", "Iraqi defiance", "dictator­ship", "tyrant", "crafty", "Iraqi intran­sigence", "brutal elimination", "deftly manipulated", "evil", “unholy ·alli­ance”, "a decade of defiance", etc. The most powerful method of demonizing Saddam Hussein is by using Hitler analogy. Saddam is equated with Hitler, Iraq with Nazi Germany; and the 1990s with the 1930s – a metaphor that seems intended to silence any de­bate or critical thought. A New York Times editorial depicts Bush as "leader of all countries", while US diplomats "appeal to high moral values and the lessons of history":  This moral panic slowly transforms into mass hysteria and delusion, and this is exactly what the global media wants.
The stage is set for another Citizen Kane.

Media after 9/11

 9/11 was a significant event in the politi­cal history of America and an exclusive media event for the rest of the world. It proved to the world how 'sensitive' the media is in the USA and how unprepared they are to meet a criti­cal situation. But in many ways, September 11 has been what the capitalist media has been seeking to achieve for years. The nature of this capitalist media is best explained by the quotes of a fellow New York scribe that the "business of a journalist here is to distort the truth, to lie out­right, to pervert, to villify, to fawn at the foot of Mammon and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. We are tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes.” Of course this outlines the art of journalism or the principles underlying the profession there, and is reflective of George Bush’s statement during the Gulf War that “what we say goes”.
If the media in the US was as free as guaranteed by the First Amendment, they should have told the truth and exposed the covert ways that American governments have practiced down the decades. The media should have discussed frankly the American methods of policing the world, and should have led an open debate on its foreign policy. Instead the American media castrated alternative thoughts and gave no play to the brutal realities that its government helped perpetrate. The end result is a civilization that has lost its tryst with history and indeed civilization itself. The American media has failed abjectly to educate and instruct its own people to mould an unbiased world view.
Today most Americans acknowledge terrorism to be a global threat only because finally the American media started writing against it. Never had mainstream media or policy makers there condemned terrorist attacks anywhere in the world except when they amounted to scuttling US interests. Even the death of thousands of Iraqis due to sanctions on food and medicine was regarded as worth the cost by the then Secretary of State Madeline Albright. Of the US media didn’t find anything wrong with Albright’s statement as it has always bowed to the political establishment and racist lobbies. Whatever these coteries espoused, the media was only too glad to step in line. Dissenting voices are seldom heard. Noam Chomsky got it right when he said that “the elite media set a frame work within which others operate; that framework works pretty well, and it is understandable that it is just a reflection of obvious power structures. The real mass are basically trying to divert people”.
September 11 showed how badly Americans needed a crash course in world history – a history of the world starting from the bombing of Nagasaki to the brutal massacres that successive US administrations had unleashed to install puppet regimes the world over - in Guatemala, Dominion Republic, Indonesia, Chile, East Timor, Nicaragua, Angola, Panama, Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Argentina, Brazil, Haiti, Somalia, Sudan and Yugoslavia. A history that has cost mankind around 10,000,000 of its population. And it was up to the media to lay bare the realities.
At least the American press and television can change the way they cover issues and events. That will help in finding an amicable and eco­nomical solution in these times of recession to deal against extremism. The huge amounts of money spend on security measures, waging wars and counter-insurgency operations, can be saved if the media gets its act together. At the time of the first anniversary of 09/11, America was on high alert, and Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, was taken to a secret location, as his President was when the WTC and Pentagon were attacked a year ago. Panic is no panacea. A little modesty in speech-that is the need of the hour. You call it  "media activism" or by any other jargon that you wish. Media activism is nothing but propagating mutual self-respect and a high esteem for each other's values, cultures, reli­gions and beliefs. In due course, this would create a new set of news val­ues that are rooted in humanism-anew news-speak that will avoid a lot of terminologies which in a way urge violence and hatred. Activism may not bring about changes overnight to a system steeped in capitalist conser­vatism, but this small step from the media can foster a giant leap in forg­ing international understanding and checking extremist tendencies.
At least the incident of 9/11 has helped initiate discussions on the nature of the media in America­. That is perhaps the only positive out­come of the fall of the twin towers of the WTC.

Marriages of Convenience

 A beautiful marriage is heading for an unhappy end­ing; we hear cries and whis­pers and that the couple are parting their ways. It now seems truly like a campus love story which can be adapted to a television soap -heart­burns, despair, separations and reunions-and that tells the true story of the television distribution industry in the entertainment era.
Last week, the HBO channel, decided to walk out from the Zee-­Turner network, and to join the com­paratively small SET (Sony Entertainment Television)-Discovery bouquet, which is known as "One Alliance", This was amidst the super­hit carnival which is currently going on in HBO, and there were no hints to the break until it came. In a rejoin­der, the Zee-Turner grabbed CNBC from SET-Discovery. Zee-Turner officials have also announced that HBO will be replaced by a premium English movie channel, probably Cinemax, which is a sister concern of HBO. Whether Cinemax can repeat the glittering show of HBO is anoth­er matter, as the majority of the 2000 titles that Cinemax owns is from the old Turner Classic Movies (TCM) except for the Harry Potter franchise. But HBO is all poised for a mega­show in the new year with Jennifer Lopez's The Cell, Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible 2, Spidernan and Ocean Eleven. Thus the HBO defection is really a loss -for Zee­-Turner in terms of box-office films.
But what rules all these defections and alliances? Simply profit, that's what the anatomy of these phenome­na tell. It also clearly captures the ways of the satellite television busi­ness, which has been diversified through financing mainly by global capital, software production, ad sales revenue and distribution, Here it is the ad sales revenue and distribution, which is the underlying reason. Sony had recently abandoned its sales deal with CNBC, after it failed to gain stakes in the channel's Indian opera­tions, while HBO executives spoke about "better commercial terms" by means of ad revenues througb the new alliance. The greatest paradox is that these companies are related to each other either as sister concerns or as joint ventures, and not rival companies as the common man sees. The best example is HBO itself. HBO Asia is a television alliance of four Hollywood studios-Universal, Paramount, Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures. When the channel was launched a couple of years back, both SET and Turner were the main contenders for its distribution and ad sales contract. But only a few know that both these competitors are sister concerns of HBO partners, ie, SET to Sony and Turner to Warner broth­ers. Thus the only underlying interest is the smooth flow of the global capi­tal.
And here begins the story. Global capital means not merely money, it also involves politics and even racism. It is about market but negoti­ates on power. It speaks about human rights but practices repres­sion. It laments about poverty and pats the rich. Global television is its public relations manager. Through multinational operations ranging from news and education to chil­dren's entertainment, music and movie channels, it serves the interests of the transnational companies, their advertising clients and their support­ing nation-states' (read United States) ideologies and policies, Thus starting from our tastes, likes, dislikes and preferences to view points and thought processes, all these are shaped, governed and controlled by these global interests disguised as media products. It can either be a superhit movie in your favourite movie channel or a live show of your most admired artist.
The latest example is that of the HBO (Europe operations) which will premiere the film, Live from Baghdad, on Dec 7 that tells a fraud­ulent story of Iraqi soldiers throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators during the occupation of Kuwait in 1990. The story was launched based on the testimony of a 15 year-old Kuwaiti girl before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in October 1990. When media repeated it cold-blood­edly with a precise element of propa­ganda, it blossomed into a tale involving over 300 Kuwaiti babies. This will "clarify the facts" that the CNN showed during the coverage of the Gulf War. What a wonderful agenda. If MTV attempts to inspire Chinese youth to revolt, so surely a movie can try getting a unanimous verdict in favour of the US to attack Iraq. And remember, both HBO and CNN are owned by the AOL Time Warner media conglomerate.

The Great Knowledge Divide

 Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge ?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information ? 
                                                                - (TS Eliot)

Which is the most popular search engine? Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves orAltavista? This has been the point of discussion of many IT magazines recently, triggering off a new war in the media scenario, the war of search engines. The war may not be perceptible to many for it is waged only at one end of the digital divide. A battle typical of the networking times to emerge as the most sought after personal knowledge-management systems. Perhaps it is an anachronism to call them search engines, for search for knowledge is  matter of the past, and the homo sapien is concerned only about effectively managing his knowledge, ie, to acquire the right knowledge at the right time.
Net surveys say that Google has become the most popular ‘knowledge manager’ within a short span., thanks to the simple presentation, dedicated service, and constant innovations in both services and technology. Last month Search Engine Watch put Google on top of the list with 13 million search hours during March 2002, while Yahoo! came next only with 5.4 million search hours. Measuring service OneStat.com also placed Google as number one search engine offering 47 percent of search referrals world wide.
Whatever be the stats, Google, Yahoo! etc. form parts of the online knowledge systems, which make digital divide a real knowledge divide. The figures quoted above also tell us yet another story. Out of the 13 million search hours spent of Google and billions of search hours thrown before the monitors when the ratings of the other search services combined how much comes from the users of developing countries or the heavily indebted poor nations? This becomes evident when we know the truth that PC ownership in low income countries is only 5.1 per thousand, whereas in the high ­income nations it is 392.7 per thou­sand and net users amounting to 9.3 million and 269.8 million respectively. In India PC penetra­tion is only 4.5 per thousand.
A recent report of the Digital Divide Network says that there are 429 million people online globally and of this 41 percent belong to the US and Canada. 27 percent lives in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 20 percent belongs to Asia Pacific and only 4 percent in South America. The fact that this 429 million forms only 6 percent of the world population, clearly points to the divide in the digital times.
If the revolutionary ICT ushers in only these well-defined knowl­edge platforms, how could it help the poor and the downtrodden who have no access to these knowledge systems, acquire a vertical mobili­ty. For the knowledge divide always begets a 'techno theid' read­ily adopted and accredited by the industry. Today's business firms are much evolved and the manage­ment practices and works on the basic principle that every worker is well informed, and hence knowl­edge management portfolios in most Fortune 500 companies. These knowledge managers stress life long learning as one of the main features of the new work environment characterized by knowledge sharing through intranets.     Swedish company Skandia includes intellectual assets on its balance sheets. Wipro has a web platform Kalpavriksha, for knowledge sharing. British Petroleum uses e-mail and video­conferencing to facilitate internal knowledge flows. Siemens give solutions from the Web-based ShareNet system on Palm Pilots for its mobile workers. Thus the digi­tal divide finds vocation only for the techno-savvy netizens who can use the new info gadgets and adapt to this sophisticated environment, which is definitely not for the 'mal­informed'. This is proved by a recent report in Internet.com that in the hubs of Asia's IT activity, more people are looking towards job search sites to get jobs, a situ­ation applicable to all activity cen­ters of ICT around the globe where 'technolaggards' at the bottom rung of the divide will be pushed out.
The knowledge divide is also an infrastructure as well as an eco­nomic divide. 'The privilege groups acquire and use technology more effectively, and because the technology benefits them in an exponential way, they become even more privileged', and thus creating a domestic divide con­comitant to the international divide. The income disparities in the ICT nourished economies prove this. The ICT generates more lucrative employments and entrepreneurships that do not dif­fuse down to a major illiterate or under skilled population in most ICT fuelled upcoming economies, thus taking the economic inequali­ties, wider and wider.
Come to the other fact sheet. In Bangladesh a computer costs the equivalent of eight years average pay, according to the The Economist. 66% of the population of Zimbabwe does not have access to sanitation, almost half of the world's 6 billion people live on less than $2 a day, and up to 80% of the world's population has never made a phone call, says the World Resources Institute. And the World Food Programme has found that 12.8 million people are starving in six southern African countries. How can we make way for ICT ignoring poverty deaths and our malnourished children?
The clamour today is 'ICT for all' and 'to empower people to cross the Digital Divide'. But what the world need is a bridge to cross the divide, for which a collective effort by voluntary agencies, national governments and private players is the answer. The efforts made by Bridges.org, Acacia ini­tiative, Infodev project etc, in addi­tion to some very valuable work towards this end carried out in a humble and silent manner by Mr. Kutty Ahmed Kutty and IKM in Kerala deserve special mention here. Or be it the initiatives like Gramdoot service from the private players such as Aksh Optifibres for setting up multimedia Internet kiosks in 2,50,000 villages across the country over the next 10 years .. Efforts do not end with awareness campaigns or providing infrastruc­ture, but also have to break the barriers of building a low cost peo­ple's computer like the Indian Simputer, or Brazil's Popular PC project and also in extending inter­net services in local languages, or providing free translation services, like Langoo, which could cross the language barrier. ICT empowers people, but the social realities should not be lost sight of.

Gujarat and Gramsci

 Gujarat is back to life, after the carnage and the carnival, looking ahead to an anxious and fearful tomorrow. Lessons have been taught and learned but confessions do not go beyond the tautology of Hindutva and adoration of Narendra Modi or political jargons like "polari­sation". What the secularists and the so-called secular national media failed to realise are the realities beyond Hindutva and secularism. It seems that they have not yet made a philosophi­cal inquiry into what worked against them despite the entire curse on fun­damentalism. Thus "hegemony" rather than Hindutva becomes more relevant in the post-poll discussion on Gujarat, and Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci turns out to be a sig­nificant person than Modi. Again, it may be a theoretical or an ideological framework, but offers a better expla­nation to the debacle.
For  Gramsci, "hegemony" is not mere dominance by force. Rather, it is the set of ideas by which dominant groups in a society secure the consent of subordinate groups to their rule. He believed that a governing class must succeed in persuading their governed to accept the moral, political and cul­tural values suggested by those in power. For that, it is necessary to cap­ture the minds of the population, as well as the institutions, and do it with ideas that will be presented as "com­mon sense". The implementation will be through intellectuals and figures of inf1uence gained to the cause by van­ity, convenience or ambition, or intel­lectual operatives that work with the people, together with the constant use of the media. In Gramsci's words, "the mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist in eloquence, but in active participation in practical life, as constructor, organiser, permanent persuader' and not just a simple ora­tor". Gramsci perceived that in a West­ern society, the bond between the ruler and the ruled was cemented through the classical institutions-the family, the church, the school, the civil society and its organisations-in other words, the building blocks of the State. Hindutva is not any different. Fun­damentalism is not any different, nor is communalism. They have been working slowly and steadily with the "common sense" and the "classical institutions", and have been exploring ways to "cement the bond". A com­mon sense that works with the com­mon man, that identifies with his be­liefs, traditions, mannerisms, mores, etiquettes, his ways of living, and above all his spiritual- requirements with an ideology. Thus, it becomes quite easy to link a traditional festival, a social gathering, a popular custom and even a popular culture with Hindutva, and anything which goes against is viewed as injustice to reli­gion and subsequently the ideology. Even intolerance and hatred towards other beliefs, religions and even com­munities, has been added to go along with the dictum of 'common sense.' For all this, they have the support of the dominant group (read class or caste) who act as the "intellectuals and figures of influence in society.
Hindutva goes even further through the practices of communalisation of governance. To quote Upendra Baxi, this is evident in the relatively non-violent ways of sub­ordinating minority rights as testified by pre-Godhra and the organised majority vendetta against minorities in the post-Godhra politics, which was also legitimised by the State. Hindutva did not and does not remain static; it changes with time, technology, media and the market. It has been commodified to explore the possibilities of television and the invasion of satellite channels, such as the pre-publicity given to the movement’s chief symbols through the national broadcast of Ramayana. Hindutva has also attempted to form a “public opinion and support within the nexus of market reforms and expansion of communication, rather than a religious reaction.” Thus as Arvind Rajagopal argues, it has been a case where the media re-shaped the context in which politics is conceived, enacted and understood. That is how the hegemony works, or Hindu nationalism goes to office.
Gramsci argues that the only way to break the hegemony is to build up a “counter hegemony” to that of the ruling class. It is necessary to change the minds, to change the popular consensus and to change the way institutions work. Or to make the people question the rights of their leaders to rule in the accepted way,by bringing in a whole new system of values, beliefs and morality – a system that would become accepted by all in a way that would appear to be the normal thing to do. This is where the secularists and the secular national media failed, to build a counter hegemony. Secularism is itself a wonderful idea of counter hegemony to resist fundamentalism, and it was that Gandhi experimented with. Gandhi’s was a refined idea that can even be termed “spiritual secularism”. By assassinating Gandhi the fundamentalists had prevailed over the earlier attempts to build this counter hegemony.
Attempts to rebuild it rests entirely with a devoted and functional media. As Sunil Saxena of Indivartha.com noted in a recent article, the media needs to exercise comments that raise communal temperatures, and not to give legitimacy to them by playing them up, and then react provocatively to them in editorials and analysis pieces. Rights of minorities, repression and fundamentalism should come not only at the same time of crises, but should be a permanent persuader, to formulate opinion among the people even among the upper class, to create a whole new system of values, beliefs and morality, based on religious tolerance and mutual self-respect. That is why the entire Hindutva-baiting by the national media helped the hegemony in consolidating their stance in Gujarat.

The death of ethics

 The mainstream media failed to be fair in reporting the Muthanga tragedy.

The unsavoury incidents at Muthanga, which drew nation­ wide attention, was not only symbolic of the state of the tribal population in India but was also a litmus test for the media. The tragedy could have been easily avoided had the government looked into the Adivasis' problems with compassion and promptness. The media also cannot wash their hands off for not setting an agenda for the is­sues of these discriminated human beings. Journalism here lacks profes­sional ethics and analytical acumen; the reporting of the incident at Muthanga was definitely a pointer to this, and it was most unfortunate that it happened in a State which has great 'news literacy' and enough of radical ideas.
The biggest tragedy of Muthanga was not the government's stubborn attitude, but the reluctance on the part of the media to act cohesively to bring about a collective resistance to the atrocities against a powerless popu­lace. Instead, the confrontation was reported from the angle of 'what hap­pened' rather than 'why it happened' by most of the newspapers. There was confusion about the number of peo­ple killed during the confrontation) among the papers even though there were authentic reports and eyewitness statements. Praise should go to Madhyamam daily, which showed great professional integrity to speak out the truth backed up by photographs on the front page to prove that at least three persons were killed. The UNI reported that 10 people were killed, and Mathrubhoomi daily suggested that five might have met their end while sticking to the official version. The Malayala Manorama daily de­scribed the possibility of more deaths as a "rumour". Both these big Malayalam newspapers had banner headlines saying that only one Adivasi was killed, and thus our mainstream newspapers proved beyond doubt that they are really establishmentarian, and they have a different agenda on the issue. All the other newspapers re­ported that more deaths of Adivasis had occurred; Mangalam put the toll at 10.
With the help of photographic evidence in Madhyamam, why did the two big-wig mainstream dailies not follow it up and explore the reality of the number of deaths, and resolve the confusion? Similar was the case with the arrest of activists Janu and Geethanandan which most of the me­dia reported as "caught by the local people" rather than as a case of sur­render. Thus, except for Madhyamam, there was a conscious attempt by the newspapers and the visual media to portray the entire episode as a Janu­ centric political exercise rather than a vital issue of the tribal population. The worst of the reports were that of the left-wing Desabhimani and Kairali TV; one can digest the political parti­sanship of their stance, but not their attempt to hijack Janu out of the tribal issue. What happened with our media was that they consciously or uncon­sciously took sides with the political lobbies to push the tribal population out of their environment, and tied them to political agendas to keep their real problems away from public percep­tion.
Thus the Adivasi remains a logo not only for the politician who is forced to dance with them occasionally to better his mileage, but also for the modern day media which markets tribal life to add ethnic flavour to their increasingly glamourous content.  Otherwise Muthanga should keep occurring so that tribal issues get the front pages.
Today’s media is interested mostly in the pretty rivalries of politicians and their naïve and infertile political dramas. Journalism has become a mouthpiece for the market economy, and it has regressed from its glory days in 1960s and 70s which are now rusting in dusty memoirs. News has developed into Newszak with a surfeit of entertainment ingredients as Malcom Maggridge puts it. Journalists in blue jeans and sneakers, spouting Yankeee accent cram the news shows. For them the Adivasi can never be a news story,only so-called human interest piece. Unethical practices and stale journalism courses have spawned social irresponsibility of the worst order. There is simply not a few to speak up for the marginalized and the oppressed. It is time that journalism gets back to being the noble profession that it once was.

IN DEPTH

IN DEPTH provides media analysis of selected media issues that has international relevance. 

The coverage of Pak crisis by The Times and the Independent.


Introduction: News as a construct
John Hartley while expatiating on news discourse in his famous treatise Understanding News comments that ‘news comes to us as the pre-existing discourse of an impersonal social institution which is also an industry.’ (Hartley J. p.5) Hartley’s observation defines the nature of news in the present day and reiterates the fact that news is no more a piece of information that transform society and the world, but a commodity that is sold in markets just like any other consumer product. The pre-existing discourse in which it reaches us explains the politics of the news and the power behind that shapes its course. Thus, it could be observed that news is a construct in many respects. James Watson rightly comments ‘...we are seeing, then that the news is culturally positioned, and we view reality through a cultural prism. That the rendition of reality is so convincing is partly explained because the news, framed for us by the media, is usually all that we have to go on as a portrait of realities beyond our own environment; and partly because the news is constructed with such professional skill.’ (Watson J. p.122)
The constructed reality or the mediated reality has become so powerful in our lives that we have lost the power even to think and make a rational decision; the media has started thinking for us. Reporting -whether it is about an international news event or a local incident- then acquires a strategic importance. A single word carefully used in a sensitive context can transform the entire notion of person. As Hartley puts it, ‘...when we learn to speak, we learn much more than words. From the very beginning we use language not just to name things, but, more importantly, to work out how to behave towards other people and the world ‘out there’’.(Hartley J. p.1)
News of course, is a social and cultural institution that co-exists with other institutions in the society; naturally, it shares the characteristics of those institutions that co-exist with it. Hartley observes that news forms a sub-system within language, with its constituents- the words and images. Thus there occurs a socialisation to the institution of news too, learning its ‘codes and conventions’ and thus we start to interpret the world, without recognising that the mediated reality is different from the real occurrences. but we still never understand this constructed nature of the news. Watson explains the phenomenon; ‘...we have grown so accustomed to the modes of news presentation that we are, unless especially cautioned, likely to accept that it is at least a close encounter with reality. Yet journalists provide us with a cue to their trade as ‘assembly-workers’ when they refer to news reports as ‘stories’, thus implying a process of invention. As Allen Bell puts it, ‘Journalists do not write articles. They write stories.’ (Watson J. p. 122)
The people who make the selection of the news or those who re-construct the reality thus wield the real power. The gate-keeping process or the selection of the news and the criteria on which the news is selected or the ‘news values’ acquires further significance. In other words, the power that controls news selection also determines its discourse.

News values
J. Galtung and M. Ruge made a very interesting study in 1973 about news reports. They analysed the foreign news in a set of daily newspapers and found that every ‘news item,’ has to pass through a selection process to endorse the label as ‘news worthy’. In the process, it is strictly judged upon certain criteria by the editorial staff, and evaluated whether it is qualified or eligible for entry. ‘This is not to say that the staffs were consciously subjecting items to judgement, rather than they used a professional methodology to ‘nose out’ good story.’ (Jones M. & Jones E., p.90) Galtung and Ruge called these criteria ‘news values’. Yet these criteria are guided by other practical and social factors, which include the timeliness and the space available in the newspaper or newscast. These criteria include immediacy or frequency or the time taken by the event to develop; importance that relate to developments about significant countries or important people, clarity of events or the transparency of reporting; meaningfulness representing the cultural relevance and proximity of the event; expectedness and unexpectedness which means the importance and sudden developments of events; composition; reference to elite nations where the Western nations always get the attention; reference to elite people who form the heads of states of economic powers, celebrities and the royals; personalisation which interprets actions of political leaders as political action; and negativity where bad news is regarded as good news.
These news values, although they were identified decades back, still find relevance with the Western media. Many of the international events that are covered by the Western media are clear examples of these news values in action. This is particularly relevant in reporting the news stories that originates in the non-Western world. A recent example is the French President Sarkozy’s affair with his girl friend and actress xxxx ; which in fact was a celebration for the media, but the Pak crisis which has been tormenting the nation and its people for many months got serious reviews only when Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister was assassinated. Still, most of the reviews and reports were flavoured than favoured and struck a balance, which did not directly implicate Mushraff, the President of Pakistan just because he was an ally of the United States in the war against terror. But before going to analyse how the media covered the Pak crisis before and after the assassination of Benazir, it would be better to mention something about some special characteristics of the news, in the Western media, particularly the British press.
Contemporary journalism is characterised by not only the unambiguous news values it holds but also certain special methods of treating the news. One of the most prevalent tendencies observed is its going back from the serious journalism to be interpreted as investigative journalism and the reporting of hard news to ‘softer’ or ‘lighter’ stories. Bob Franklin rightly observes: ‘Journalism’s editorial priorities have changed. Entertainment has superseded the provision of information; human interest has supplanted the public interest; measured judgement has succumbed to sensationalism; the trivial has triumphed over the weighty; the intimate relationship of celebrities from soap operas, the world of sport or the royal family are judged more ‘newsworthy’ than the reporting of significant issues and events of international consequence. Traditional news values have been undermined by new values; ‘infotainment’ is rampant.’(Franklin B., p.4) Malcolm Muggeridge calls this phenomenon as ‘Newszak’. Newszak is a double refined form of news, which shows more elements of entertainment in it. This change in the perspective of news is seen in almost all dailies around the world and with the broadcast media. Franklin observes: ‘in television news bulletins, a commitment to newszak is evident in programme formats in which ‘one presenter talks to another’ that reduce ‘crucial events into a cosy chat show’ (Franklin, p.5) The news papers however has compartmentalised the news to include more sizzling pages and stories. Featurisation was print media’s immediate answer, and it shows the way that it endorses newszak. The British newspapers are no different, the tabloid press has been playing with the elements newszak and entertainment for a long time, but recently concern has been shifted to the content of the broadsheet newspapers, which imitates tabloids in a number of ways.
Since 1980s, they had changed in all respects, not only in the looks but also in the perspective. Franklin notes that ‘the ‘broadsheets’ derision of the tabloid format has increasingly become mimicry. Tabloid-style banner headlines, alliterative and punny headlines, large print, less text, shorter words, bigger pictures, colour pictures and more of them, have become standard components of the broadsheet front page.’ (Franklin B., p.7) He also notes four aspects of change that particularly reflect the change in their stance. The broadsheets had to compromise with the market and increasing financial burdens and the first thing they had to do was to do away with the investigative stories and the foreign news. Advertisers have the main say over the allocation of space and news stories are selected according to their likes and interests than of the editorial team or the readers. Hence, subjects like travel and consumer issues found place above foreign news, which never encouraged a product. As a result, ‘the world is disappearing out of sight.’ (Sampson, 1996, p.45) Today foreign news finds relevance only as a human-interest story, with pictures that attract the readers, with a definite purpose to ‘elicit sympathy – a collective ‘Oh dreadful’ – from the readership.’ (Franklin B., p.8) Equally suffered was the gallery journalism; no more substantial coverage of the proceedings of the House, and they were reduced to mere interviews when significant developments take place. Obituary has become a celebration, if the deceased personality is a celebrity, the objective is just to increase the number of copies.
The second aspect is the growth of columnists, who replaced the foreign news and the investigative reports, in other words, ‘views have increasingly replaced news.’ (Franklin B., p.8) These columnists are not concerned about an in-depth analysis, instead they present their own opinion, the academic value or the veracity of research is not at all questioned. The readers are thus endorsed with a view, neither of the newspaper nor of a researcher, but with petty observations of the incident in discussion. As Sampson puts it they would tell ‘what happened to them on the way to Sainsbury’s, what their children did at school, how they enjoyed their holidays’ (Sampson, 1996, p.45).
The third aspect is the priority given to the news, the main stream broadsheets now seems to work on the number of copies sold formula, thus stories of trivial matters and celebrities particularly the royal family, gets more relevance. The final aspect, Franklin says, is the inclusion of ‘many editorial features which previously were the exclusive preserve of the tabloids.’ (Franklin B., p.9). These characteristics tell how journalism is practised today and portend to how it would evolve in future years.

International coverage – Pakistan in context
International coverage of news events has assumed significance particularly after the successive Gulf Wars, in which CNN taught the world news ways of perceiving the reality. One of these is that through favouring the immediacy of live images, contemporary television news ‘presents reality as self-revelatory, ie. it makes it appear as reality rather than as a construction’ (Gurevitch, 1996, p.214) In fact, it was the rise of the global television and concomitantly the global news. Even though the terms international news reports and global news seems alike, they differ in perspectives. It would be better to assess the global news in a truly market perspective, that it remains a commodity which is hot selling. It does not mean that the global news has become a new news value of significance. But, it underlines the criteria of Galtung and Ruge, that if an international event has to become global news of significance, it still have to be directly or indirectly related to an elite nation or it should be an event that affects the policies of an elite nation. The coverage of the recent political developments in Pakistan culminating in the assassination of Benazir, very well describes the above criteria in action. While explaining the criteria John Hartley says that war involving the elite nations will be reported whereas others go unnoticed. ‘Elections in France, Germany and Italy will receive more coverage than those in Latin America, Africa, etc. And of course there is the famous head count equation for disasters: disasters in Bangladesh for example need thousands or hundreds killed to reach the newsworthiness threshold, where as those in ‘elite’ countries will be newsworthy with progressively lower body-counts.’ .(Hartley J. p.78)
Coming to the coverage of the crisis in Pakistan, the Western media followed the same practice, waiting for the situation to deepen or looking for head counts. However, Pakistan got some privilege, just because it was an ally of the United States in the war against terror. Mushraff’s activities got some news value, just because he was the head of the state even though they got a positive tone in the Western media. See the tone of voice in this report.
‘General Pervez Musharraf was surprised. Visiting New York for a session of the UN, the last thing the Pakistani president expected was to be confronted with evidence of his country’s secret sales of nuclear bomb technology and equipment to members of the “axis of evil”. Yet here on the polished wooden table of Musharraf’s hotel suite, George Tenet, director of the CIA, was laying out a sheaf of incriminating evidence…..Britain had privately been pressing America to tell Musharraf it had to stop. In October 2003 MI6 uncovered Pakistani nuclear material on a boat heading for Libya. But the consensus in Washington was that saving Pakistan’s vulnerable (and valuable) president mattered more than prosecuting the guilty.’ (The Sunday Times, Sept 2, 2007)
Musharaff never gets a rough treatment, but a soft rebuke, the words are not harsh, but the Taliban without a second thought has become the “axis of evil”, should Mushraff enjoy so much privileges on the only fact that he is a friend of the United States. This reminds of the Western media’s reporting of the Iraqi defeat during the Gulf War. The ‘objectivity’ of journalism has in fact failed to bring out the ‘real Mushraff’ or his autocratic policies. Even the incriminating evidence found by the CIA is presented in a dramatic fiction like format, which appeal more like a Hollywood film script.
The below news story gives a glimpse of the Independent’s portrayal of the situation in Pakistan.
“President Pervez Musharaff made last-minute changes to Pakistan's constitution yesterday, shoring up his legal defenses before lifting a six-week-old state of emergency, a senior official said. Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum said Musharraf may also move to restore the credibility of January elections by suspending local mayors and scrapping a two-term limit for prime ministers. The US-backed leader cast Pakistan into turmoil and raised serious doubts over the credibility of next month's parliamentary elections by imposing a state of emergency on 3 November” (Independent Dec 15, 2007)
The Independent does not use any flowery language, nor does it try to soften the reality, perhaps a vindication of the politics and policies of the newspaper. The background information provided to the readers explicitly implicates Musharaff in a strong voice, as if the newspaper is telling that it does not want to kill the objectivity in the story. The expressions ‘the US-backed leader’, ‘cast Pakistan into turmoil’, ‘raised serious doubts over the credibility of next month's .... elections’ are enough to announce the politics and the attitude of the autocrat. Thus the reader gets a vivid picture, which only a detailed news footage or a documentary could give.

Assassination of Benazir: Obituary as celebration
When the crisis in Pakistan escalated to the assassination of the former prime minister, Benazir, most of the Western media reacted quickly, but it failed to be a faithful obituary to the departed leader. Again, it was a big story for the media, a celebration in name of obituary. The coverage of the events by the The Times and the Independent are good examples of the general nature of the Western media, in dealing with such situations. The Times in fact had spent the first eleven pages including the op-ed and the editorial to cover the tragedy. The headline runs ‘Fears rise as Bhutto falls’ (The Times, Dec. 28, 2007) with a four column blown up photo of the assassinated leader. Photographs filled the inner pages that tell the violent scenes from the place of tragedy, to a number of human-interest photographs that reveal the life and times of the popular leader. In fact, The Times had spent a huge space for obituary for the departed leader, analysing her personality, the state of affairs at the troubled nation and the implications of the tragedy. In fact it was featurisation at the core, giving more view points to the reader. The headlines stories in The Times on Dec. 28, 2007 run like.
1. A blow struck at the heart of Pakistan’s hope
2. Can democracy survive and who will take Bhutto’s place?(column)
3. Main suspects are warlords and security forces
4. Civil war feared as angry mob demands head of Musharaff.
5. I asked her whether she felt immortal. No, she answered.(Memoirs)
6. ‘I know death comes. I don’t fear it.’ (Extracts from interview)
7. Leaders denounce senseless murder of a courageous woman and friend.(General report)
8. Pakistani community in Britain is split as fears surface. (Analytical report)
9. News could be pivotal in the race to replace Bush as president. (Analytical report)
10. End in sight for a dynasty steeped in power, death and politics.
11. ‘I have only now begun to mourn my wife’s death. Now my heart is broken’. (Report)
12. The nightmare scenario (Editorial)
13. The queen is dead. Long live the cause.(Opinion)
The Times indeed has made it a kaleidoscope, virtually covering everything about Benazir encompassing the pros and cons of everything. But not a single report came against the Government failure announcing that it is the same Western criteria of gate keeping that’s still working. The Times was in fact celebrating the event, with plenty of stuff for its readers, what else news as a commodity can do. This was also supported by a number of photographs:
1. A close up photograph of Benazir shortly before she addressing the political rally, at which she was killed.
2. Photographs from the scene of tragedy
3. Benazir, when she was at Oxford.
4. Benazir, putting on her make-up before addressing the rally.
5. Mixed reaction of the Pakistani community.
6. Benazir with her children.
Among the photographs, the most striking is the front-page four-column photograph of Benazir. The photograph was cleverly selected, and it was a close up photograph of Benazir, shortly before she addressed the political rally, at which she was killed. The picture shows her determination and courage that is expected of a political leader, and her stubborn gaze conveys how powerful she is as a charismatic leader.
The Times was also timely in using some human-interest photographs that revealed Benazir’s personality. The most striking was that of Benazir, putting on her make-up before addressing the rally. The woman with lipstick on her lips conveys the message that even amidst her tedious (and dangerous) political career, she was a woman to the core, the other picture with her children, tells the different roles she plays in life.
Its true, the message conveyed that Benazir belonged to a rare breed of courageous and diplomatic leaders, but it also meant that news is also sold at the same time more as a commodity.
The Independent coverage of the Pak crisis was objective than its competitor. The tone of voice in the story below that was reported before the assassination of Benazir had an independent tone of voice.
‘President Pervez Musharraf made last-minute changes to Pakistan's constitution yesterday, shoring up his legal defenses before lifting a six-week-old state of emergency, a senior official said. Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum said Musharraf may also move to restore the credibility of January elections by suspending local mayors and scrapping a two-term limit for prime ministers. The US-backed leader cast Pakistan into turmoil and raised serious doubts over the credibility of next month's parliamentary elections by imposing a state of emergency on 3 November. He is expected to lift the emergency and restore the constitution on Saturday. But he still faces a barrage of criticism at home and abroad that the 8 January ballot will be flawed. Musharraf has said he acted to halt a "conspiracy" by top judges to end his eight-year rule and ward off political chaos that would hobble Pakistan's efforts against Islamic extremism.’ (Independent, Dec. 15, 2007)
The news paper was very much conscious in maintaining a neutral tone of voice, even within the constraints of the market oriented present day journalism. This was how the lead story on Dec 28 read.
‘Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide attack today as she drove away from a campaign rally just minutes after addressing thousands of supporters. The death of the charismatic former prime minister threw the campaign for the 8 January election into chaos and stirred fears of mass protests and a wave of violence that had already erupted by the evening. President Pervez Musharraf blamed Islamic terrorists for the killing.’ (Independent, Dec. 28, 2007)
The Independent does not show any confusion in presenting the facts before it’s readers. The stance and neutrality of the newspaper becomes vivid in the back ground information. The story continues:
‘Bhutto's death left a void at the top of her Pakistan People's Party, the largest political group in the country, and threw into turmoil US President George W Bush's plan to bring stability to this key US ally by reconciling her and Musharraf. Speaking to reporters at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, a tense-looking Bush condemned the killing and demanded that "those who committed this crime must be brought to justice."’ (Independent, Dec. 28, 2007)
The Independent does not show any restraint in telling the world, how the United States play in the Pakistani politics and how dearer is Musharraf to Bush. Thus the newspaper has taken the readers beyond the borders of Pakistan and placed the entire issue in an international context. The leading article tells the newspaper’s objective stance clearly.
‘There was an appalling sense of inevitability about the death of Benazir Bhutto at an election rally in Rawalpindi. The risk she had taken in returning to Pakistan was brutally apparent from the moment her plane touched down. The failed attempt on her life during the interminable procession that day showed how inadequate her protection would be if she continued her campaign. That she did so nonetheless showed admirable, if perhaps foolhardy, courage. An accursed symmetry had it that she died yesterday in the same garrison city where her deposed father was executed. Her quest to avenge his death and return elected government to Pakistan came to naught.’ (Independent, Dec. 28, 2007)
It is true that Independent showed a greater objectivity with careful use of words and minimal photographs which were just enough to give Benazir’s assassination an international importance.

Conclusion
John Hartley gives a tribute to Roland Barthes’ observation in his seminal study of news.
To quote Hartley ‘ Roland Barthes makes a distinction between two kinds of pleasure available from reading texts: plasir and jouissance. Plasir is contentment, but jouissance describes a more explosive kind of joy. Texts which get near to producing jouissance are not usually associated with news’. Independent understands the sense of plasir more than The Times; its what the news stories tell.


References:
1. Gurevitch, M. (1996) ‘The globalisation of electronic journalism’ in Curran J. and Gurevitch, M (eds) Mass Media and Society, 2nd Edition, London: Arnold
2. Hartley J. (1982) Understanding News, London: Routledge
3. Franklin B. (1997) Newszak and News Media, London: Arnold
4. Sampson A. (1996) ‘The Crisis at the Heart of our Media’ British Journalism Review vol.7, no.3.
5. Marsha Jones and Emma Jones (1993) Mass Media, London: Macmillan
6. Watson J. (2003) Media Communication : An Introduction to Theory and Process, New York : Palgrave
7. The Times daily
8. The Independent daily