Why the media should cover Saturday’s demo
Last year the Stop the War Coalition organised no less than four national demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people. But these major political events warranted little more than a footnote in mainstream media coverage.
On 18 March last year, the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion, around 80,000 people marched in central London. Yet there was no mention of this in BBC peak news items. In response, the BBC received a deluge of complaints from protesters and an open letter from Stop the War demanding they explain their decision not to report the story.
Furthermore, there was no direct mention of the demonstration in the national press. Strangely, this didn’t stop the media giving widespread coverage to the employment law demonstrations in France at the same time – as if mass protest in a foreign country was more newsworthy than that taking place at home.
Perhaps more remarkably, the media almost completely ignored the Time to Go demonstration in Manchester on September 23, the day before the Labour Party conference began. More than 50,000 protesters from all over the country gathered in the city, marking the largest demonstration that Manchester had seen for 188 years.
Yet on the day of the demonstration, the front page of the Guardian was devoted to the revelation that Prince Charles is somewhat particular about his boiled eggs after a morning’s hunting. No platform was given to an anti-war commentator.
On the day after the demo, press coverage amounted to a small photo in the Sunday Independent and a tiny article in the Mail on Sunday, both taking a superficial “celebrity” angle. The demonstration was also absent from Monday’s papers. And all this in a week when there was turmoil in the Labour Party over the impact of the government’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Lebanon, plus a major story regarding Queen’s Lancashire Regiment soldiers being brought to trial for war crimes.
Editors’ stated reasoning against keeping the anti-war movement off the news agenda seems to be that such events are “no longer newsworthy” and that “fewer and fewer people are attending”. Neither argument holds up.
No longer newsworthy?
Firstly, this war is ongoing and the situation in Iraq is not simply a problem that the Iraqis themselves are failing to sort out. The continuing violence is a symptom of the occupation, in which Britain plays a crucial part. Four years into the occupation Blair’s “legacy” on Iraq is still a huge news story – so too, therefore, should be protest at the war.
Secondly, it is a crude over-simplification to measure the significance of demonstrations purely in terms of their size. In February 2003 over a million people took to the streets and hundreds of thousands more staged protests up and down the country. But subsequent demonstrations have been large by any standard.
Moreover, opinion polls show that the public is still overwhelmingly opposed to the war. One of the reasons they don’t march in such numbers as in 2003 is because then they believed their government would listen and the media would pay attention. The government didn’t and the media don’t. Are people to blame if now they feel there is no point in marching?
Finally, the anti-war movement is more than a numbers game. It also represents a body of powerful ideas about Iraq and the “war on terror” more generally, ideas that are reflected in the opinion poll data. These ideas, and the movements’ spokespeople who embody them, demand to be taken more seriously by the media.
Yet the roots of sectarian division in Iraq, and the parallels with British imperial history, are almost completely ignored in any mainstream coverage. General Sir Richard Dannatt’s statement in October, for example, that British troops’ presence was “exacerbating the situation” – which caused a media furore – was just what the antiwar movement has argued all along, but it has been almost entirely glossed over in media coverage since then.
Some protests ARE news
Many editors appear to be more comfortable championing causes that resonate with people’s short-term self-interest rather than on more fundamental issues. It seems there is no intrinsic reluctance to get stuck into a display of public dissent – provided it’s a minor policy issue. So on February 16, for example, a BBC Radio London reporter announced that the early stages of a protest in opposition to the city’s congestion charge extension were attended by more press than demonstrators.
Similarly, the recent online road-pricing petition has been given legitimacy by the media, with front page stories built around the strength of public opinion. Yet the anti-war demonstrations are the result of far more conviction and effort on any individual’s part than the signing of an online petition. This Saturday’s demonstration is raising much more urgent and important matters that are failing to be addressed in parliament.
It is precisely the lack of parliamentary debate on Iraq and any serious discussion of a timetable for withdrawal that has driven people to protest in the streets – surely their voice deserves to be heard now more than ever?
This week’s announcement that 1600 troops are to be withdrawn from southern Iraq is a breakthrough but there is still no firm commitment to have our armed forces out by the end of 2008. The media are portraying the withdrawal as a “success” for British forces, when absolutely noone believes this.
Trident, Iran…
Similarly, nearly 60% of people don’t want Trident replaced yet there has been no proper debate of this issue. A decision to renew the UK’s nuclear deterrent will not only be a further destabilising factor in the Middle East but also have a domestic impact on public spending priorities, issues that people really do experience first-hand in this country – last week we learned, for example, that British children are the most deprived in the developed world.
And the very real threat of an attack on Iran is still failing to be properly addressed. Despite wider acknowledgement of just how advanced the US and Israel’s plans are for military strikes in Iran, there is still a danger that an attack will be launched before the opposition is heard. The march is critical to alerting MPs that they cannot sit back this time and let the same excuses that led is into Iraq be made.
Since 2003, despite consistent opposition on the evidence of opinion polls, there has been virtually no high-profile coverage of the anti-war movement. How does this reflect on the public service that news organisations are supposed to provide?
The anti-war demonstrations are not only a sign of the strength of public will on these matters, they are central to gaining a platform for these discussions to happen and making the government listen. The challenge now for the mainstream media is to engage with the public on what are profound moral issues and allow their voice to be heard.
Caroline Price
