A Bad Press

Falling quality

As well as the reduced quantity, the quality of coverage has also suffered. Channel 4 News, which has the best record on coverage of foreign news among British broadcasters, has just one correspondent to cover all of Asia, the cradle of at least three major civilisations: Chinese, Indian and Islamic. And it shows.

The coverage of the recent Indian election, the world’s biggest exercise in democracy, is a case in point. Channel 4 News' Asia correspondent, normally based in Hong Kong, was dispatched to the Indian landmass to cover the story. How could the Indian elections be contextualised in a five-minute TV report? Inevitably he focused on the election campaign of Phoolan Devi, the 'Bandit Queen' now contesting election. Reports in the quality press, often by writers unfamiliar with the situation, were similarly lacking in context and analytical insight.

If journalists cannot adequately report on India, with which Britain has strong historical links, where English is widely spoken, a lively press thrives and people talk openly and critically, how can they understand such closed countries as Iran or China? That showed in the coverage of the stand-off between China and the United States over Beijing’s military exercises during Taiwan’s presidential election in March. Despite exaggerated reports in the Western press, the imminent invasion of Taiwan did not materialise. What was not reported in any detail was how the rest of Asia viewed this war of words. In fact most Asian countries were not alarmed by China’s military exercises taking place within its own territorial waters, unlike the regular US exercises staged in all corners of the globe.

Back to top

Media stereotypes

Ignorance about the developing world remains high in Britain, despite the over two million immigrants who have cultural links with the South. Media images of the South continue to promote the stereotype of hapless, diseased black/brown people living off charitable aid from the benevolent West. The reality is in fact quite the opposite, with the net flow of resources being from South to North.

Geopolitical and economic interests affect the news in Britain as elsewhere. This is reflected in the way certain parts of the South are regularly covered and others are ignored. There is also a clear distinction in the presentation of friends and foes—eg Israeli state terrorism is characterised as 'self-defence' while Palestinian resistance to occupation is labelled 'fundamentalist terrorism'.

Examples abound. Iraq has ceased to interest British journalists. Most reports about that country continue to focus on alleged non-compliance with UN resolutions so that the US-dominated UN Security Council can renew sanctions which have claimed thousands of innocent lives. Ever since US forces left Somalia, too, it has ceased to be in the news. What happened to all the 'warlords', the imminent famine? Ditto with Haiti. Liberia was in the news briefly when the US was evacuating foreigners. Now with the US army the journalists have also left.

Back to top

Third World monsters

The media also helps fuel the political need to create Third World monsters—leaders who rule countries which are routinely and uncritically called 'rogue' or 'terrorist' states, such as Iran, Libya and North Korea, where the recent drought—the country’s worst—has been virtually ignored by the British press.

One result of this selective and scarce coverage is that people in Britain are unable to develop a clear view of the issues confronting the world’s poor. Ask an average newspaper reader whether they have heard of something called a 'structural adjustment programme' and it is more likely than not that they will express ignorance.

These programmes, now being followed by some 70 countries in the South, are imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as a condition for loans, with the ostensible reason of 'reforming' the economies of some of the world’s poorest countries. The reality, as shown by various non-governmental organisations involved in poverty reduction, is that in the name of efficiency millions have been made jobless and health and education budgets drastically cut—last year the World Bank forced Mozambique, one of the world’s very poorest countries, to cut its education budget by a half.

But these stories are not given prominence even in the supposedly liberal papers. In essence, whole areas of life of the people in Asia, Africa and Latin America—who constitute 80 per cent of the planet’s population and some of the world’s oldest cultures—are totally blanked out. And as the competition between media outlets increases, what with ratings wars and shrinking circulation figures, the already limited coverage is likely to become even scarcer and more superficial.

Back to top