Recent Book: “And to-Night, We Have …”: Institute for the Study of Conflict
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X7905200315 |
| Author | I. A. Watt |
| Published date | 01 July 1979 |
| Date | 01 July 1979 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
RECENT BOOKS
"
AND
TO-NIGHT,
WE
HAVE
0 0
0"
"TELEVISION
AND
CONFLICT":
ASpecial
Report
Institute
for
the
Study
of
Conflict. £5
This
is the
report
of a conference
"at
which the
conduct
of T. V. in
today's
controversial
situations
was
debated
by
broadcasting
representatives
and
a wide
range of
authoritative
opinion
drawn
from Press, Politics, Police, Medicine
and
former
Diplomats
and
Senior
service
Officers". The
conference
was held in
April, 1978 at
Milton
Hill
House
in
Oxfordshire,
and
the
report
of the
proceedings
by Brian
Connell
is preceded
by an
introductory
summary
by Brian
Crozier,
the
convenor
of the conference
and
Director
of the Institute for the
Study
of Conflict. The
material
is
most
interesting,
and
reflects the high
quality
of the
participants;
and
the
importance
of the
subject
justifies the price of the
publication.
Television is
perhaps
the most
powerful
of the
media,
and
at the
same
time the
most
fleeting
and
evanescent. In
this lies
danger;
in an age of
worldwide
conflict
and
instant
communication,
when the individual is
exposed
to a
relentless
flood
of
information,
and
sometime
of
comment
masquerading
as
information,
there
is an inevitable
tendency
for television to be one-sided in
its
treatment
of conflict,
either
internal
or
international.
This
is
particularly
so in
the
context
ofthe
growing
phenomena
of
undeclared
war; for until
there
is a
formal
declaration
of war, it is
not
possibletouse
the
extremely
powerful
weapon
of the
media solely on
behalf
of society
and
legitimate
authority.
This
is the case in a
free
democratic
country,
but
of
course
not
in one
under
a
totalitarian
regime,
where all
media
are
under
strict
government
control.
But in Britain
there
is
perhaps
no
longer
"a
consensus
attitude"
about
where the
country's
interests lie.
Thus
free play is given to
extreme,
revolutionary
or
terrorist
points
of view,
and
this has the inevitable
effect of
making
television
appear
to be
impartial
in
matters
of conflict between
legitimate
authority
and
jhose
who
attack
it. It is this which in
turn
feeds the
swelling sense of unease of the public, of
the feeling
that
in
some
respects
those
who
operate
television
are
in fact
not
impartial,
as they
have
a
duty
to be,
but
are
hostile to
those
forces seeking to
296
combat
terrorism,
crime
and
subversion.
Television seems to be biased on the side
of subversive or
terrorist
activity,
and
free
reporting
results in
unbalanced
presentation.
There
is an
over-exposure
on television of
extremist
viewpoints,
or
at least of
some
brands
of
extremist
opinion,
either
overtly
advanced,
or
implied
in
plays
or
so-called
"documentary
dramas".
This
is
not
to say
that
television is infested with
extremists,
as
some
would aver,
but
that
many
working
in television, unlike
iournalists.
have
not
had a
rigorous
training
in
separating
fact
from
opinion.
Again, as
Brian
Crozier
states, it is
surprising
to a
newspaper
journalist
that
more
effective
editorial
control
does
not
appear
to be
exercised from the top.
"Indeed,
the
curious
theory
has been
advanced
by
radically
minded
prod
ucers
that
any
exercise of
editorial
control
amounts
to
"censorship",
although
it is clearly the
statutory
duty
of the
broadcasting
authorities
to exercise such
control."
To
the
ordinary
person, this may seem one
more
indication
of the
arrogance
of
many
people in television, who give the
impression
that
they
think
they
are
somehow
apart
from,
and
above,
the
mass of the viewing
population:
and
who
feel
that
because
of
their
special expertise
and
control
over
this immensely
powerful
medium
they
have
a
responsibility to act as
watchdogs
for
their
own
interpretation
of the public
interest,
and
to scrutinize critically
every
action
of legitimate
government.
Another
problem
arises in
connection
with the
coverage
of
international
events,
in
that
financial pressures limit the
efficiency
and
range of televisual
reporting,
even in those
open
or
plural
societies
that
can
be
reported
on.
Again,
bad
news
attracts
coverage
more
readily
than
good,
and
the
creation
of conflict
just
to
take
adavantage
of such coverage
is a well-developed
technique.
Terrorists
and
other
extremist
groups
have a lust
for publicity,
and
seize readily on
television to magnify the
impact
of
their
words
and
deeds. As a
German
terrorist
leader
proclaimed,
"the
bombs
we
hurl
are
hurled
into
the consciouness of the
masses."
July 1979
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