Reporting at Reuters

Who sets the news agenda?

Journalists often ask themselves “who are we writing for?”

It helps them tailor their work to a target audience. But few like to question whether there’s another audience targeting them.

However picky they might be over syntax or style, sub-editors seem indifferent to the subtleties of language that frame the news:

“[T]he most powerful promoter of [neoliberalism's predatory capitalism] was the media. Most of it is owned by multi-millionaires who use it to project the ideas that support their interests. Those which threaten their plans are either ignored or ridiculed. It is through the newspapers and television channels that the socially destructive ideas of a small group of extremists have come to look like common sense. The corporations’ tame thinkers sell the project by reframing our political language (for an account of how this happens, see George Lakoff’s book, Don’t Think of an Elephant!). Nowadays I hear even my progressive friends using terms like wealth creators, tax relief, big government, consumer democracy, red tape, compensation culture, job seekers and benefit cheats. These terms, all deliberately invented or promoted by neoliberals, have become so commonplace that they now seem almost neutral.”

The following example seems almost petty, but it’s symptomatic of something more insidious.

Reuters is scrupulous in its adoption of the language of officialdom, so much so that it refused to refer to a civil war in Iraq unless the U.S. military did first.

I challenged senior editors to defend this:

From: Daniel Simpson
Sent: 28 November 2006 09:49
To: Sean Maguire
Cc: Paul Holmes
Subject: “Civil war”Dear Sean,

I see the latest story on Bush’s visit to Europe refers to “talk of civil war in Iraq”. [1]

Yesterday’s wire quoted Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution as saying: “It’s getting silly for the administration or anyone else to deny there’s a civil war.” [2]

NBC’s decision to “[brand] the Iraq conflict a civil war” [3] follows a weekend New York Times news analysis which notes that: “American professors who specialize in the study of civil wars say that most of their number are in agreement that Iraq’s conflict is a civil war.” [4]

The letters page was promptly swamped by responses from eminent specialists, who state, among other incredulous comments, that:

“Anyone with a sense of history knows that when a country is being torn apart by contending internal forces (two or more) and the government is largely dysfunctional and, above all, incapable of quashing the effort, that is civil war. Hardly rocket science.” [5]

Another correspondent asks:

“How can anybody continue to argue whether Iraq has collapsed into civil war? How can anyone imagine that Washington has any leverage left in Iraq?” [6]

While a third contends:

“The conflict in Iraq has regressed from civil war to anarchy.” [7]

Meanwhile Reuters’ Top News page continues to showcase the state of denial in the White House, as reflected by the National Security Adviser’s comments to reporters in Estonia:

“‘The Iraqis don’t talk of it as a civil war,’ Hadley said, arguing that the police and army had not fractured on sectarian lines and the Iraqi unity government was holding together.” [8]

Why is this paragraph not juxtaposed with background facts from the Reuters wire, referring for example to the recent government friction over the mass kidnapping of civil servants, the tit-for-tat strikes on ministries run by sectarian rivals and the involvement of uniformed gunmen in death squads?

Iraq’s foreign minister is quoted in this morning’s Independent as saying:

“They say that the killings and kidnappings are being carried out by men in police uniforms and with police vehicles […] But everybody in Baghdad knows that the killers and kidnappers are real policemen.” [9]

The same article also includes these comments from a police commander in Diyala province:

“There is a sectarian civil war here and it is getting worse every day.” [10]

With upwards of 120 Iraqis being killed by the day, and 100,000 fleeing the country each month, what stops Reuters from reporting this civil war as a background fact?

Are we really waiting for war to be declared from Washington? Whose news agenda are we following here?

Best,

Daniel

Oh My Newsnight

Modern news values

The senior editor who claims “It is absolutely not the BBC’s job to save the planet” has no qualms about helping celebrities sell their hype.

It’s like what people want, innit. Except it isn’t:

“Newsnight’s set-piece interrogations aren’t usually conducted in what looks like the boudoir of a boutique hotel but Madonna is no ordinary interviewee ­ and after days of controversy over the motives and manner of her lady-bountiful gesture, this was no ordinary interview. The BBC 2 continuity announcer virtually swallowed her tongue, so awe-struck was her introduction.”

Here’s how the news was first breathlessly relayed to viewers.

On 11/1/06, Newsnight wrote:

INTERVIEWING MADONNA
FROM NEWSNIGHT EDITOR, PETER BARRON

What’s harder to get - an interview with the Taleban or one with Madonna?

Not much in it I’d say, but assuming all goes to plan Newsnight will have managed both within a week. Tonight Madonna will give her first UK interview since adopting a baby in Malawi, when she talks to Kirsty Wark.

The question on most people’s lips is - how on earth did you manage that? The answer, really, is persistence and luck. Newsnight has been making a series for BBC Four in which Kirsty talks to prominent women in the media - we already have interviews with Tracey Emin, Alison Jackson and Janine di Giovanni lined up. And of course we bid for that ultimate media woman Madonna.

And of course she turned us down.

But when the story of the adoption of David Banda broke, producer Natalie Schaverien had the presence of mind to fire off a renewed bid. So, presumably, when the queen of pop decided the time was right to give her side of the story we had sufficiently prepared the ground so she instantly thought: Oprah Winfrey and Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark. Obvious really.

So, was Madonna right or wrong to adopt a Malawian baby? And is Newsnight right to interview her?

Peter Barron is editor of Newsnight

I replied immediately. My exchange with Peter Barron follows:

From: Daniel Simpson
Sent: 01 November 2006 13:06
To: Peter Barron
Subject: Re: Interviewing Madonna

Hi Peter,

I’m sure you’ll be inundated with emails and blog comments. Of course, it’s up to Madonna what she does, but there are all sorts of compelling arguments against international adoptions and no shortage of arguments for denying the material girl any more publicity.

Of course, you have to court viewers. But I humbly submit that da kidz would be far likelier to tune into a mock trial of Tony Blair than another self-serving sleb show.