This 48 minute, Channel 4 (UK), documentary covers the state of the reporting of the war in Iraq.
While we all hear of the number of people killed each day, the details of the terror–the personal impact on daily life–are not conveyed; any images we do see are abstracted to wide scans of cityscapes, sanitized of the blood and broken bodies on the streets below. There are a number of reasons for this, including: news agencies desire not to offend the public and governments’ desire to maintain public support.
With the situation in Iraq it is next to impossible for foreign reporters to leave the secure area of the “green zone”; any footage is usually collected by local reporters. As a result the foreign correspondent is disconnected and unable to provide an independent analysis of the situation; unable to answer basic questions such as why is there an insurgency? The foreign correspondent is left to convey the information provided to him from the only source available: the military.
The key message: if the audience is not able to get a sense of the reality–the consequences are not fully explained–then how will we ever stop war.
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