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This book analyses British news media coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It describes the analytical framework that serves as the basis for theoretically informed and systematic analysis of wartime media performance. The book synthesises a range of models, hypotheses and explanatory variables to set out a framework composed of three models of news media performance: the elite-driven model, the independent model and the oppositional model. It provides three case studies which, in different ways, illuminate each model of news media performance in wartime. The three case studies include the case of Jessica Lynch, the case of Ali Abbas and the case of the anti-war movement. The book then presents an account of how the relationship between foreign policy, news media and war might be expected to operate, based on current theoretical understanding. In order to place British coverage of the invasion in context, the book offers brief summaries of the structure and character of Britain's television news services and its press. The book provides an analysis of the ways in which the news media's visual depictions of the war reinforced supportive coverage. It is devoted to documenting and analysing evidence for negotiated and oppositional coverage. The book also examines the representation of civilian casualties, military casualties and humanitarian operations across both television and press, three subject areas that generated a good deal of media criticism.
7 Case studies from the invasion of Iraq: Jessica Lynch, Ali Abbas and the anti-war movement Introduction Here we provide a focused analysis of three case studies, which serve to represent the three differing modes of news media performance in wartime, as well as shedding more light on the news-making process. The Jessica Lynch case study, involving the ‘dramatic’ rescue of a US ‘prisoner of war’, highlights just how compliant and deferential news media can be in wartime and can be viewed as an ‘ideal type’ example of supportive coverage. The case of Ali Abbas
Oppositional model Sky, ITV, BBC Sun, Mail, Times, Telegraph Battle, justifications for war (esp. humanitarian) Channel 4 Mirror, Independent, Guardian Civilian casualties, military casualties, humanitarian operations, law and order Ali Abbas Mirror, Independent, Guardian Civilian casualties, military casualties, humanitarian operations, law and order Ali Abbas Jessica Lynch, anti-war movement Jessica Lynch case study provides an ‘ideal type’ example of the propensity of news media to champion ‘good news’ stories from the battlefront; moreover, it highlights the
oppositional models. Chapter 7 delves further into our analysis of news media coverage to provide three case studies which, in different ways, illuminate each model of news media performance in wartime and serve to strengthen some of the key findings emerging from our study. We examine a case in which news media were heavily supportive of the coalition (the case of Jessica Lynch), one where a more independent and critical line was taken (the case of Ali Abbas, who was maimed in a coalition airstrike) and one in which the news media’s attitude to outright opponents of the war
‘Abu Ali, age 88, a Lebanese farmer from the Bekaa Valley […] claims to be the first to grow hashish plants in the Bekaa Valley (in 1935), from seeds smuggled from India inside of the walking stick of his friend Naif Ali Abbas’, R. C. Clarke, Hashish! (Los Angeles: Red Eye Press, 1998), p. 153. There is a photograph of Ali Abbas at www.gettyimages.nl/detail/nieuwsfoto's/lebanese-farmer-abou-ali-who-was-the-first-to-plant-nieuwsfotos/55756926 (accessed 7 August 2020). 32
(1860s), 43 Le Capitaine Lelièvre, Mazagran (unknown, postcard–1890s), 44 Ali Abbas’s General Havelock’s Tomb, Lucknow (1874) 45 and Statue du Sergent Blandan, Boufarik (unknown, postcard–1887) and Statue du Sergent Blandan, Lyon (unknown, postcard–1887) all fall into this category. 46 Statues in honour of Blandan
are determined ‘to take control of their own affairs’.27 35 Glynn 02_Tonra 01 19/06/2014 12:48 Page 36 36 CLASS, ETHNICITY AND RELIGION IN THE BENGALI EAST END Figure 2.2 The Muslim League prepares to march to Downing Street and call on the Prime Minister, Clement Atlee, 1946. Ali Abbas, in the dark coat and hat, complained in his memoir: ‘all we had from that quarter was his personal assurance that they would oppose any oppression of the Muslims by the Hindus’. (Sport and General Press Agency) The League also organised and distributed its own monthly
’s school league tables, but this is still an area of multiple deprivation with socio-economic problems affecting people of all ethnic backgrounds, especially the Bengalis and other minority ethnic groups. Glynn 07_Tonra 01 19/06/2014 12:54 Page 169 BENGALIS IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER Notes 1 This was the first serious attempt to get into mainstream British politics, though Ali Abbas, founder of the London branch of the Muslim League, had stood as in independent parliamentary candidate for Holborn and St Pancras South in the 1964 general election, where he got just 226
’ (Gavin, 2007: 13) and ‘a useful troublemaker’.17 Finally, time series data provides further evidence of the variability of news media performance, with higher levels of negotiated and oppositional coverage occurring before and after the main combat phase. Before consolidating our findings from this chapter and the preceding one, we turn to a detailed examination of three case studies from the war: the case of Jessica Lynch and the news media circus surrounding her rescue, the case of Ali Abbas who became a cause célèbre after being seriously maimed in a coalition