MOST TV viewers do not mind being misled during war if it means saving
lives, but not to keep up morale, according to research on television
and the Gulf war.
The survey, by the University of Leeds, found 64% thought British
broadcasters should give a false report, but reveal the truth after the
war was over.
Only 14% said a false report should not be given, but 17% said the lie
should kept secret even after the war. However, 66% said television
journalists should tell the truth about casualty figures even when asked
to report lower ones to keep up morale.
Only one-quarter said broadcasters should report the false figure and
reveal the truth later.
The study's author, Dr David Morrison, said: ''The public did wish to
be told the truth about events, even if that truth was negative. But if
there is a threat to British life then the principle is amended to
telling the truth later.''
Nearly 90% of viewers said they were satisfied with the television
coverage of the war.
The survey also found that BBC News emerged as television's version of
the quality press, while ITV's News At Ten was regarded as taking a more
popular press approach established.
It said both helped to promote the allied propaganda line, the BBC by
repeating the war's declared objective of liberating Kuwait, and ITV by
personalising the issue into a campaign against Saddam Hussein.
The report, Television and the Gulf War, was based on a survey of 1126
adults and 212 children carried out immediately after the war.
While the BBC's Nine O'clock News and Channel Four News seldom refered
to the Iraqi forces as Saddam Hussein's, the News at Ten, the American
CNN, and Sky TV showed the highest frequencies of attribution of armies
and weaponry -- ''Saddam's forces, Saddam's scud missiles'' -- to the
Iraqi leader.
In his report Dr Morrison states: ''The personalising of politics,
championed by Lord Northcliffe with the founding of the Daily Mail in
1896, is the hallmark of the popular press.
''ITV and CNN clearly fall into the camp of the popular press
tradition, and BBC1 and Channel Four News into the quality press
tradition.''
Dr Morrison's report also examined children's reaction to the war on
television. It found higher levels of anxiety among girls than boys, but
most were linked to feelings of helplessness rather than fear.
Children remembered pictures of captured British airmen being paraded
before the cameras and of oil slicks and dead sea birds, rather than
pictures of war dead, reinforcing the impression of helplessness in
front of events over which they had no control.
Dr Morrison said: ''My feeling is that it's the Blue Peter effect. We
have a generation of children brought up on social action education.
They have actually been brought up to think nervously about the world.''
A content analysis of Gulf war news items found only 3% included
scenes of human casualties.
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