ly.
There are three ways, in particular, in which the media collectively have played into the terrorists’ hands. The first is through personalising the drama so as to skew the whole notion of responsibility. The construction of a narrative in which the Prime Minister is to be judged by the efforts he makes in resolving one man’s destiny, the Bigley family become the arbiters of how effectively he has handled matters and it is up to the British Government to race against the clock to find a “solution” to militant grievances, may make for a compelling human-interest drama. But it unbalances the ethical picture radically. If and when Mr Bigley is murdered it will not be because of any lack of effort on the part of Mr Blair but because Islamist barbarians have, once again, decided to shed infidel blood in pursuit of a medieval ideology of death. Those barbarians know how a story such as that of Mr Bigley can capture our imagination and they are exploiting not just our compassion but also the media’s addiction to life-by-a-thread, something-must-be-done, ministers-yet-again-found-wanting stories.
The second manner in which the media are contriving to help the terrorists is by playing their perennial game of pin the blame on the donkey in the White House. On the Today programme last week there was agonised discussion of the extent to which the US had stood in the way of a satisfactory resolution of this crisis, and further “infringed” Iraqi sovereignty, by refusing to bow to al-Zarqawi’s wishes and release two female germ warfare specialists. Never mind that releasing two female Mengeles would send a signal that terrorism works, would dishearten every Iraqi who wants to see the rule of law upheld and encourage the jihadist belief that the West was weakening in its struggle against terror. Instead, just ask yourself what is happening to a country when the nation’s principal broadcaster sees a mass-murderer torture an innocent 62-year-old in the name of Allah and decides the real story is “Bush To Blame Again”.
The third way in which the media have helped to advance the terrorist agenda is simply by giving the story the prominence it has so far enjoyed. Networks, and newspapers, have given al-Zarqawi all the coverage he could ever have wanted. Executives at Sky and ITN argue that to have downplayed the issue would have been censorship and, besides, the most disturbing elements of the story, such as Mr Bigley’s videotaped appeal for help, would have been made public by other means, such as the internet or Arab channels such as al-Jazeera. They want to treat the Bigley story like any other. And therein lies their error.
Responsible news organisations do not broadcast material which they know will help our enemies at time of war. And a failure to realise that we are in a war with al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda lies at the bottom of so much of the media’s failure properly to cover the challenge the West is now forced to confront.
Update: from Melanie Phillips:
Mr Blair says that, no matter what people thought about the war itself, surely everyone can see that the terrorists in Iraq cannot be allowed to win. But he fails to appreciate that what is now taking place is not a disagreement about whether war was the right way to tackle the threat posed by Saddam. It is a denial of the threat itself.
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