Page 212 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 191

POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBALISED WORLD
mentioned technical constraints. In terms of content, the policy amounted to
restricting images of British military failures while allowing positive images
of success.
The fundamentally political logic of this approach was reinforced by the
traditional secrecy of the British Civil Service and Defence Ministry. Military
public relations in the Falklands conflict were handled in the first instance
by the navy which, unlike the army in Northern Ireland, had relatively little
experience of information management. The army’s PR operation in
Northern Ireland was sophisticated and (at least on the surface) ‘open’ to
journalistic requirements (Miller, 1993). The navy, on the other hand,
‘lacked awareness of the media’s role in war and often appeared [in the
Falklands] oblivious of the political need to win popular support at home
and abroad’ (Mercer et al., 1987, p. 92). Naval PROs’ treatment of the
journalists who accompanied the British expeditionary task force to the
Falklands was often dismissive and uncooperative, to the extent indeed that
it frequently came into conflict with the political requirements of the govern-
ment, leading to a struggle of wills between competing public relations
departments.
For example, when it was announced that the government would be
dispatching a task force to retake the disputed islands, the naval authorities
decided that no journalists would be permitted to travel with it. Only the
personal intervention of Margaret Thatcher’s press secretary, Bernard
Ingham, and the pressure which he put on her to recognise the negative
publicity a complete ban on journalists would attract, persuaded the navy to
reconsider. In the end, after heated negotiations between British media
organisations, the government and the military, 28 journalists travelled with
the task force.
No non-British journalists were included in the pool, a fact cited by some
observers in attempting to explain the frequently critical attitudes of the
international community to the British position in the dispute (Harris, 1983).
Although the international community in the end tolerated Mrs Thatcher’s
military solution to the crisis, support was rarely wholehearted, and had the
conflict been more protracted and bloody than it eventually turned out to be
this could have become a serious political problem for the UK government.
Had foreign journalists been involved in the media contingent, it has been
argued, coverage of the British position might have been more sympathetic.
The military authorities’ reluctance to include journalists, even British,
in the task force was an illustration of the impact of the Vietnam experience
on Western attitudes to military public relations. In 1977 the Ministry of
Defence had prepared a secret paper on ‘Public Relations Planning in
Emergency Operations’, which stated that ‘for planning purposes it is
anticipated that twelve places should be available to the media, divided
equally between ITN, the BBC and the press. . . . The press should be asked
to give an undertaking that copy and photographs will be pooled’ (quoted

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