Page 212 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

governments—especially recent administrations in the USA—have
been able to get away with’ (1983, p.61).
Technical constraints would always have influenced coverage of
the conflict, then, even if the political environment had been more
favourable to the media.
As it was, however, technical problems in the communication of
news about the conflict were only the least of the journalists’
difficulties. From the outset, the British government pursued an
information policy heavily influenced by the US experience in
Vietnam, and the perception that excessive openness on the part of
the authorities had contributed to a loss of morale on the ‘home
front’. Thus, the British authorities opted for a policy of tight control
of information and imagery, often justified in terms of the
aforementioned 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 government, 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.

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