Covering an Uncoverable War

By Gerald Clarke

Journalists struggle to report battles they cannot see

For members of the world's press, the battle for the Falkland Islands has been mainly a losing one. Except for 27 British newsmen with their country's fleet, neither reporters nor photographers have been able to get near the fighting, and the only real news has been from conflicting government statements issued in London and Buenos Aires. "We're covering this war with excruciating difficulty," admits Jeff Gralnick, executive producer of ABC's World News Tonight. "It's the first major story in a decade in which the press has not had immediate contact. You hear about the fighting, but you don't see it."

Newspapers were reduced to running side-by-side reports from the two capitals. Television networks, which pride themselves on being able to show events as they are happening anywhere on the globe, found themselves picturing Margaret Thatcher walking in and out of No. 10 Downing Street--again and again--though some good still shots eventually began to surface. Says CBS Evening News Executive Producer Van Gordon Sauter: "Viewers have become accustomed to not just instant but instantaneous coverage. And they, like our TV news people, are frustrated because it's just not available." Occasionally the British shipboard correspondents were heard on TV describing some action like the bombing of the Port Stanley airfield, but the only illustration the networks could provide was a photo of the man who was speaking. It was almost as if the world were back in 1932, when people at home sat around ancient Atwater Kent radios to hear the news.

The men with the British task force were no better off. A New York Times correspondent reported from the converted passenger liner Canberra that troops aboard were relying on the BBC for news of the conflict since their officers did not fill them in, even when the Sheffield went down.

Although the foreign press corps in Argentina has swelled to 740, reports from there were distressingly thin. Foreign correspondents were ordered out of the areas closest to the Falklands, and three British journalists, arrested April 13 and charged with being spies, remained in jail in Ushuaia, the southernmost town in the world. Reporting was not much easier in Buenos Aires. "The big thing is access," says David Miller, bureau manager of the 27-strong CBS team, "and we just don't have it. In most countries the military will set up show-and-tell sessions. Not here."

Compounding the problem in Argentina was the apparent unreliability of the official statements that were handed out. After the first British bombing of the Port Stanley airfield, the government released a film showing a plane landing there. This proved, it said, that the bombs had missed their target. But the film was shot in sunshine, whereas the day of the bombing was wet and cloudy, as even the Argentines acknowledged. Reporters asked how they could be sure that the film had not been taken before the raid, and the Argentine spokesman replied, "All I can say is that you have to believe me." But belief was in short supply by last week, and tempers were growing even shorter. Argentina's junta announced tougher restrictions on the press, prohibiting even the reporting of weather forecasts for the South Atlantic. The Buenos Aires office of Reuters, the London-based news agency, fearful of irritating the junta, denied the use of its transmission facilities to non-Reuters journalists. It could not, it said, be responsible for censoring other people's copy.

By contrast, the London military briefings have been generally regarded as open and candid--as far as they have gone. "Our reports are as true and complete as we can make them," Spokesman Ian McDonald told the 100 or so news people who regularly jam the Ministry of Defense's press center. The government's credibility has been enhanced by the reporting of bad news as well as good, particularly the prompt disclosure of the loss of H.M.S. Sheffield. McDonald sounds, indeed, like rectitude itself. With his slow and careful delivery, said the Daily Express, he gives the impression of "an old-fashioned country clergyman." He also provided the only light touch in an otherwise somber week. Asked about the differing claims being issued by his counterpart in Buenos Aires, he coolly referred his questioner to Hamlet, Act III, Scene 4, lines 53 and 54. Few in the room felt much better informed when they read the quotation: "Look here upon this picture, and on this, the counterfeit presentment of two brothers."

British officials "have to answer to Parliament," says NBC News Foreign Editor Harry Griggs, "and they can't really hold back." Yet while they are thought to be telling the truth, they are faulted for not telling more of it. "Yes, the Defense Ministry is being helpful," jokes NBC Correspondent Jim Bittermann. "We have everything we need except information." Even the unflappable McDonald was found wanting in this regard. "He's precise and vague...He manages with great precision to say very little," complains the Toronto Globe and Mail's Jeffrey Simpson.

News organizations all over the world chafed at the lack of pictures of the fighting. Photo editors had to blow dust off old file cabinets to find something to print. The London Times used a 40-year-old photo of the torpedoed Argentine cruiser General Belgrano--taken when it was the U.S.S. Phoenix. By chance an NBC crew had been filming in Ushuaia when the Belgrano set sail on its last voyage. After the ship sank, NBC Bureau Chief Don Brown reran the footage and discovered the ship leaving port.

"We're dealing with a time warp," says UPI's Foreign Editor Paul Varian. "The British sink a ship and it takes forever to find out." But perhaps that is not all for the bad. As McDonald might say, see King John, Act IV, Scene 2, line 133 ("Do not seek to stuff my head with more ill news, for it is full"). --By Gerald Clarke. Reported by Maureen Down/New York and Arthur White/London

With reporting by Maureen Dowd/New York, Arthur White/London

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.