This
study by Swiss Propaganda Research was first published in 2016, it is
presented by
off-guardian.org
in English for the first time. Translated by Terje Maloy.
It
is one of the most important aspects of our media system – and yet
hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage
in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based
in New York, London and Paris.
The
key role played by these agencies means that Western media often
report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition,
governments, military and intelligence services use these global news
agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.
A
study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers
clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles were based in
whole or in part on agency reports, yet
0% on investigative research.
Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews were in favor of
the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda was attributed
exclusively to the opposite side.
Part
4 - The role of correspondents
Much of
our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no
choice but to rely completely on global agencies for foreign news.
But what about the big daily newspapers and TV stations that have
their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries,
for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche
Zeitung, Welt, and public broadcasters.
First of
all, the size ratios should be kept in mind: while the global
agencies have several thousand employees worldwide, even the Swiss
newspaper NZZ, known for its international reporting, maintains only
35 foreign correspondents (including their business correspondents).
In huge countries such as China or India, only one correspondent is
stationed; all of South America is covered by only two journalists,
while in even larger Africa no-one is on the ground permanently.
Moreover,
in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war,
for example, many journalists “reported” from cities such as
Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In addition, many
journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and
media.
How do
correspondents under such circumstances know what the “news” is
in their region of the world? The main answer is once again: from
global agencies. The Dutch Middle East correspondent Joris Luyendijk
has impressively described how correspondents work and how they
depend on the world agencies in his book People Like Us:
Misrepresenting the Middle East:
I’d
imagined correspondents to be historians-of-the-moment. When
something important happened, they’d go after it, find out what was
going on, and report on it. But I didn’t go off to find out what
was going on; that had been done long before. I went along to present
an on-the-spot report.
The
editors in the Netherlands called when something happened, they faxed
or emailed the press releases, and I’d retell them in my own words
on the radio, or rework them into an article for the newspaper. This
was the reason my editors found it more important that I could be
reached in the place itself than that I knew what was going on. The
news agencies provided enough information for you to be able to write
or talk you way through any crisis or summit meeting.
That’s
why you often come across the same images and stories if you leaf
through a few different newspapers or click the news channels.
Our
men and women in London, Paris, Berlin and Washington bureaus – all
thought that wrong topics were dominating the news and that we were
following the standards of the news agencies too slavishly….
The
common idea about correspondents is that they ‘have the story’…but
the reality is that the news is a conveyor belt in a bread factory.
The correspondents stand at the end of the conveyor belt, pretending
we’ve baked that white loaf ourselves, while in fact all we’ve
done is put it in its wrapping….
Afterwards,
a friend asked me how I’d managed to answer all the questions
during those cross-talks, every hour and without hesitation. When I
told him that, like on the TV-news, you knew all
the
questions in advance, his e-mailed response came packed with
expletives. My friend had relalized that, for decades, what he’d
been watching and listening to on the news was pure theatre.
In other
words, the typical correspondent is in general not able to do
independent research, but rather deals with and reinforces those
topics that are already prescribed by the news agencies – the
notorious “mainstream effect”.
In
addition, for cost-saving reasons many media outlets nowadays have to
share their few foreign correspondents, and within individual media
groups, foreign reports are often used by several publications –
none of which contributes to diversity in reporting.
Further
info, references, sources:
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