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What happens to truthduring war is a questionthat journalists andothers have asked for

decades, and one that remains relevant.With newspaper readership in decline,cuts across the industry, the rise ofsocial media, and the 24-hour newscycle, reporting from war zones hasinevitably changed.

The pressure on journalists, local aswell as foreign, is far more intense thanever, and correspondents are no longerseen as neutral or as invulnerable asthey once were. With fewer availableresources, reporters are stretched andhave to serve more

outlets.Changes in technologyhave also altered theindustry. A televisioncrew of three wouldonce arrive with a truck-load of equipment. Nowa lone ranger reporteronly needs a handheldcamera and a satelliteconnection.

Foreign correspondentson the other hand are

often parachuted intoa country they knowlittle about to reporton complex subjectsof which they canonly skim the surface.

Within 30 minutes of arriving they canbe doing a piece to camera from a hotelrooftop before leaving a few days later.

With the advent of social media theworld has opened up at the sametime as the appetite for foreign newshas shrunk. We also consume newsdifferently. Newspaper and magazinecontent was decided by editors and

journalists and delivered to us inbundles. Today disaggregation allowsconsumers to pick and choose thenews they want in the format they wantit. We can also access considered expertanalysis in the blogosphere, as well asnews and opinion from the other side.

New media has given rise to a poten-tially infinite number of new prisms

through which to view war. In partsof the world prone to paranoia andconspiracy theories, social media hasmade things worse.

New media has made sourcing and veri-fication more difficult; technology hasput so much power into the hands ofpeople who can communicate the eventthat it can become the truth.

What came out of Iraq from US andUK soldiers says John Lloyd, contrib-uting editor to the Financial Times andDirector and co-founder of the ReutersInstitute for the Study of Journalism atthe University of Oxford, was often veryinteresting, but of course subjective.

One African-based journalist with arecent string of exclusives acknowl-edges she has got them at a price.There are many parts of the country in

which I operate where the real storiesof war and conflict are happening.

They dont get reported because the

military restricts access, so I cant gowithout a mili tary escort. I have beenable to use my access to position myselfas someone who can get exclusives. Ido some editing and blur the lines tocreate an image that what I have gottenhas been on my terms, when I know ithas not.

She continues: I dont explain to theaudience that I am not in completecontrol and that the itinerary has been

totally dictated by the military. I donttell them that I have been allowed 15minutes and restricted to three streets,and that I am always in their presence.I get the story of the conflict, but whatthe viewer sees is totally manipulated.I cant tell them because I dont wantto undermine my own credibility. As

journalists we are now brands, and Ihave to shape mine. On a positive note,the military in this country has a lot ofpressure on it from the media, and cantdo whatever the hell it likes as it did inthe past.

The truth is no different when it comesto embedding journalists with the British

military, particularly in

Helmand, Afghanistan.Frank Ledwidge is acriminal barrister, aformer Naval reservemilitary intelligenceofficer who has writtentwo books on theBritish militarys role inIraq and Afghanistan.His swingeing criticismis levelled at this systemof embedding, and theBBC for its compliance

with the narrative themilitary and the govern-ment pushed.

Journalists whorequest embeds have tobe cleared by diplomats

or military officers, says Ledwidge, andthey have to sign the Green Book. Thisdocument governs their behaviour. Theyagree as well to their material being

vetted whether its audio, video or pr int .The authorities look for a) informationthat could assist the enemy, under-

standable, and b) bias. Who decides thebias? Some young army officer.

Ledwidge, who has served in theBalkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, refersto the ongoing situation in Helmand,

which was and is a complete mess.The narrative of both the mili taryand the BBC embeds, not necessarilyspecific journalists, was that our boys

were doing a great job, and that wewere winning. The brutal reality isthat, nothing has been achieved and

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nothing has been achieved at very greatcost, he says.

A perfect example is a headline thatran in a 2007 New York Times article:

Marines in Afghanistan have routedTaliban. The article stated that theBritish reported a similar finding.

This was far from the reality. In fact noforeigner could go to the region withoutbeing killed or kidnapped.

That journalists can get caught up inthe story is nothing new. During the

war against the Soviets, western jour-nalists travelling with the Mujahideenlionised resistance leader Ahmad ShahMassoud - hardly objective reporting.

We also have a tendency to paint

people as heroes or villains and to tella simple story, even if it is often verycomplicated.

Ledwidge argues in relation to embedsin Helmand, where the bulk of theBritish forces were based: the BBCfailed to report accurately what wasgoing on. Its their duty and in theircharter, which mandates them to reportindependently, but they have allowedthemselves to be censored and coopted.

There has been no push back, noprotest, no open discussion about the

Green Book.

US reporters rarely do British embedsbecause, as Ledwidge points out, theyhave a quaint belief in freedom ofinformation. US Marines and otherscan talk relatively freely to the press

while Brit ish soldiers are mandated tospeak from a script. If they deviate, ifthey step out of line, he says, they loseany chance of promotion. That speaksto me of fear.

His more recent concern is about Syria.

Very few Brit ish outlets have reportedon the fact that the intelligence usedto make a case against the president,Bashar al-Assad, is to a great extentbased on Israeli signal intercepts. Thismight not invalidate the information,but it needs to be challenged. Weare taking their intel without it beingscrutinised. Why havent we heard thedebate that must be going on within theServices, he asks?

Other ways of controlling the press

can be equally insidious. Just askJean MacKenzie , who reported on thecollateral damage in Helmand, and asa result became persona non grata.MacKenzie believes that in response toher reporting the British governmentpulled the funding for her project,although that cannot be proven. Ahighly respected American journalist,she worked for many years in Afghani-stan as the director of the Institute for

War and Peace Repor ting (IWPR), aninitiative that builds local journalisticcapacity in conflict stricken areas.

The British talk a good game aboutpromoting freedom of the press, but

when push came to shove freedom was

not a good thing if it made them lookbad, says MacKenzie, who works forthe online site GlobalPost. Im not sure

when reporting shifted to propaganda.

There are of course many excellentjournalists who know very well what isgoing on, but some are simply arrogantand others are seduced by access. Its

very seductive to be taken to a battlescene that no one else has access to,or to have an exclusive interview witha high ranking commander, she says.

Reporting through the fog of war can be

especially difficult in a complex placelike Afghanistan where you have toknow about and pick through tribal andethnic loyalties, regional and politicalaffiliations and religious differences.Its also horribly corrupt. Afghans willtell you what you want to hear becauseeveryone is peddling a point of view, andits difficult to unravel when you are inthe middle of a war zone and thinkingabout safety on top of everything else,MacKenzie says.

How do we even choose which wars tocover? Usually they are the ones witheasy access, close to an internationalairport, with nice hotels, and a good barthat you can return to after a hard dayin the field. Thats why Israel-Palestinegets more coverage than Kashmir,says Jonathan Foreman, author of

Aiding and Abetting, a book thatdissects the ineffectiveness of foreignaid. Its much more difficult to accessKashmir, and Congo is never going to

be covered because its uncomfortableand dangerous.

The methods used have also becomemore secret. Nobody could have

covered the attack that killed Osamabin Laden, says Lloyd.

According to him, politicians havebecome anaesthetised to the mediascall of something must be done. Itsnot like it was in the 90s, he adds.Journalists dont have the moralpolemical power to force politicalor military decisions. This has beenreduced significantly.

Social media has become an effec-tive means of organisation - ie, galva-nising many people, letting them know

where to gather for demonstrations,but as a form of propaganda, its toodiffuse, lacking a central, controlledmessage, with too many conflictingand competing agendas. Its capacityto actually set the agenda and winconverts is overplayed. People tend torely on mainstream media rather thansocial media for news.

During the invasion of Iraq in 2003,Major Gen Tim Cross was the mostsenior British officer involved in plan-

ning, briefing then Prime Minister TonyBlair on a number of occasions. Hesays: The medias job is to influenceopinion, but its not going to shapestrategy. Its not good or bad, the media

just is. Its not a conspiracy, although itmay be incompetent at times.

Over time, as journalism moves morecompletely onto the Net, the edgesbetween new media and old media

will blur, says Lloyd . Whether this willmean that objectivity is more difficult,or easier, is a really open question: the

BBC/NY Times mission to tell the truthhas followers in the new media too.

Heidi Kingstone

is London based foreigncorrespondent and

features writer. She haslived in A fghanistan, andreported from Iraq andSudan. She is currently

writing a book on Afghanistan.