Back in my younger more radical days I used to listen to Radio Moscow to an extent that, on reflection, shows I should have got out more. The main presenter of the English language service was Doris Maxina. Each evening she would bring great news about the triumphs of Soviet industry, the passionate desire for peace of the peoples of the USSR and the exciting new Soviet constitution which guaranteed just about every civil and religious liberty a growing boy could want. I can’t hear the BBC’s defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt without being reminded of Doris.
The BBC’s reporting of Afghanistan gives a very convincing impression of having been scripted by the Ministry of Defence. My recollection is that it was not quite so lachrymose when British soldiers used to get killed in the north of Ireland. Now it’s all identikit earnest tributes from senior officers which you can make at home by randomly shuffling the words “loyal”, “strong”, good humoured”, “well liked, resolve”, “sadly missed”, and “professional”. This is accompanied by earnest looks and weird hand gestures from the newsreaders.
It’s probably unfair to single out one journalist for being more sycophantic, uncurious and partisan than any other but Wyatt intrudes on my mornings in a way the others don’t. She was on the radio earlier in the week interviewing Brigadier Tim Radford who commands the imperialist forces occupying Helmand. If Victoria Beckham’s publicist had written the questions for an interview with a celebrity gossip magazine they would have been more penetrating than what Wyatt came up with. So accepting is her interrogation that it’s reproduced in full by the UK Forces Media Ops team, the army unit tasked with propaganda management.
- The news of more casualties came out yesterday. What does that do to morale amongst British forces here in Afghanistan?
- There have been, though, so many losses. Your brigade knew that it would be a tough tour, it has proved to be a tough tour but it seems that the weapon of choice for the Taliban now is using improvised explosive devices, devices that are hard to find, hard to beat. How can you tackle this threat?
- Counterinsurgency, though, will always be something that’s difficult, something that may take a long time, and above all counterinsurgency is something that demands soldiers to go among the people, to talk to Afghans, to be face to face with them, and so people still do need to be on foot patrol. How can you protect them though under those circumstances or how can they protect themselves, British soldiers, when they’re out there?
How’s that for a no hold barred, let’s get the real picture type of interviewing? She completely accepts the legitimacy of the operation, doesn’t find it odd that these Afghans keep trying to kill British soldiers and defines the mission as counterinsurgency. The mindset is indistinguishable from the British officer corps. This passes for journalism.
By way of contrast Channel 4 has been running a series of reports which feature footage of British soldiers on active service in Afghanistan. Rather unhelpfully it presents the embryonic Afghan army as incompetent and lazy, to the extent that they fall asleep on guard duty while out hunting the Taliban – not something conducive to an old age surrounded by doting grandchildren. The squaddies were in their element swearing loudly at their Afghan companions and blasting the hell out of the local villages.
Which station got closer to the truth?
Liam redux 
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