Black, white but mostly gray
by Peter Preston Posted Thu, Jan 1 2004
Most of us know instinctively where freedom's bottom lines are drawn. We know about laws that stink, about persecutions that stick in the craw, about abominations that put journalists' lives at risk. But what about those other lines drawn mistily through the gray terrain of Maybeland? What happens when nothing is clear? Welcome to the lost city of Perhapsopilis.
Britain and America still wander in this twilight zone and may do so for years to come. Was it right to go to war with Iraq in pursuit of much awesome weaponry that now doesn't quite seem to exist? We appoint judges and learned committees to answer these questions. What if we decline to accept their conclusions, just as the British press has declined to accept Lord Hutton's?
Welcome to Grayville. In the long ago autumn of 2003, Hutton was a distinguished and commanding judge, a fearless seeker after truth. But come midwinter 2004, controversy arises when he releases a report concerning the death of Dr. David Kelly, a man known for actively hunting down weapons of mass destruction. Suddenly, Hutton's a government lackey, clearing Downing Street of all possible blame in the most blameless of possible worlds. Stand back and ponder. Where on earth has that sacred line gone?
Maybe Hutton had too narrow a remit, but nobody agrees what a proper remit could be. Perhaps he was overly hard on the BBC, showing a pretty typical judicial antipathy toward journalists. But didn't the journalist in question, Andrew Gilligan, make an egregious error?
What could be worse than an authoritative state broadcasting system saying that the prime minister's chief press aide has knowingly inserted lies into a document making the case for war — then admitting it got that wrong? And yet, in turn, what's more histrionic than the same press secretary on the rampage, making a tactical row when he could, and did, let other such stories pass with a shrug?
We are not, in short, carving truth on tablets of stone here. We're merely rattling around in an argument that no report, no Warren or any other commission, will ever lay to rest. And that raises the most difficult of reporting and editing questions. Where is independence when no consensus on basic facts exist? Hutton tells us some of what happened. He does not and cannot tell us how much stress to lay on particular events and outcomes.
So the mist gathers. Journalists remember their first thought and stick to it. If you reckoned the war was just, and Bush and Blair justified in waging it, then you back Hutton against the BBC. If you thought the war was wrong, then Hutton is a whitewash and the BBC stands much traduced. Very clinical and comforting. You were right all along, whoever you were, whatever you believed.
But isn't journalism supposed to be more than that? Slowly, in Britain and to some degree in America, that question has come to dominate the thinking of many editors. What is the duty of the journalist — the unelected journalist — and the line that we must tread with elected politicians?
We're for democracy, of course. Democracy and press freedom go hand in hand. Naturally that doesn't mean we have to support whoever gets elected. We still retain our right to independent thought. But does that, equally, mean we have an unfettered license to attack, never making allowances or trying to understand?
Yet there, in a way, was where the British debate paused for breath. Of course some implacable opposition papers did nothing but oppose and construct their own version of British public opinion to sustain their charges. But who was balancing that predictable antipathy? Not the papers who might have been expected to rally round? Their own opposition to the war appeared to have set them running on grooved lines. And even if the BBC wasn't exactly biased, maybe it had possessed the keenest of possible interests in weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps so much so that it followed the story, which was also its own story of inner turmoil, with great prominence and in huge detail.
Weapons of mass destruction were very important, without doubt. But were they the dominant issue for months on end, always miring the Prime Minister whenever he tried to break free?
Was that fair enough; was it the job of any good reporting organization? Or was it way out of balance, dragging democracy down into a sea of cynicism?
The moment you stop and start to ponder is the moment the questions proliferate. Some things are easy. The bullying of the BBC before, during and since can be swiftly condemned. The political malignities of some press critics brook scant defense. But it's the bits in the middle that spread doubt and sorrow.
The task for journalists in the second Gulf War was reporting the facts of the conflict, analyzing the outcome and necessities for intervention, concluding where victory lay. Getting the facts straight was hard enough, but the analysis — political, military, moral — that followed was almost impossible. We could only try our best.
And there, in a sentence, you have the missing ingredient: humility. We can honestly, passionately believe we're right — as long as we know in our hearts that we may be wrong.
Peter Preston
Global Journalist columnist Peter Preston is editorial director of the Guardian Media Group and was the chairman of IPI from 1995 to 1997.