BBC News Online: Special Report

Analysis: Piercing the propaganda

It is sometimes said that the first casualty of war is truth, and recent events in the Balkans seem to reinforce that view.

The mass expulsion of journalists from Yugoslavia may have been justified as a crucial step in preserving state security but to the waiting world it looked like a ham-fisted attempt to manipulate the news.

Although some foreign journalists were left operating in Belgrade and Pristina, as well as local staff, reliable sources are scarce and Western media were set to face great difficulties in obtaining accurate, verifiable reports.

But the expulsion order was rescinded on Friday and the BBC's World Affairs Editor, John Simpson, says Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic now seems to have been persuaded that the decision to expel the journalists was a mistake.

Past masters of spin

Not that this is a totally one-way street, says Michael Bromley, a lecturer in journalism at Cardiff University.

It is well recognised that since the Gulf War, America, and to a lesser degree the other Western nations, are past masters at "spinning" a conflict such as this.

The difference, says Mr Bromley, is between two different types of propaganda.

For the United States "it's the Gulf War all over again," he says, outlining their "winning formula of 'propaganda by truth'," or "white propaganda".

"It's got to be a concerted action, that is there has to be more than one state involved in the attacks. It's got to be a demonised opponent, in this case Slobodan Milosovic," he says.

"It's got to be limited, clinical action where your targets are military and definitely not civilian. And it's got to have the support of the people inside the country, in this case I mean the Albanians in Kosovo."

Never say 'no comment'

Presentation is the key, and that means helping meet reporters' demands.

Hence numerous press briefings on the impact of bombing sorties, backed up with military video evidence, maps, charts and interviews with, and photographs of, air force personnel.

"You never say 'no comment' and you never lie, in case you get found out. You just tell the truths you want."

The Serbian authorities initial decision to expel more than 100 journalists is a reminder that not all states wish to play an open hand.

To a "critical and informed" news-hungry public, such as the British people, it simply fuels suspicions that they have something to hide, says Mr Bromley, who observed the media close up during a visit to Yugoslavia last year.

Iraqi lessons

Even Iraq, which is viewed by the West as a relatively closed society, did not partake in this sort of "black propaganda", he says.

"The Iraqis were much more informed by the models we have in the West compared to the Serbs, who seem to be more informed by the old Soviet model."

During the bombing of Baghdad last December, the Iraqi authorities worked with Western media to relay their side of story around the world.

For many journalists in Yugoslavia, it's been a wholly different story. Many were harassed and threatened with physical violence before being escorted out of the country.

Local radio stations and newspapers have been shut down, although one consistently independent voice from inside Yugoslavia, Radio B92, has continued to broadcast on the Internet.

Patriotic backing track

Meanwhile, the state-controlled media has remained on air. State-run television has been showing film of soldiers in training and on field exercises, set to a stirring patriotic song.

This will rest better with the rural population than those in urban centres, says Mr Bromley.

"There are massive differences between urban and rural communities in Yugoslavia. Those in towns and cities are much more in the Western mould, and want various stories to complete the picture," he says.

"The people in the countryside are happy to rely on just one version. That is what they have been used to for so many years."

As hostilities deepen and the propaganda machines on both sides continue to pump out their preferred versions of events, the job of the journalist to seek a truthful account is getting ever-more difficult.

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Kosovo mass grave unearthed
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