Wall-to-wall war and the image problem

CNN's Chris Cramer on the editorial and ethical dilemmas faced by TV news channels

We're over two weeks into the war in Iraq and I have many more grey hairs than I did at the start. The consolation is that I'm not the only one.

News broadcasters around the world are struggling with a new set of ethical and journalistic issues as they continue to provide 24-hour coverage.

The first week showed that the latest technology, and the co-operation of the US and British military, could deliver memorable live coverage of what looks the fiercest ground war since World War II. But with it came the potential of terrifying trench warfare and tank battles and the real likelihood of death and injury in front of our eyes.

This enhanced coverage poses a dilemma: how to weigh any editorial value in broadcasting death in a war against the tragic reality of that carnage on the screen, especially as live transmission may be picked up by the friends and families of those being filmed.

Many broadcasters, including CNN, have the capacity to delay live video to air, normally to avoid abusive callers on phone-ins. Now we have put the same technology in place to give us an override button if our live coverage becomes too gruesome. We came very close to that point when live interviews were interrupted by "incoming fire", and during terrifying footage of intense fire fights in places like Umm Qasr. More recently, we actually used video delay on live reports from CNN correspondent Walter Rodgers as he travelled with US forces towards Baghdad.

I know some of our critics will say that such interruptions or delays can only be due to editors distorting the truth for sinister political ends. But the conflict in Iraq has made a new generation of television editors face up to the problem that while the range of images empowers them, it also places huge responsibilities on their shoulders. One "embedded" reporter has already drawn criticism after a bizarre display on live TV in which he sketched the battle plan in the sand in front of US viewers.

Scenes like this highlight both the advantages and the disadvantages of continuous TV news. Can it generate more "heat" than "light" ? Do we engage in a pinball game in which we bounce from one live event to another, rarely pausing to point up the significance and the context?

There have been times in the past few weeks when the enormity of the events unfolding, frequently live, on our screens has overwhelmed the most experienced TV editors and newsroom managers.

Our critics rushed to judgement in the first week of the war when some Arab TV stations, including the widely available Al-Jazeera, ran lengthy interrogations of five US prisoners of war together with gruesome video of the bodies of others, some apparently after execution. Their decision to broadcast in full, without any prior warning, meant newsrooms around the world were faced with not just having to juggle the editorial imperative with the feelings of the families involved, but also cultural, political and censorship issues.

Some broadcasters ignored what most of us believe is the first principle of TV journalism: that just throwing material on the air without both- ering to examine its veracity is an abdication of our duty. Others, like CNN and the BBC, decided against such knee-jerk broadcasting. We gave time in the US and UK for families to be informed. We edited out the more gruesome parts of the material. And then we broadcast it. We lost nothing in the process.

Just 24 hours later, broadcasters were tested again with the release of footage that showed, apparently, the mutilated bodies of two British soldiers, together with two men claimed by some to be British POWs. After due pause we decided to obscure the dead soldiers' faces and transmit this image.

As for the so-called "POWs", our instincts told us that soldiers are rarely captured in civilian clothing, and never have long hair. We held the pictures until we were able to determine that they were, in fact, aid workers.

In the past week, our decisions have centred on appropriate coverage of civilian casualties. Once again, some Arab TV stations decided to show endless, unedited pictures of the dead and injured. Broadcasters like CNN and the BBC have long believed that the horror of war can be portrayed without gratuitous images, but our critics accuse us of censorship and add that this is not simply an issue of professional ethics but more one of culture. Audiences in the Arab world and elsewhere, they argue, are more used to seeing these images and apparently less sensitive. And none of us should overlook the risks that many Arab journalists are taking to bring the story to their audiences.

Either way, there is no text- book for covering the events in Iraq. Broadcast news editors will often need to make snap judgements based on experience and instinct. They could do well to heed the words of a BBC editor covering the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. He said that broadcast news "must reserve the right to shock the audience ... and use it sparingly."

I believe that editorial integrity is never defined by how many gratuitous images can be transmitted, or how much breaking news we can all throw on to air. The audience deserves and expects better. I think we will be judged on the quality of the journalism, the accuracy, the sensitivity and the tone. Only on that basis will we be able to assess if we have met the challenges of the first live TV war.

Chris Cramer is president of CNN International Networks.