The web at war

As America's media slavishly back their President on Iraq, the public is going online for more balanced views, says Andy Goldberg

More than 30 years ago, pictures of corpses and body bags on television in the United States helped to turn political opinion against the Vietnam War. Now, as the world's military superpower embarks on another foreign adventure, Americans at home are seeking out more anti-war pictures and opinions – not from their media, which declines to show them, but from the internet.

Faced with the jingoism of the cable news stations CNN and Fox, rabid right-wing views on talk radio and the hesitancy of the liberal print media to criticise the government, millions of Americans are using the net to tap in to overseas news sources. Ironic, really, for a medium that was seeded as a Pentagon project around the time the Vietnam War ended. It's a big change from the last Gulf War, when in January and February 1991 CNN was the closest thing to a global information source. Now, the internet provides an unlimited supply of information, updated round the clock.

Larry Pryor, the executive editor of Online Journalism Review, says the internet has become the essential tool in America for promoting alternative viewpoints about the war. "The mainstream press is timid and seems to be going along with the [Bush] administration almost as a reflex," he says. "The public want a broad range of views and reflections – and are roaming out of the US's boundaries to get them."

Pryor credits the darling of the internet, Google, whose Google News page (http:// news.google.com/, introduced a year ago) is one of the fastest-growing news sites. It provides a continuously updated selection of major stories from online sites around the world: you are likely to see stories from the Hindustan Times, China's People's Daily, the Toronto Star, The Sydney Morning Herald, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo, Deutsche Welle, the BBC and others.

Google won't divulge its methods for selecting stories. But according to Pryor, the very fact that so many international pieces are featured proves that this is what the audience wants. Google's algorithms, he explains, continually check stories' popularity. "The traffic dictates the algorithm, and it effectively allows the audience to control the selection," he says.

A glance at US television makes it obvious why people are seeking an alternative. On Fox and CNN, reporters extol the hi-tech weapons in the US arsenal. Former generals lead the pundits, and anchors talk routinely of the ease with which the troops will sweep through Iraq. In the back rooms, executives rub their hands at the improved ratings that war (with pictures channelled from the front by the Pentagon) will bring. Network TV is little better: ABC showcased its latest reality TV series, Profiles From the Frontline, which looked like an hour-long recruitment ad for the US military.

"Compared with their foreign counterparts, the 'liberal' US media are strikingly conservative – and in this case hawkish," the commentator Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times. "US cable news, in particular, seems to be reporting about a different planet than the one covered by foreign media." Complaints such as this help to explain why BBC Online has seen a 15 per cent spike in traffic from the US since January. "The BBC is a very attractive alternative," Pryor says. "Anecdotally, it seems the Beeb is attracting a large audience because we see its coverage as more neutral and critical of the US."

The site's editor, Mike Smartt, says BBC Online's increase in ratings is almost certainly due to the build-up to war. "The stories that are about impending hostilities tend to be at top of the index. User feedback from the US in particular shows that people want a more balanced and less US-centric view."The Independent's Middle East correspondent, Robert Fisk, known for his robust views on American foreign policy, has also built up a reputation with US web surfers, and that has shown up in visits to The Independent's site, where his pieces appear. "Since the 'axis of evil' speech last September, overall page impressions are up by 15 per cent," says David Felton, The Independent's online editor. "There have been striking increases in the same period in our Argument channel [where editorials, columnists and commentators appear] and our bulletin boards – up 35 per cent and more than doubled respectively. We know that around one-third of our page impressions come from America."

Not just geeks are logging on. A poll by the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) showed that more than 70 per cent of Americans regularly use the internet and regard it as their most important information source. "Incredible as it may seem, for the vast majority of America that uses online technology, the internet has surpassed all other major information sources in importance after only about eight years as a generally available communications tool," said Jeffrey Cole, the director of the UCLA Center for Communication Policy.

Marc Ash, who runs the alternative news website Truthout.org, regularly links to overseas news sites. He describes the US press as isolationist and monolithic, and says that providing a wider perspective has led to Truthout growing exponentially – to 15 million page-views a month. "Our budget isn't equal to the Fox News lunch tab, but we grew 33 per cent in February," he said. "The more overseas coverage we have the better it is for our ratings."

With so many alternative views aired on the web, Pryor believes it is just a matter of time before the mainstream US media are forced to take notice. "The US media is in the grip of war fever," he says. Now, as polls show the public increasingly hesitant about President Bush's policies, "editors are starting to have second thoughts".

Pentagon chiefs are aware of the implications of this change. In the last Gulf War and in the Balkans they severely limited media access to the fighting, and were able to maintain control of key information. This time they know that such control is not possible, and have opted to "embed" about 500 journalists with military units in a bid to counteract Iraqi "propaganda".

Their calculations seem spot on. On current form, American journalists are unlikely to take a critical view of their soldiers' actions – especially when they share the same food, dugouts and experiences as them. It will be up to non-US journalists to tell the more balanced story. And the web will get those versions round the world. The Pentagon may win on the ground and on TV, but the war on the web will be very different.