The real cost of the coming war

News editors are already setting up expensive operations in Iraq. But deadly problems lie in store, not least the discovery that satellite phone signals attract 'friendly' fire. Richard Tait, former editor-in-chief of ITN, warns of the dangers

The Slovenes are the luckiest people in the Balkans – at the price of a 10-day "war of independence" in 1991 they escaped the clutches of Slobodan Milosevic and the horrors he was to inflict on the unfortunate peoples of the other Yugoslav republics. But the television news editors from around the world who last week took part in the News Xchange conference in the peaceful and prosperous Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, had little time or inclination to reflect on their hosts' good fortune. The talk in the sessions and in private was of war – the "war against terrorism", the conflict in the Middle East and, above all, preparations for what was seen as an inevitable war against Iraq.

Wars put news organisations under intense pressure – testing their resources, their determination and their editorial integrity. The most immediate problems are financial. Wars are expensive – and many of the world's leading broadcasters have been hard hit by the recession. But you have to be in position before any hostilities start. So news editors are already spending money they do not have setting up operations in Iraq, opening offices, hiring local staff and importing their satellite dishes, while paying the Iraqis eye-watering "facility fees" (in dollars, of course) for the privilege.

But the more serious pressures are about editorial integrity. There was a lot of talk about sources of information and censorship. How much would journalists be able to discover about what was really happening – and then, how much would their networks allow them to report? Some of the broadcasters were displaying an alarming willingness to agree to self-censorship. In a session about a hypothetical terrorist attack with a "dirty bomb", cunningly chaired by Geoffrey Robertson QC, four major news organisations – Sky, the BBC, NBC and CNN – all said they would not immediately run a new, genuine and very recent video of Osama bin Laden threatening a new terrorist attack, given the concerns of Western intelligence services that it might contain "hidden messages". In the session, two hours after receiving the video and with bombs exploding across Europe, they were still not showing it to viewers.

It was, of course, only a game – and the over-cautious editors were quickly (and in some cases noisily) disowned by their competitors and their colleagues in the audience. But it was a worrying indication of uncertainty about how their organisations would react in the face of government pressure. When the editors of ITN, BBC News and Sky News discussed the issue of bin Laden videos with Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's press secretary, in Downing Street last year, we politely but firmly refused to agree not to show bin Laden videos for fear of "hidden messages". In a world of internet news and 24-hour news channels (even the Muslim fundamentalist group Hizbollah now runs a news channel with comprehensive coverage of suicide bombers) we thought al-Qa'ida would have little trouble getting its videos broadcast and that government concerns, on both sides of the Atlantic, seemed more about politics than security.

There was an equally disturbing discussion about the pressure on broadcasters to abandon objectivity for reasons of patriotism. Dan Rather, the experienced CBS anchor, was shown in a taped interview conceding that since September 11, the US networks were holding back from any criticism of the Bush administration – he feared for the consequences of what he described as "patriotism run amok". In contrast, Rita Crosby, one of the star presenters of the US Fox network, appeared via satellite from the US wearing a Stars and Stripes badge on her lapel: "I proudly do so," she said.

Fox News (proprietor Rupert Murdoch) is brash, opinionated – and successful. Ms Crosby was sure the two were connected – Fox had become the most-watched US news channel because, as she put it, "we are not afraid to be American". She brushed aside the views of a Pakistani academic who had appeared as a guest on Fox and accused the network of demonising Islam.

The news bulletins were also under pressure over their use of language – an all too familiar minefield for journalists and editors covering any conflict. Do we talk about "British forces" or "our forces"? Is the war against "Iraq" or against "Saddam Hussein"? Do we treat unverifiable information from Allied military briefings with the same scepticism as unverifiable information from Iraqi military briefings? Or do we report that the Allies "say" and the Iraqis "claim"? And who is, and who is not, a terrorist?

These are far from being academic issues – CNN is facing the threat of being thrown off Israeli cable stations because of objections to the way its founder, Ted Turner, used the word terrorism in an interview. The BBC faced fierce criticism for its use of language during the Falklands War. Both the BBC and ITN resisted government pressure to pull their correspondents out of Baghdad during the Gulf War and Belgrade during the Kosovo war because the govern- ment thought, wrongly, their reporting and use of language would favour the enemy.

But above all, the conference was concerned about safety. The increasing hostility of both sides of the conflict in Israel towards Western media underlined the scale of the problem. The International Press Institute's "Death Watch" reported 55 journalists and camera crew killed in 2001 and 36 so far in 2002. Israel has become a potentially lethal place to work, particularly given the hostility of the Israeli authorities to the Palestinian stringers – fixers and camera crews – on whom foreign media depend for coverage of the occupied territories.

In a taped interview, Danny Seaman, the director of the Israeli government press office, said his government did not see the Palestinians as journalists, and advised the media "don't come crying to us" if journalists ran into trouble in closed or dangerous areas. Three journalists (one Italian and two Palestinians) have been killed by Israeli troops this year and many others wounded.

However, reporting the intifada could be a good deal less dangerous than a land war against Iraq. As in the last Gulf conflict, it raises the spectre of the use of chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons. Even with the best safety training and equipment, it is a daunting prospect. Since the last Gulf War, the technology has changed dramatically. In 1991, the correspondents were forced to operate in military pools or stay close to a few fixed satellite dishes. Now the latest digital technology allows teams to strike out on their own into remote areas and send back reports or live coverage.

But this breakthrough comes at a price in terms of safety. Away from the public platforms, there was talk of the potential danger of Allied aircraft attacking the source of a satellite phone signal believing it to be hostile, much as Allied soldiers were the victims of "friendly fire" in the Gulf and Afghan wars. Little wonder, perhaps, that the business cards most in demand at the conference belonged to the safety consultants and military experts. Journalists, like soldiers, know too much about the reality of modern warfare to march towards it with any enthusiasm.

Richard Tait is vice-chairman of the International Press Institute. He was editor-in-chief of ITN from 1995 till July this year