"You can win the battle but lose the war if you don't handle the story right."

General Colin Powell in a speech to the National Defence University, 1990.

Both the Gulf War and the Falklands War were extremely different not only in how they were fought but also how the media covered them. In this paper there will be an examination of how the media performed with particular reference to the British Media in the Falkland's and the American Media in the Gulf.

It is widely accepted that relations between the military and the media suffer from friction and at wartime this even more true. This it has been argued is due to the fundamental differences between the military and the media. The media sees publicity as the way to its success, whereas for the military secrecy is essential to the success of its operations. For the military information and the control of it is seen as a weapon (1). The British media suffered several problems in covering the Falklands. First of all there was the location of the islands. Being 8,000 miles away from the United Kingdom and more than 400 miles away from the nearest landmass and also being s

15: Jeffrey Walsh (ed.),The Gulf War Did Not Happen: Politics, Culture and Warfare Post-Vietnam, (Arena, 1995), pg.143

In both conflicts there was lack of critical media discourse. In Britain this was due t tight control of the media by the government and a highly patriotic press. There were no firm government controls over the media in the U.S however due to legislation they're protecting the freedom of the press. But the media was reluctant to criticise a war, which may prove popular with the public and therefore cause it to lose readers or viewers and therefore profits. Both conflicts saw the presence of the armchair strategist. Although they originated in the Falklands War it was in the gulf that they really came in to prominence. However the U.S military keen not to repeat the mistakes the way the British military was affected by them asked its former officers to talk only in very general terms and not to talk about operations the coalition may carry out and to present a positive view of warfare. This, it has been argued, is why the coalition doctrine of AirLand battle was never fully explained and why the public were largely ignorant of how the ground war was waged.

Bradley S. Greenberg and Walter Grantz (ed.), Desert Storm and the Mass Media, (Hampton:1993

In the years following the Falklands War the U.S military took on board the lessons learned by the British. The American invasion of Grenada in 1983 went unseen as the U.S government excluded correspondents from the proceedings. It was argued that people who thought that the media were responsible for the American defeat in Vietnam (9) handled the media in the Falklands and Grenada. In the Panama invasion the U.S government instituted the press poll system. This allowed the U.S military to keep the media away from the battle action for the whole of the first day, which proved to be the most decisive day of the whole campaign. Also it enabled the U.S military to keep the press confined to a military base for the following few days. The pool system was established, it has been argued, because it was perceived by the military that critical reporting led to the U.S defeat in Vietnam. As the media was not able to determine the number of civilian deaths or the extent of the damage caused by the invasion it was in the military's eyes a great success in media relations and became the model that was utilised during the Gulf War (10). During the Gulf War the control of the news and other information became one of the main tasks of the Pentagon and the military tightly controlled both access to and content of the news. It has been argued that this is one of the most intense examples of news management and the manufacturing of public opinion in American history (11). Correspondents that were perceived to be critical of the war were not allowed to join accredited press pools or interview senior military officials. However those that did toe the line were given interviews and were accredited. This was, it has been argued, as the military was more concerned about its image and avoiding any criticism rather than legitimate national security reasons. The military was able to review all reports written and footage filmed by accredited correspondents in theatre prior to publication or transmission. This was it is claimed due to security reasons but in effect the military was exercising censorship similar to that exercised by the British in the Falklands. This effectively led to a block of all critical commentary coming from the Persian Gulf. The reason given for this censorship was that there was a very real fear among the military that open and unrestricted reporting would reveal the coalitions plans to the enemy. However the U.S government saw the co-operation of the media as essential in maintaining public support for the war. Military planners took this one step further and openly admitted after the war that they used the media as a weapon of psychol

Some common words found in the essay are:
Gulf War, President Bush, Schedule Notices, Falklands War, United Kingdom, Grenada Panama, Iraq January, Persian Gulf, Media Gulf, Iraqi Authorities, gulf war, falklands war, united kingdom, military media, crimea falklands, task force, british media, war media, american media, ed gulf war, et al, gulf war assessed, storm mass media, desert storm mass, gosal conflict falklands,
Approximate Word count = 3177
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)