76 Zombie Media
was, at this stage, merely a nascent factor, but in subsequent years, the
fact that mainstream media had not represented wider dissent with the
2003 invasion would come to be viewed as a contributing factor to increasing distrust in its role.
This was perhaps most poignantly felt at first not in the case of US media but in Britain, where the preparation of a dossier entitled Iraq – Its
Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation was used
by both American and British governments to bolster the case for war
in Iraq. The British media was not entirely compliant – a Channel 4
news item presented by Julian Rush in February 2003 used the phrase
“dodgy dossier” (first employed by Spiked magazine) to draw attention
to the fact that much of the information in the dossier had been plagiarised from a PhD student’s article. As Ibrahim Al-Marashi, whose
article was the source of much of the British government’s information,
wrote in 2006, the role of a government being caught in the act of such
plagiarism was unprecedented, although the media consistently misreported what had been plagiarised and what its effects were.
10
Yet, the
Blair government doubled down on the importance of its intelligence
in supporting the 2003 invasion. When the BBC defence correspondent
Andrew Gilligan reported in May of that year that the dossier had been
“sexed up”, particularly with regard to a claim that Saddam Hussein
could deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes (adding in an
article for The Mail on Sunday that it had been Number 10’s Director
of Communications, Alistair Campbell, who had been responsible for
inserting that claim), the government began to systematically attempt
to discredit BBC sources, such as Dr David Kelly, who had provided
Gilligan with important information. In the subsequent judicial inquiry
into the suicide of Kelly, chaired by Lord Hutton, the government was
cleared of wrongdoing and the BBC severely criticised.
And yet, while the British government had been ostensibly cleared, the
British public remained sceptical in many instances. As the first Internet war, there were increasing opportunities to present alternative views
more easily than in previous conflicts, and online sources such as the
Dr David Kelly blog (http://dr-david-kelly.blogspot.co.uk) began to offer
contrasting views to official sources (albeit often drawing on mainstream
media reports by those correspondents who were themselves critical of
the government’s role). While the mainstream media in the UK at least
did offer potential resistance to the British government’s official line, the
chilling effect of the Hutton Inquiry following its castigation of the BBC
(with the resignations of the Chairman of Governors, Gavyn Davies,
and the Director General, Greg Dyke) was felt much more widely.
11
The
more immediate effect was a loss of trust in Tony Blair and his Labour
government, but the fact that respectable news organisations were also
bruised in this encounter contributed to their diminishment in the public eye. Very few, if any, mainstream news outlets emerged with much
was, at this stage, merely a nascent factor, but in subsequent years, the
fact that mainstream media had not represented wider dissent with the
2003 invasion would come to be viewed as a contributing factor to increasing distrust in its role.
This was perhaps most poignantly felt at first not in the case of US media but in Britain, where the preparation of a dossier entitled Iraq – Its
Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation was used
by both American and British governments to bolster the case for war
in Iraq. The British media was not entirely compliant – a Channel 4
news item presented by Julian Rush in February 2003 used the phrase
“dodgy dossier” (first employed by Spiked magazine) to draw attention
to the fact that much of the information in the dossier had been plagiarised from a PhD student’s article. As Ibrahim Al-Marashi, whose
article was the source of much of the British government’s information,
wrote in 2006, the role of a government being caught in the act of such
plagiarism was unprecedented, although the media consistently misreported what had been plagiarised and what its effects were.
10
Yet, the
Blair government doubled down on the importance of its intelligence
in supporting the 2003 invasion. When the BBC defence correspondent
Andrew Gilligan reported in May of that year that the dossier had been
“sexed up”, particularly with regard to a claim that Saddam Hussein
could deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes (adding in an
article for The Mail on Sunday that it had been Number 10’s Director
of Communications, Alistair Campbell, who had been responsible for
inserting that claim), the government began to systematically attempt
to discredit BBC sources, such as Dr David Kelly, who had provided
Gilligan with important information. In the subsequent judicial inquiry
into the suicide of Kelly, chaired by Lord Hutton, the government was
cleared of wrongdoing and the BBC severely criticised.
And yet, while the British government had been ostensibly cleared, the
British public remained sceptical in many instances. As the first Internet war, there were increasing opportunities to present alternative views
more easily than in previous conflicts, and online sources such as the
Dr David Kelly blog (http://dr-david-kelly.blogspot.co.uk) began to offer
contrasting views to official sources (albeit often drawing on mainstream
media reports by those correspondents who were themselves critical of
the government’s role). While the mainstream media in the UK at least
did offer potential resistance to the British government’s official line, the
chilling effect of the Hutton Inquiry following its castigation of the BBC
(with the resignations of the Chairman of Governors, Gavyn Davies,
and the Director General, Greg Dyke) was felt much more widely.
11
The
more immediate effect was a loss of trust in Tony Blair and his Labour
government, but the fact that respectable news organisations were also
bruised in this encounter contributed to their diminishment in the public eye. Very few, if any, mainstream news outlets emerged with much