Fake News: Media and War (Part 3)

British historian David Cannadine has rightly stated, “The older I get the more I’m convinced that it’s the purpose of politicians and journalists to say the world is very simple, whereas it’s the purpose of historians to say, ‘No! It’s very complicated.’” 
 
If you think getting to the truth is complicated in peacetime, it is even worse in of times of war. The following are some final thoughts on the media and war. More specifically, there are three periods and two issues that need to be noted.

 Three Periods
 
There are three very obvious stages to the media’s coverage of war: before, during, and after a conflict. Each stage has unique features, pressures, and intentions, and media must be understood with those contexts in mind:

• Before: explanation of tensions, justification of war effort, win over popular support for possible military action
• During: information to bolster war effort, unite nation, and ensure morale
• After: validate results, console the grieving, look to future

Any responsible engagement with media and war will take those three periods seriously, and weigh claims being made accordingly. 
 
Two Issues
 
1. Complexity
 
Only a fool or partisan hack (sometimes one and the same) reads wartime media without recognizing the complexity at hand. While being in a democracy rather than a dictatorship makes for a more relatively trustable media, even in democracies wartime governments invoke measures that include censorship.[1] Perhaps one particular danger in democracies is the naivety of citizens who believe that their government and media can be trusted. In any case, the following is a list of some considerations related to complexity and wartime media:

• Censorship hides

• Propaganda distorts and deceives 
• Governments deflect and lie
• Politicians posture
• Communications are closed or limited
• Foreign or private media outlets carry out their subtle and covert work
• State broadcasters follow the lead of government
• Partisan media outlets feed their flocks with the party line
• Access to sources is limited or denied[2]

 
The realty of these complexities requires considerable and careful due diligence among media consumers. However, despite how these complexities cloud issues, perhaps an even greater influence on how Christians “get to the truth” in media is related to their pre-conceived loyalties and how those loyalties cloud their vision.
 
2. Loyalties

Christians have two foremost dual loyalties; one is their Christian identity, the other is their national identity. Both evoke strong emotions and both appeal to identities deeply rooted in history, tradition, family, and ethnicity. Both are legitimate to hold and to celebrate, yet they are not equal in claims of allegiance. Some churches have the Christian flag and the national flag on the platform or dais, mounted side by side, at the same height, as a visual recognition of such dual loyalties. The problem with such a display is that Christians have often misunderstood or ignored the fact that those dual allegiances should not have an equal appeal in terms of allegiance. To use a modern phrase, Christians have dual citizenship: good citizens, appreciative of nation, loyal to the rulers, but their ultimate loyalty lay elsewhere. Or, stated more succinctly, “Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not.”
 
And Christians must engage wartime media with these competing loyalties in mind. Even in the midst of “jingoism.”
 
The word “jingoism” comes from the chorus in a tune sung in late-Victorian British pubs and music halls as concerns rose in Britain over Russia’s advances against the Ottomans: “We don’t want to fight, but jingo if we do, we got the ships, we got the men, we got the money too.” Jingoism is the phenomenon of a zealous passion for war, a zeal for battle, and a decidedly uncritical appraisal of the justice of the cause and the horrors of combat. In other words, a mindless but zealous hyper-patriotism. It is marked by such conduct as shouting down opponents, drowning out opposition in parliament by singing the national anthem, mass demonstrations in the street, intense polarization of political opinions, ardent enthusiasm for enlistment, and woefully biased media.

So what is to be done? 

• Realizing your ultimate loyalty is to Christ is essential. 
• Recognizing truth in the midst of a jingoistic and politicized media entails discernment. 
• Rejecting media’s wartime biases requires courage – for looming on the horizon for those who question the party-line is the accusation of being unpatriotic, the alienation of friends, the loss of employment, the destruction of property, the risk of arrest, the threat of mob violence. 

 
It is sometimes easier to “just drink the Kool Aid”,[3] wave the flag, pay the party dues, and believe whatever you read or hear in the media. But the Christian way requires more.  In the words of David Bentley Hart, “It is good to be reminded from time to time – good for Christians, that is – that their relations with the liberal democratic order can be cordial to a degree,  but are at best provisional and fleeting, and can never constitute a firm alliance; that here they have no continuing city; that they belong to a kingdom not of this world; and that, while they are bound to love their country, they are forbidden to regard it as their true home.”

(This is blog post #4 in the series entitled “Christians, War, and Violence: Reflections on Possible Futures”.)
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[1] Even in peacetime  censorship can be a problem in a democracy. See  https://www.thoughtco.com/how-media-censorship-affects-the-news-you-see-2315162
[2] In many cases, the information can only be made available in archives in the decades following the war. See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nixon-prolonged-vietnam-war-for-political-gainand-johnson-knew-about-it-newly-unclassified-tapes-suggest-3595441/
[3] Sadly, many assume that the other side has “drunk the Kool Aid” and have never considered the possibility that maybe they have too – just a different colour.