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International Correspondents
Critique of Worldwide Media Coverage
Aired April 30, 2005 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Nic Robertson, in London. Welcome to CNN'S INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS, where we examine how the media are covering the big stories of the moment.
We begin this week with a war that the United States stands accused of bungling, both politically and militarily, and I'm not talking about Iraq but Vietnam. It is 30 years this weekend since Saigon, as it was called then, fell to the North Vietnamese Communists.
This image of a young Vietnamese girl fleeing napalm fire illustrated the horror of the protracted war. It shocked the word. Today, though, such gruesome images are not unusual in the media. During the last Gulf War pictures of gun battles and burning bodies filled our television screens and front pages.
To discuss how reporting conflict has changed over the decades, I'm joined by two correspondents who were in Vietnam. Tracy Wood, who filed for the United Press International, and Richard Blystone, a former CNN war correspondent.
Richard, if I may begin with you, how does the coverage of Vietnam, when you were there, compare to what you see, for example, in Iraq today?
RICHARD BLYSTONE, FMR. VIETNAM CORRESPONDENT: Vietnam coverage was really all over the map, depending on what phase of the war you're talking about. In the beginning, it was notable for a small group of reporters actually putting the lie to what the U.S. administration was trying to put out and attracting some notice.
As the war went on, the press corps swelled and swelled and it became a little more a matter of -- except for the big events of the war, perhaps, like the (INAUDIBLE) Valley in 1965 and the Tet invasion of 1968, that kind of thing. But it was -- reporters on the ground, not like Iraq -- for a number of reasons, the United States, which was trying at first to keep this war secret, allowed reporters to actually get out and report (AUDIO GAP) scary than the war in Iraq right now, reporters were able to actually get up close and ironically to see the horror of war up close.
ROBERTSON: Tracy, what are you recollections of covering Vietnam and how things have changed for how wars are covered now?
TRACY WOOD, FMR. VIETNAM CORRESPONDENT: I think we just touched on it. Part of it is the access. It is not just the danger, which is far greater now, but the military attitude toward access.
Reporters could cover Vietnam. You could go where you felt the story was at any time. The embedded reporters that we've seen in Iraq, I feel, have been a real barrier towards public understanding of what is going on there.
And now, of course, with the situation being so dangerous, I don't think you can just go into a home or shop and just interview somebody they way you could in Vietnam.
ROBERTSON: Tracy, in terms of the substance of what reporters are coming up with in their reporting, has that changed in the last 30 years, war coverage?
WOOD: I think most reporters are the same. They try to do the job the very, very best that they can. I think initially the American public wasn't particularly well served by a lot of the reporting because an awful lot of it was very inexperienced --
ROBERTSON: We're talking here about Vietnam or Iraq?
WOOD: We're talking about Iraq. I think that at the beginning of the Iraq War, that reporters were too tentative. I think they were essentially afraid of their own story in many, many -- too many -- cases. And the initial coverage did not serve the American public well.
ROBERTSON: Richard, what do you think?
BLYSTONE: Well, I think you have to say that the reporters are very, very different.
In Vietnam, for one thing. It was an era when males were subject to the draft. So many, many, many of the American reporters had military experience. I did myself. And they knew something about the military. The military, being not all professional at that stage, knew something about them.
Now the reporters have no experience of the military and, furthermore (AUDIO GAP) for a dozen years to know a great deal about the country and about the war.
ROBERTSON: How does that change the way that the audience is served?
BLYSTONE: You get a more expert view, but, of course (AUDIO GAP) Baghdad is under siege. I mean, I've been under siege in Vietnam and I know that you don't get up and do a lot of reporting when you are under siege.
ROBERTSON: Tracy, do you see a progression to the point where we're at -- where war coverage is at today? And do you see other (AUDIO GAP) that reporting has changed over these 30 years?
WOOD: Part of it obviously is experience. If you are starting fresh every time you have something, you've got to build up your (AUDIO GAP) but I do think that journalism itself has changed an awful lot since Vietnam.
ROBERTSON: Richard, Vietnam was really the first war that was covered extensively by television crews, news stations. What impact did that have on the war? What were the problems that people found? And what was learned, do you think, from that?
BLYSTONE: Well, the television reporters then especially needed more help from the military than they would now because they pack all their own kit now.
So they had to have rides from the military. They had to have help from the military. Here you had three guys, two of whom are linked by (AUDIO GAP). This was film now that we're talking about. The cameramen had to shoot very, very tight, and they were on very strict deadlines with great, great competition between the television networks (AUDIO GAP) get the story, get back to Saigon.
I remember sitting next to Bill Plant on a plane. He's writing his script on a plane going back to Saigon from the front -- and get that thing off to Hong Kong and get it edited and satellited over to the states (AUDIO GAP).
So that meant that the military had to (AUDIO GAP) something and in the end it made a lot of difference (AUDIO GAP) the war. The remember when Walter Cronkite, in 1968 I think it was, went over to Vietnam, had a look at all the promises and what had been achieved, and came back saying he thought it was not going anywhere. President Lyndon Johnson at the time is reported to have said, if I've lost Walter Cronkite, I've lost the nation.
ROBERTSON: Can you imagine a leader today saying that about a journalist (AUDIO GAP)
BLYSTONE: I kind of doubt that, Nic.
ROBERTSON: Richard Blystone in London, thank you very much. Tracy Wood, in Los Angeles, thank you too.
Up next on INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS, a humdrum campaign, apathetic voters, or is the media to blame for Britain's boring elections?
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTSON: Welcome back.
Political celebrations and commiserations are looming in Great Britain as the country gears up for next week's general election. The three-way Blair versus Howard versus Kennedy battle has been described as one of the most dull and passionless campaigns in recent history. (AUDIO GAP) in fact that much of the time broadsheets have been reluctant to put politics on the front page. Broadcasters too have lost viewers with their coverage of the campaign.
Has the ballot box lost its integrity or is the media guilty of focusing on style over substance, thus failing its democratic duty to report?
Joining me now to discuss this further is Roger Mosey, head of BBC News and Graham Bowley, who is covering the elections for the "International Herald Tribune" and the "New York Times." Welcome both.
Roger, let me begin with you. You're in the thick of the battle here. Your primetime news shows, bulletins, are down about 5 percent (AUDIO GAP) figures. Is the audience apathetic here?
ROGER MOSEY, BBC NEWS: Well, it's not a universal picture. Our big flagship bulletins and (INAUDIBLE) are actually up (AUDIO GAP) engage the audience do find a lot (AUDIO GAP) in an election campaign.
I think the real challenge is people who are apathetic about politics, people who feel (AUDIO GAP) politics is not for them, and it has been really difficult getting them into this election campaign in particular.
ROBERTSON: Graham, you're looking at this from the outside, if you will, from an international publication. Are the British broadcasters failing to get it right and energize this for the politicians?
GRAHAM BOWLEY, "INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE": I don't think so. I think they're reflecting what is happening and they're doing quite well, particularly the newspapers I follow. They're getting people stories. I mean, they're dong it in a predictable way, but they're doing it quite well. They're out on the campaign trail telling stories through people, which is a good way to enliven it, and there are great people here in the ongoing battle between Brown and Blair. That's been brought out. And they're covering the issues very professionally as we go along.
ROBERTSON: Do you think it is the responsibility of journalists, though, to make what perhaps the politicians are turning into a very dull campaign -- is it the responsibility of journalists to liven it up and get people out to the polls?
BOWLEY: Share some responsibility, of course, and we have a certain skill and a craft to energize it. And it is the job of the journalist and the editors in their choice of stories.
ROBERTSON: Do you feel that it is the responsibility of the BBC to energize the voters out to the polls for the politicians?
MOSEY: Well, I think we've done a pretty good job of reporting around the U.K., engaging people in interactivity in new ways on our Radio 1, some of our more youth-oriented services. We've done our very best on it.
However, in the end, it is not the responsibility of broadcasters to make people go out and vote. People have a choice about whether they do or don't vote. I think there are two things in an election campaign which make turnout go high. One is, is the race a close race -- and at the moment in Britain it looks at the moment like it has a more predictable outcome than, say, the American elections did.
The second thing is, is there a big difference between the parties. And what you're seeing in Britain is the parties really are fighting overwhelmingly for centigrams. Therefore, as opposed to Bush versus Kerry, which had really big ideological differences between them (AUDIO GAP) is much more consensual than it was 10 or 20 years ago.
ROBERTSON: So what you're really say, whether the politicians will perhaps turn around and say we didn't get a big turnout at the polls, is it is not the fault of the broadcasters, it's the campaign that's being run, the politicians.
MOSEY: (AUDIO GAP) but there is sort of politics of contentment in some Western countries, which is people don't think there is as much at stake.
If you take a British election in 1983, it was about in or out of the European Union. Nuclear weapons or no nuclear weapons. It was about nationalizing 100 companies or privatization. Massive ideological divides. And it really felt to people like it mattered who got in. This time, British parties, if you look at it from an international perspective, they're arguing about 40 or 42 percent of GDP as the share taken by government against a much lower figure in America and a much higher figure in continental Europe.
So there is more of an agreement between the parties than there was.
ROBERTSON: Do you think in terms of the international audience (AUDIO GAP) apathetic about what the outcome of the British elections?
BOWLEY: They have their own preoccupation, certainly. As Roger was saying, on the continent there are two elections at the moment, or two polls. There is the referendum in France and a regional poll in Germany (AUDIO GAP). Very interesting elections where lots is at stake, actually. Sort of Britain 10, 20 years ago.
ROBERTSON: Do you think that one of the problems here is endemic to television news, that you talked about a large segment of the population that is apathetic. Those interested in politics will watch, but there is an increasingly large segment that is not really interested in the news anymore. Is that part of the issue here?
MOSEY: You do have now, in a world of choice, which is a good thing, a world in which (AUDIO GAP) and Internet and everything else. Some people won't come to news. And I think the challenge for all of us as journalists is to say that actually these issues do matter, even if you've got the kind of framework or the coverage (AUDIO GAP) there are real democratic choices at every level that people need to (AUDIO GAP)
ROBERTSON: (AUDIO GAP) for the "International Herald Tribune" and the "New York Times" as well engaging the audience. On a story like this, how do you do it?
BOWLEY: Well, they want to see the story and (AUDIO GAP) traveling. They look at Britain and have (AUDIO GAP) debate was very interesting and we ran a story on that. People remember Thatcher and how the economy (AUDIO GAP) and now actually it's chained onto Blair quite a lot in ways that they didn't perhaps expect and it is our job to tell them that. So, actually, they have kind of closed the gap with Europe in a way, Europeanized in a way by higher public spending and taxes, and perhaps taxes will go further. That's been a very interesting debate.
And I think if you can tell people why it is relevant and it says a lot about their own situations, because they have high taxes and high spending and they're debating about whether to come to the British model, with great fear and trepidation. But that's a great story that I think French and German people and our readers on the continent want to read about.
ROBERTSON: Roger, just very briefly, in a nutshell, before we wrap here, how do you strategize to keep viewers in the future interested in news and future elections?
MOSEY: I think that you will get different shapes of British politics in the next few years, which will probably engage turnout more.
I think for broadcasters we have to keep innovating, keep making sure people are engaged (AUDIO GAP)
ROBERTSON: Roger, thank you very much. Graham, thank you too. Sorry we've run out of time again.
Up next on INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS, they spent 10 days in a cockroach infested cell just for doing their job. We speak to the two British journalists accused of flouting Zimbabwe's archaic media laws.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTSON: Welcome back.
Accused of spying, overstaying and committing journalism, two British journalists are the latest to fall foul of Zimbabwe's Draconian media laws. Toby Harnden and Julian Simmonds where arrested but later acquitted of breaching immigration laws and reporting illegally on the country's parliamentary elections. They spent more than a week in a filthy overcrowded cell near Harare. They're lucky it wasn't longer. In Zimbabwe, foreign journalists are considered agents of imperialism.
For more on their ordeal, Toby joins me now from Washington, D.C., and Julian in here in London.
Julian, let me begin with you, if I may. What happened? How did you fall into this?
JULIAN SIMMONDS, JOURNALIST: Well, we were in the country and trying to find out what was happening in the country, what the mood was on election day, and we happened to be near a polling station. We were unlucky that a local Zanu-PF activist was touring the area and took exception to us being anywhere near the polling station.
ROBERTSON: Toby, did you feel you were taking a risk when you went into Zimbabwe on these tourist visas?
TOBY HARNDEN, JOURNALIST: Yes, we did. It was a calculated risk. I think, you know, in general, every journalist has to make a judgment about the importance of a story and the importance of getting into a place and telling that story and what the dangers are.
Clearly, both Julian and I have been to places like Iraq, where there is a risk of death. This wasn't that kind of risk. As we found out in the end, it was a risk of two years imprisonment. It didn't quite come to that stage, but we felt that it was a risk, but a risk worth taking.
ROBERTSON: Did you have any dark moments when you were in jail where you thought, well, perhaps I really will be here for two years?
HARNDEN: Yes, we did. Yes.
When we first got in there, we both said to each other, well, listen things could be worse. You know, the cockroaches are only an inch long. They could be two inches long. You know, it's not Iraq. We're not going to be beheaded. The maximum is two years.
But no matter how much you tell yourself and tell each other to look on the bright side, you start to think, God, you know, what's my health going to be like if I spend nearly two years in a jail like this. And once -- there were lots of games being played in court. The prosecutor was spinning things out. Witnesses weren't being produced. We were granted bail and then the state told us we couldn't have it. Then we actually got bail, finally, and we were still thrown back into prison.
So at moments like that, we began to think, God, you know, when is this going to end.
ROBERTSON: Why is the risk worth taking? I mean, why is it really important that journalists do this, go into countries where it is very difficult to get in to report freely? Why?
SIMMONDS: Well, like anywhere in the world, if that's where there is a story, journalists should be allowed to work and report on what is happening.
The laws in Zimbabwe are very strict laws about assembly and meeting and the act we were charged under, the Arpa (ph) Act, makes it very difficult for journalists to report on elections. And you have to have permission and you have to be specific about what your reporting. That's not always going to lead to a fair and balanced picture. So if you want to get into where the story is, you have to take a risk, you know, whether it is going down to the frontline in another situation or crossing the Zambezi, as we did.
HARNDEN: I think that every journalist has to make their own decision and every news organization has to make their own decision. It's not easy. If you apply for accreditation, you alerting the Zimbabwean state of your intention to go in there. If you don't get granted accreditation, they know you wanted to go in there. They would put your name on a watch list.
If you subsequently got arrested in the country because you decided to go in another way, on a tourist visa, then there will be on open and shut case against you. But one thing that I do hope doesn't result from our experience is that people don't go in and report about Zimbabwe, because it is very important story. There is a people there that are suffering. There is a country that is close to collapse. And if people -- if journalists were intimidated by what happened to us, then Mugabe would have got what he wanted, I think.
ROBERTSON: Before you went in, did you discuss all of these possibilities and ramifications with your editors? And what did they say to you?
HARNDEN: We have to be slightly careful what we say here because we went in on tourist visas. We were acquitted of the offense of practicing journalism without accreditation, and other journalists have got to go into Zimbabwe, and we were helped by a lot of people in Zimbabwe and defended by very able lawyer, but we always discuss our whereabouts, whether we're on holiday or whether we're going into a country on a story with our editors.
ROBERTSON: Julian, do you feel you have had good support from your news organization since this?
SIMMONDS: We've had tremendous support, and we were lucky that we were able to find a lawyer within hours of our arrest.
ROBERTSON: If you had to go through this again or be faced with making a decision to do such style of work again, would you make that same decision?
SIMMONDS: I would, because you follow the story. You don't expect to go and get into trouble. You take all the precautions you can to ensure that you don't get into trouble, whether it's your health or you're going to get arrested or whatever it might be. But if that's the main story, you want to go and cover it, and that's what drives you as a journalist.
ROBERTSON: Toby, what about you? More cautious now?
HARNDEN: I think if you become risk-averse as a journalist, then that is actually more dangerous and that is probably time to sort of hang up your boots and sit in the newsroom, and I don't think that either Julian or I have reached that stage yet.
ROBERTSON: Toby, on that note, thank you very much indeed. Julian, thank you too for coming into our studios in London.
Two journalists who obviously share the same view as William Randolph Hearst. "News is what someone does not want you to print, and the rest is just advertising."
That's all for this edition of INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS. Tune in again next time for another look at how the media are handling the big issues.
I'm Nic Robertson, thanks for joining us.
END
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Aired April 30, 2005 - 21:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Nic Robertson, in London. Welcome to CNN'S INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS, where we examine how the media are covering the big stories of the moment.
We begin this week with a war that the United States stands accused of bungling, both politically and militarily, and I'm not talking about Iraq but Vietnam. It is 30 years this weekend since Saigon, as it was called then, fell to the North Vietnamese Communists.
This image of a young Vietnamese girl fleeing napalm fire illustrated the horror of the protracted war. It shocked the word. Today, though, such gruesome images are not unusual in the media. During the last Gulf War pictures of gun battles and burning bodies filled our television screens and front pages.
To discuss how reporting conflict has changed over the decades, I'm joined by two correspondents who were in Vietnam. Tracy Wood, who filed for the United Press International, and Richard Blystone, a former CNN war correspondent.
Richard, if I may begin with you, how does the coverage of Vietnam, when you were there, compare to what you see, for example, in Iraq today?
RICHARD BLYSTONE, FMR. VIETNAM CORRESPONDENT: Vietnam coverage was really all over the map, depending on what phase of the war you're talking about. In the beginning, it was notable for a small group of reporters actually putting the lie to what the U.S. administration was trying to put out and attracting some notice.
As the war went on, the press corps swelled and swelled and it became a little more a matter of -- except for the big events of the war, perhaps, like the (INAUDIBLE) Valley in 1965 and the Tet invasion of 1968, that kind of thing. But it was -- reporters on the ground, not like Iraq -- for a number of reasons, the United States, which was trying at first to keep this war secret, allowed reporters to actually get out and report (AUDIO GAP) scary than the war in Iraq right now, reporters were able to actually get up close and ironically to see the horror of war up close.
ROBERTSON: Tracy, what are you recollections of covering Vietnam and how things have changed for how wars are covered now?
TRACY WOOD, FMR. VIETNAM CORRESPONDENT: I think we just touched on it. Part of it is the access. It is not just the danger, which is far greater now, but the military attitude toward access.
Reporters could cover Vietnam. You could go where you felt the story was at any time. The embedded reporters that we've seen in Iraq, I feel, have been a real barrier towards public understanding of what is going on there.
And now, of course, with the situation being so dangerous, I don't think you can just go into a home or shop and just interview somebody they way you could in Vietnam.
ROBERTSON: Tracy, in terms of the substance of what reporters are coming up with in their reporting, has that changed in the last 30 years, war coverage?
WOOD: I think most reporters are the same. They try to do the job the very, very best that they can. I think initially the American public wasn't particularly well served by a lot of the reporting because an awful lot of it was very inexperienced --
ROBERTSON: We're talking here about Vietnam or Iraq?
WOOD: We're talking about Iraq. I think that at the beginning of the Iraq War, that reporters were too tentative. I think they were essentially afraid of their own story in many, many -- too many -- cases. And the initial coverage did not serve the American public well.
ROBERTSON: Richard, what do you think?
BLYSTONE: Well, I think you have to say that the reporters are very, very different.
In Vietnam, for one thing. It was an era when males were subject to the draft. So many, many, many of the American reporters had military experience. I did myself. And they knew something about the military. The military, being not all professional at that stage, knew something about them.
Now the reporters have no experience of the military and, furthermore (AUDIO GAP) for a dozen years to know a great deal about the country and about the war.
ROBERTSON: How does that change the way that the audience is served?
BLYSTONE: You get a more expert view, but, of course (AUDIO GAP) Baghdad is under siege. I mean, I've been under siege in Vietnam and I know that you don't get up and do a lot of reporting when you are under siege.
ROBERTSON: Tracy, do you see a progression to the point where we're at -- where war coverage is at today? And do you see other (AUDIO GAP) that reporting has changed over these 30 years?
WOOD: Part of it obviously is experience. If you are starting fresh every time you have something, you've got to build up your (AUDIO GAP) but I do think that journalism itself has changed an awful lot since Vietnam.
ROBERTSON: Richard, Vietnam was really the first war that was covered extensively by television crews, news stations. What impact did that have on the war? What were the problems that people found? And what was learned, do you think, from that?
BLYSTONE: Well, the television reporters then especially needed more help from the military than they would now because they pack all their own kit now.
So they had to have rides from the military. They had to have help from the military. Here you had three guys, two of whom are linked by (AUDIO GAP). This was film now that we're talking about. The cameramen had to shoot very, very tight, and they were on very strict deadlines with great, great competition between the television networks (AUDIO GAP) get the story, get back to Saigon.
I remember sitting next to Bill Plant on a plane. He's writing his script on a plane going back to Saigon from the front -- and get that thing off to Hong Kong and get it edited and satellited over to the states (AUDIO GAP).
So that meant that the military had to (AUDIO GAP) something and in the end it made a lot of difference (AUDIO GAP) the war. The remember when Walter Cronkite, in 1968 I think it was, went over to Vietnam, had a look at all the promises and what had been achieved, and came back saying he thought it was not going anywhere. President Lyndon Johnson at the time is reported to have said, if I've lost Walter Cronkite, I've lost the nation.
ROBERTSON: Can you imagine a leader today saying that about a journalist (AUDIO GAP)
BLYSTONE: I kind of doubt that, Nic.
ROBERTSON: Richard Blystone in London, thank you very much. Tracy Wood, in Los Angeles, thank you too.
Up next on INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS, a humdrum campaign, apathetic voters, or is the media to blame for Britain's boring elections?
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTSON: Welcome back.
Political celebrations and commiserations are looming in Great Britain as the country gears up for next week's general election. The three-way Blair versus Howard versus Kennedy battle has been described as one of the most dull and passionless campaigns in recent history. (AUDIO GAP) in fact that much of the time broadsheets have been reluctant to put politics on the front page. Broadcasters too have lost viewers with their coverage of the campaign.
Has the ballot box lost its integrity or is the media guilty of focusing on style over substance, thus failing its democratic duty to report?
Joining me now to discuss this further is Roger Mosey, head of BBC News and Graham Bowley, who is covering the elections for the "International Herald Tribune" and the "New York Times." Welcome both.
Roger, let me begin with you. You're in the thick of the battle here. Your primetime news shows, bulletins, are down about 5 percent (AUDIO GAP) figures. Is the audience apathetic here?
ROGER MOSEY, BBC NEWS: Well, it's not a universal picture. Our big flagship bulletins and (INAUDIBLE) are actually up (AUDIO GAP) engage the audience do find a lot (AUDIO GAP) in an election campaign.
I think the real challenge is people who are apathetic about politics, people who feel (AUDIO GAP) politics is not for them, and it has been really difficult getting them into this election campaign in particular.
ROBERTSON: Graham, you're looking at this from the outside, if you will, from an international publication. Are the British broadcasters failing to get it right and energize this for the politicians?
GRAHAM BOWLEY, "INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE": I don't think so. I think they're reflecting what is happening and they're doing quite well, particularly the newspapers I follow. They're getting people stories. I mean, they're dong it in a predictable way, but they're doing it quite well. They're out on the campaign trail telling stories through people, which is a good way to enliven it, and there are great people here in the ongoing battle between Brown and Blair. That's been brought out. And they're covering the issues very professionally as we go along.
ROBERTSON: Do you think it is the responsibility of journalists, though, to make what perhaps the politicians are turning into a very dull campaign -- is it the responsibility of journalists to liven it up and get people out to the polls?
BOWLEY: Share some responsibility, of course, and we have a certain skill and a craft to energize it. And it is the job of the journalist and the editors in their choice of stories.
ROBERTSON: Do you feel that it is the responsibility of the BBC to energize the voters out to the polls for the politicians?
MOSEY: Well, I think we've done a pretty good job of reporting around the U.K., engaging people in interactivity in new ways on our Radio 1, some of our more youth-oriented services. We've done our very best on it.
However, in the end, it is not the responsibility of broadcasters to make people go out and vote. People have a choice about whether they do or don't vote. I think there are two things in an election campaign which make turnout go high. One is, is the race a close race -- and at the moment in Britain it looks at the moment like it has a more predictable outcome than, say, the American elections did.
The second thing is, is there a big difference between the parties. And what you're seeing in Britain is the parties really are fighting overwhelmingly for centigrams. Therefore, as opposed to Bush versus Kerry, which had really big ideological differences between them (AUDIO GAP) is much more consensual than it was 10 or 20 years ago.
ROBERTSON: So what you're really say, whether the politicians will perhaps turn around and say we didn't get a big turnout at the polls, is it is not the fault of the broadcasters, it's the campaign that's being run, the politicians.
MOSEY: (AUDIO GAP) but there is sort of politics of contentment in some Western countries, which is people don't think there is as much at stake.
If you take a British election in 1983, it was about in or out of the European Union. Nuclear weapons or no nuclear weapons. It was about nationalizing 100 companies or privatization. Massive ideological divides. And it really felt to people like it mattered who got in. This time, British parties, if you look at it from an international perspective, they're arguing about 40 or 42 percent of GDP as the share taken by government against a much lower figure in America and a much higher figure in continental Europe.
So there is more of an agreement between the parties than there was.
ROBERTSON: Do you think in terms of the international audience (AUDIO GAP) apathetic about what the outcome of the British elections?
BOWLEY: They have their own preoccupation, certainly. As Roger was saying, on the continent there are two elections at the moment, or two polls. There is the referendum in France and a regional poll in Germany (AUDIO GAP). Very interesting elections where lots is at stake, actually. Sort of Britain 10, 20 years ago.
ROBERTSON: Do you think that one of the problems here is endemic to television news, that you talked about a large segment of the population that is apathetic. Those interested in politics will watch, but there is an increasingly large segment that is not really interested in the news anymore. Is that part of the issue here?
MOSEY: You do have now, in a world of choice, which is a good thing, a world in which (AUDIO GAP) and Internet and everything else. Some people won't come to news. And I think the challenge for all of us as journalists is to say that actually these issues do matter, even if you've got the kind of framework or the coverage (AUDIO GAP) there are real democratic choices at every level that people need to (AUDIO GAP)
ROBERTSON: (AUDIO GAP) for the "International Herald Tribune" and the "New York Times" as well engaging the audience. On a story like this, how do you do it?
BOWLEY: Well, they want to see the story and (AUDIO GAP) traveling. They look at Britain and have (AUDIO GAP) debate was very interesting and we ran a story on that. People remember Thatcher and how the economy (AUDIO GAP) and now actually it's chained onto Blair quite a lot in ways that they didn't perhaps expect and it is our job to tell them that. So, actually, they have kind of closed the gap with Europe in a way, Europeanized in a way by higher public spending and taxes, and perhaps taxes will go further. That's been a very interesting debate.
And I think if you can tell people why it is relevant and it says a lot about their own situations, because they have high taxes and high spending and they're debating about whether to come to the British model, with great fear and trepidation. But that's a great story that I think French and German people and our readers on the continent want to read about.
ROBERTSON: Roger, just very briefly, in a nutshell, before we wrap here, how do you strategize to keep viewers in the future interested in news and future elections?
MOSEY: I think that you will get different shapes of British politics in the next few years, which will probably engage turnout more.
I think for broadcasters we have to keep innovating, keep making sure people are engaged (AUDIO GAP)
ROBERTSON: Roger, thank you very much. Graham, thank you too. Sorry we've run out of time again.
Up next on INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS, they spent 10 days in a cockroach infested cell just for doing their job. We speak to the two British journalists accused of flouting Zimbabwe's archaic media laws.
Stay with us.
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ROBERTSON: Welcome back.
Accused of spying, overstaying and committing journalism, two British journalists are the latest to fall foul of Zimbabwe's Draconian media laws. Toby Harnden and Julian Simmonds where arrested but later acquitted of breaching immigration laws and reporting illegally on the country's parliamentary elections. They spent more than a week in a filthy overcrowded cell near Harare. They're lucky it wasn't longer. In Zimbabwe, foreign journalists are considered agents of imperialism.
For more on their ordeal, Toby joins me now from Washington, D.C., and Julian in here in London.
Julian, let me begin with you, if I may. What happened? How did you fall into this?
JULIAN SIMMONDS, JOURNALIST: Well, we were in the country and trying to find out what was happening in the country, what the mood was on election day, and we happened to be near a polling station. We were unlucky that a local Zanu-PF activist was touring the area and took exception to us being anywhere near the polling station.
ROBERTSON: Toby, did you feel you were taking a risk when you went into Zimbabwe on these tourist visas?
TOBY HARNDEN, JOURNALIST: Yes, we did. It was a calculated risk. I think, you know, in general, every journalist has to make a judgment about the importance of a story and the importance of getting into a place and telling that story and what the dangers are.
Clearly, both Julian and I have been to places like Iraq, where there is a risk of death. This wasn't that kind of risk. As we found out in the end, it was a risk of two years imprisonment. It didn't quite come to that stage, but we felt that it was a risk, but a risk worth taking.
ROBERTSON: Did you have any dark moments when you were in jail where you thought, well, perhaps I really will be here for two years?
HARNDEN: Yes, we did. Yes.
When we first got in there, we both said to each other, well, listen things could be worse. You know, the cockroaches are only an inch long. They could be two inches long. You know, it's not Iraq. We're not going to be beheaded. The maximum is two years.
But no matter how much you tell yourself and tell each other to look on the bright side, you start to think, God, you know, what's my health going to be like if I spend nearly two years in a jail like this. And once -- there were lots of games being played in court. The prosecutor was spinning things out. Witnesses weren't being produced. We were granted bail and then the state told us we couldn't have it. Then we actually got bail, finally, and we were still thrown back into prison.
So at moments like that, we began to think, God, you know, when is this going to end.
ROBERTSON: Why is the risk worth taking? I mean, why is it really important that journalists do this, go into countries where it is very difficult to get in to report freely? Why?
SIMMONDS: Well, like anywhere in the world, if that's where there is a story, journalists should be allowed to work and report on what is happening.
The laws in Zimbabwe are very strict laws about assembly and meeting and the act we were charged under, the Arpa (ph) Act, makes it very difficult for journalists to report on elections. And you have to have permission and you have to be specific about what your reporting. That's not always going to lead to a fair and balanced picture. So if you want to get into where the story is, you have to take a risk, you know, whether it is going down to the frontline in another situation or crossing the Zambezi, as we did.
HARNDEN: I think that every journalist has to make their own decision and every news organization has to make their own decision. It's not easy. If you apply for accreditation, you alerting the Zimbabwean state of your intention to go in there. If you don't get granted accreditation, they know you wanted to go in there. They would put your name on a watch list.
If you subsequently got arrested in the country because you decided to go in another way, on a tourist visa, then there will be on open and shut case against you. But one thing that I do hope doesn't result from our experience is that people don't go in and report about Zimbabwe, because it is very important story. There is a people there that are suffering. There is a country that is close to collapse. And if people -- if journalists were intimidated by what happened to us, then Mugabe would have got what he wanted, I think.
ROBERTSON: Before you went in, did you discuss all of these possibilities and ramifications with your editors? And what did they say to you?
HARNDEN: We have to be slightly careful what we say here because we went in on tourist visas. We were acquitted of the offense of practicing journalism without accreditation, and other journalists have got to go into Zimbabwe, and we were helped by a lot of people in Zimbabwe and defended by very able lawyer, but we always discuss our whereabouts, whether we're on holiday or whether we're going into a country on a story with our editors.
ROBERTSON: Julian, do you feel you have had good support from your news organization since this?
SIMMONDS: We've had tremendous support, and we were lucky that we were able to find a lawyer within hours of our arrest.
ROBERTSON: If you had to go through this again or be faced with making a decision to do such style of work again, would you make that same decision?
SIMMONDS: I would, because you follow the story. You don't expect to go and get into trouble. You take all the precautions you can to ensure that you don't get into trouble, whether it's your health or you're going to get arrested or whatever it might be. But if that's the main story, you want to go and cover it, and that's what drives you as a journalist.
ROBERTSON: Toby, what about you? More cautious now?
HARNDEN: I think if you become risk-averse as a journalist, then that is actually more dangerous and that is probably time to sort of hang up your boots and sit in the newsroom, and I don't think that either Julian or I have reached that stage yet.
ROBERTSON: Toby, on that note, thank you very much indeed. Julian, thank you too for coming into our studios in London.
Two journalists who obviously share the same view as William Randolph Hearst. "News is what someone does not want you to print, and the rest is just advertising."
That's all for this edition of INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS. Tune in again next time for another look at how the media are handling the big issues.
I'm Nic Robertson, thanks for joining us.
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