The Greek dramatist Aeschylus said: "In war, truth is the first casualty." Does this statement still hold true today? Discuss in relation to one contemporary example.
Written as part of my BA (Hons) Journalism course
Although over two millennia have passed since Aeschylus observed that “in war, truth is the first casualty,” this assertion seems more relevant today than ever before. The chaos and propaganda associated with conflict have always contributed to the distortion of truth, but the contemporary media environment and technological advancements have exacerbated this issue. Social media, generative AI, and the participation of citizens in the journalistic process have led to a fragmented news landscape saturated with misinformation. This places truth on the front lines during times of war when objectivity is already at risk of being compromised. The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has exemplified the extent of truth distortion during modern conflicts and indicates a reality where informational warfare is fought alongside a military one.
Truth is often intentionally distorted by governments during times of conflict. This has been apparent in both contemporary and historical wars, and is referred to in Aeschylus’ original maxim which states that “God is not averse to deceit in a holy cause.” Governments weaponise the media by using it as a form of soft power to manipulate the narrative surrounding geopolitical stories. The British government used propaganda during the World Wars to boost morale, maintain national unity, and portray a certain narrative about the war. During the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration carefully choreographed the war’s presentation using edited images and staged military operations to give the impression of an American victory whilst demonising the other side (Hammond, 2007). Payne argues that “winning modern wars is as much dependent on carrying domestic and international public opinion as it is on defeating the enemy on the battlefield” (2005. p81). Opposing sides in a war frequently disagree on the causes and aims of the conflict and have different angles on how and why things play out the way they do. This leads to governments promoting their particular viewpoint whilst rejecting their enemies’ one in their media. McQuail highlights the importance of framing, where isolated information forms a news story by providing an interpretation, and how it is inevitable for journalists to adopt frames and in doing so introduce an unconscious bias. “When information is supplied to news media by sources (as much often is), then it arrives with a built-in frame that suits the purpose of the source and is unlikely to be purely objective” (2010, p318). This could lead to reporters blindly omitting certain information that does not fit into the story’s built-in frame.
Within the 2023-4 Israel-Hamas war, government influence over the media has played a significant role in the distortion of truth. Each side in the war wants to maintain a moral high ground and promote their own narrative of the conflict. For example, both the Israeli government and Hamas portray their actions as retaliatory and take a victim stance. By portraying the terrorists who murder Israeli civilians as ‘martyrs’ in a justified struggle for liberation, Hamas can increase international support for their cause whilst demonising the Israeli side (D. Moeller, 2004, p65). Similarly, the Israeli government justifies their harsh military campaign in Gaza by accusing the entire Gazan civilian population of being guilty of Hamas’ crimes. Hamas maintains tight control over the media in Gaza, as well as over what information reaches international news networks. Gaza has an 11/100 score on the freedom scale and Hamas has been accused of arresting, interrogating and torturing internal and external journalists (Freedom House, 2024). In a 2014 article, former Associated Press correspondent Matti Friedman revealed that Hamas intimidates external reporters to ensure they cover issues in a way that aligns with their own narrative (Friedman, 2014). This has meant that objectivity is limited right from the start, in the initial stage of information acquisition. This war has also been unique for the large role social media has played in sharing information and disinformation. Governments and large non-state actors have been able to disseminate disinformation on social media to shape public opinion. Cyabra, an AI-powered social threat intelligence company, has identified that a quarter of social media profiles participating in the discourse about the war were robots part of a coordinated campaign to influence global opinion regarding Hamas (Baruchin, 2023). There have also been reports that suggest Iran and Russia have been exploiting the war by spreading false claims to advance their own geopolitical agendas (‘Capitalising on crisis’, 2023). Unlike the US media campaign to maintain national support during the Iraq invasion, these social media integrated campaigns are harder to identify and thus more dangerous.
It could be argued that government influence on mass broadcasting is less of a factor in the distortion of truth in contemporary examples. The internet undermines trust in mainstream news due to the ability to seek alternative sources and commentary, as well as the scepticism of large media networks created by the emergence of blogging and citizen journalism (Hammond, 2007. p 64). The globalisation of journalism has also meant that people living in democracies can consume news produced in other countries, thus evading the influence of their own country’s government. For example, people in the UK can read or watch content produced by Al Jazeera, a Qatari news broadcaster, which would likely portray a different narrative of conflict to the BBC. However, state-coordinated social media campaigns are evidence that governments continue to control narratives around war, just in a more inconspicuous manner.
The unpredictable, complex, and polarising nature of conflict is also a significant factor in the distortion of truth during war. For example, the emotionally charged nature of war brings rise to ‘atrocity propaganda’, where misinformation is easily quoted and shared without being verified due to its highly emotional content. During times of conflict, heightened emotions make people think less critically of information and thus more vulnerable to misinformation that aligns with their preexisting beliefs or has an element of shock. This doesn’t just apply to news consumers, but also to mainstream news networks who have been caught sharing claims that don’t have sufficient backing. Emotions also play a role in constructing the narrative of the conflict that journalists convey. For example, reporters who are embedded in a warzone as soldiers or civilians would find it incredibly difficult to report objectively without letting their personal experience interfere. Embedded journalists also experience a form of Stockholm Syndrome by becoming enamoured by the soldiers they are reporting on whilst being dependent on their own survival (Pfau et al., 2004). This could lead to narrow coverage of the war that is disengaged from context. The complex and often vague nature of warfare within the fast-paced contemporary media environment has also contributed to a declined discipline to verification. The constant stream of news now expected due to online journalism and the 24/7 news cycle has led to a “severe slippage in the media” (Stănescu, 2023. p308). This is reinforced by the commodification of information and the capitalist model of news production which has fueled the desire to deliver a story first. This means that news stories are often published before they have fully finished unfolding, and thus are more likely to contain misinformation. War stories often take time to fully develop due to the fog of war inherent in active combat. Restricted access to firsthand information and disruption to communication infrastructure make reporting information accurately a challenge. News organisations are pressured to prioritise speed over accuracy to feed the high demand for news, increasing the risk of accidentally reporting misinformation and undermining the professional legitimacy of journalism (Hermida, 2012).
The news coverage of the Al-Ahli hospital blast demonstrates how the combination of the complex nature of war and the pressure of the perpetual news cycle can contribute to the distortion of truth. On October 17, an explosion took place in the Al-Ahli hospital in the Gaza Strip. Early media reporting was led by claims that the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike and led to up to 471 casualties (Whittell and Winch, 2023). This interpretation was based on statements made by the Hamas-run health ministry and was supported by the IDF’s intense bombing campaign in Gaza. During the following month, external investigations provided support to the possibility that the blast was caused by a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket fired from within Gaza rather than an Israeli airstrike (Biesecker, 2023) (Human Rights Watch, 2023). Footage also revealed that the blast was on a much smaller scale than initially reported, with a much lower death toll than previously assumed. The news organisations’ desire to publish the story quickly was prioritised over their commitment to the truth. The dissemination of this undeveloped story was catalysed by its emotional quality, which meant that readers were more likely to share it after being horrified by the details. The cause of the blast and the damage it caused are still contested but the immediate coverage is evidence of the ease with which unverified, and even false, information can make it to mass media.
Social media and the digital revolution have played a pivotal role in the increase of misinformation during times of war. The ability to choose what news we consume and the subsequent formation of filter bubbles has allowed people to avoid information that doesn’t align with their beliefs. This has fed into people’s confirmation bias, which is “the unconscious but pervasive human propensity to filter out information that contradicts an existing belief and instead retain only information that confirms that belief” (Nickerson, 1998, cited in Strong, 2017, p140). This could contribute to people being misinformed about emotionally charged topics such as wars by only consuming information that affirms their pre-existing beliefs and narratives, thus being more susceptible to trusting and distributing false information. A report from 2022 revealed that young people in the US have almost equal trust in information from social media sites in comparison with information from established news organisations, suggesting that the professionalism of sources doesn’t necessarily equate to credibility (Gottfried and Liedke, 2022). More people are sceptical of established news sources due to the fear that people in power are using the media to push their own interests rather than represent objective truth (Newman and Fletcher, 2017). Therefore, more people are seeking out alternative sources of news such as blogs and social media influencers that are much less credible than professional journalism. There is a fear that this behaviour will result in a post-truth era, where people reject information from legitimate sources and instead entirely rely on their emotions and pre-existing bias.
Increased access to technology such as generative AI and audience participation within journalism has also meant that the information landscape has been saturated with misinformation during times of war. More newsrooms are now using user-generated content as sources due to its availability and abundance (Williams et al., 2011) (De Keyser et al., 2011). Generative AI alongside social media has made it extremely easy for ordinary people to disseminate content and participate in the journalistic process. However, it can also be misused to produce fake news including AI-generated content which can be hard to distinguish from authentic eyewitness footage. Social media monetisation has encouraged people to share sensationalised and often exaggerated or fake content to draw in engagement. This has been exacerbated by social media’s tendency to supercharge fake news and crowd out real news stories from credible sources (Wilding et al., 2018, p32). The abundance of fake content online has created an increased burden on newsrooms to be able to identify real content. For example, after the October 7th attacks, fake videos and photos flooded social media and "of the 1000s of videos that one broadcast network sifted through to report on the attacks, only 10% of them were authentic and usable”(LeGeyt, quoted in Henshall, 2024). AI-generated content is becoming increasingly difficult to identify so occasionally it gets published by mainstream media networks. For example, an online Bulgarian newspaper published an AI-generated image of Israeli soldiers parading triumphantly through a bombed town which was initially distributed on social media (Eisele, 2023). The increased prevalence of AI-generated disinformation could further diminish people’s trust in credible sources and undermine the democratic role of journalism.
It is not surprising that Aeschylus’ maxim has been repeated and reclaimed throughout history. Government manipulation over conflict narratives remains prevalent even within modern democracies where information is more accessible than ever before. Instead of promoting diverse perspectives and informed opinions, the digital age has made people narrow-minded by introducing filter bubbles and reinforcing confirmation biases. As wars become increasingly media-driven, the pursuit of truth becomes even more challenging. Whilst warfare undeniably endangers objectivity, it’s apparent that the digital age has established a sustained war on truth that extends beyond military conflict. DiResta described this as “an Information World War in which state actors, terrorists, and ideological extremists leverage the social infrastructure underpinning everyday life to sow discord and erode shared reality” (2018). Truth is no longer only a casualty of war but also a victim of a broader assault on factual integrity.
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