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Rules of Engagement: television journalism and NATO'S "faith in bombing" during the Kosovo crisis, 1999

Every war from Crimea to Kosovo has been followed by a post-mortem into the failure of journalism to cover the conflict truthfully and courageously. William Howard Russell, Richard Harding Davis, and most recently Phillip Knightley have in their turn pronounced the profession dead. But these are subjective judgements and while they have some truth they are not always grounded in actual analysis of the evidence. This article looks at British and American television news reporting of NATO's bombing campaign in Serbia and Kosovo. It argues that the quiescent attitude of the NATO media pool in Brussels was not reflected across all sections of the news media and that the presentation of NATO material on news bulletins was in many cases treated with the scepticism expected of the profession. The analysis is based on a sample of British and American television news from 12 to 19 April 1999, and on interviews with a number of journalists present at the briefings and with NATO press secretary, Jamie Shea.