War cartoon by Courier Mail cartoonist Sean Leahy. Sean spoke at the Just Peace seminar in Brisbane. Republished with permission.

This war was – is – an incredibly challenging experience for media practitioners and and media consumers alike. For the first time, we and they had ready access to both sets of propaganda and the full spectrum of opinion on the war, its meaning, and its possible consequences from multiple sources with multiple angles of vision.

G’Day. This is a speech I gave on Tuesday night in Brisbane at a seminar on media coverage of the war organised by a group called Just Peace. To comment on my piece, media war coverage, your experience watching the war, or how you’d like the Sydney Morning Herald to adapt or change in the internet era, click on Repartee. I will moderate the feedback.

Newspaper and reader: the post-war relationship

This war was – is – an incredibly challenging experience for media practitioners and and media consumers alike. For the first time, we and they had ready access to both sets of propaganda and the full spectrum of opinion on the war, its meaning, and its possible consequences from multiple sources with multiple angles of vision. And this at a time when the old world order is tumbling and the world’s superpower begins to stamp a new one on us, with the threat that nations which dissent join its enemies, and those which agree are rewarded. And at a time when the tired old classification of political thought into left and right became utterly meaningless as highly unusual alliances took shape across politics and between nations.

As the rules and norms by which we have lived for a long time crash down around us, the world’s nations and peoples began debating the values and principles by which we wished to live and the costs we will accept to live by them. For Australians, the debate was complicated by the fact that our leader avoided it and our opposition has no idea what it believes in.

For the first time in my lifetime people in just about every country in the world began debating one topic – the world’s future, through the prism of one country – Iraq. We learnt much about history and its consequences, and the perspective of other cultures. We participated directly in decisions usually made by grey men behind closed doors, and saw that they lied as a matter of routine. And we influenced events profoundly. I do not believe that the UN Security Council would have dared turn America down without those massive protests all over the world from people who said categorically that wars of aggression meant failure, not solution, and promoted danger, not safety.

Many people, pro and anti war, didn’t watch the war or read about it. Of those who did, many regretted the experience, for it confronted them to their core, while others pondered whether engagement was, in the end, meaningless. Said Webdiarist Hugh Driver:

“I just wonder whether scouring the net, posting rants, sending e-mails, etc etc isn’t just an intellectual exercise that, at the end of the day, counts for very little outside the very, very small circles of consequence that we operate in. Is it just another form of entertainment for modern media junkies?”

Susan Metcalfe, similarly overwhelmed, replied:

“I can’t turn away but I’m not sure where to look or how to process the massive amounts of information being produced on the subject … in truth what is happening is so painfully human, in the worst possible way.”

“Howard will only do what plays well for him, he will do what wedges us from our own feelings and offer us a paternalism that has worked so well for him in the past. Our decisions are again made for us by a parental figure and we are again powerless. He does it well. Most of us fall into line without too much fuss, and who’s got time to fight all the hard battles anyway?”

Yet there was blinding clarity, too. Ned Roche wrote:

“I am not a Lefty or Right-winger. I completed a major in Politics at UNSW and qualified for Honours, but couldn’t bear the thought of another year at University. I am a 26 year old single gay male, I live in a small country town running a pub, and I realise that community is important. I have a view on the war, but that is far less important than realising that my (Iraqi) brothers and sisters with whom I share the same human experience need my help, and it is as easy as donating money.”

I cling to the belief that the more information we can access, and that our readers can access, the greater the chance of the world’s peoples making informed wise choices, and that from the ruins of the rules of the old world order, a worldwide discussion of the values and principles upon which we wish to base our construction of new rules on can deliver a better future for the world.

The media is no longer the gatekeeper of information. As we, the media, judge what is news and which views to publish, our readers are in a position to judge us. The internet has levelled the playing field between newspaper and reader. Our readers, if they so chose, can get the information they want when they want it and link to like-minded people around the world. Some of those who don’t wish to, or can’t, do this, will expect us to exercise judgement on their behalf, and they will want to know by what values and principles we do that. Some – and this is the competing demand which will arise in a fractured, uncertain world – will want us to stroke their prejudices and rebuild their certainties with dishonest, black and white news and views and escapism.

I don’t know how the media will develop from here. We face not only new and confusing circumstances and a transformation of our traditional role, but the emerging world-wide hegemony of Rupert Murdoch, who runs an empire which, as the war coverage showed, is willing and able to use its media as a deliberate instrument of his business interests. It is also willing to abandon a core belief of the industry in democracies – the right to free speech – to threaten and attempt to silence those who disagree with the line his empire takes on world and domestic issues.

I believe media practitioners who believe that the media has a vital role in protecting and enhancing our democracy must now dig deep to reexamine the core values and beliefs of our media outlet which we will strive to serve. We must state those core values and beliefs publicly, make ourselves accountable to our readers for fulfilling them, and be very open to their participation and critique.

Since there are now no certainties, I’d like to see us wind back the mutual provocation which passes for much comment these days, and move towards a genuine exploration of what core values and principles most of us can agree on and genuine engagement on how best to put those values and principles into practice. This could mean experimenting with form. For example, the Sydney Morning Herald could ask two experts with differing views on an issue to collaborate on a piece which debates the matter internally and draws out the common ground and the points of disagreement.

I’d also like to see us interrogate our conception of “news judgement” and admit that the dominant conflict-driven, top-down view requires a radical overhaul. At a time of transition, it becomes important to report process as well as final decisions and to give public figures the freedom to change their mind without catastrophe, and to float new ideas without insisting on detailed costings or making the loose ends the story before debate can begin. I’m looking for openness, not closure; facilitation of debate, not instant judgement upon each contribution. I’m looking for a media which will reach out, not circle the wagons, a media which will search for common ground, not escalate political tribalism.

I believe that at this momentous moment in our history, what each of us stands for in each of our our spaces on each of our stages will influence the shape of the future. The temptation is enormous to escape into fantasy, or close our eyes and pretend nothing has changed. That too, of course, is doing something.

Webdiary columnist Harry Heidelberg, an Australian who lives in Europe, works for a US multinational corporation, and supported the war, spelt out the challenges for the active reader in the new, internet era, a challenge which also confronts our media:

“The information in this war is breathtaking in its openness. We have the American view, the Iraqi view, the Al Jazeera view and several things in between which verge on independence. As usual, people will pick and choose but it is a rich smorgasbord of information.

“That’s the joy of a free society. You see it all. It also makes it hard. We are challenged to figure it out for ourselves…If there is anything to celebrate in all this crap and misery, it’s that we have full access to the smorgasbord and have every bit of the spectrum analysed. That makes us fortunate indeed.

“When you see all the spectrum at once……what do you see…….yes……that’s bloody right……you see white light. The prisms create rainbows and they are actually beautiful. Looked at as a whole as white light or split through the prisms into rainbows, the light of information enriches us all.

Get mad, get passionate, but never, ever try to shut off light or extinguish candles. We need every aspect of this debate fully lit.”