Private Lynch - an Orwellian twist

Media critics often say that visual images trump words. The claim makes some sense. Pictures have major impacts on how we see the world. I have recently been struck by the parallels between manipulation of information in the modern world and the management of reality in Orwell's dystopias. It seems that George Orwell's Vision is still alive in 2003.

When images meet the eye, our reactions depend on our sense of context. Let us say a magazine photograph, taken in a war zone, shows a mother holding a baby covered with blood. Two people - looking at the same photo - could perceive the suffering quite differently. One might see an unfortunate, though unavoidable, casualty of war. Another might see a victim of a war crime.

If the finger of blame can be pointed in a direction we already distrust or despise, then outrage is likely. If the apparent perpetrators are amorphous or held in high esteem, then we are more likely to shrug. (That's life. Bad luck. War is like that.) The picture can have political clout because of prevalent assumptions and attitudes largely shaped by the media.

Newspapers, especially the tabloids, and 24-hour news shows live by the venerable maxim that "If it bleeds, it leads". "Photographs of an atrocity may give rise to opposing responses," says writer Susan Sontag. News of conflicts and violence, of terrible things happening, elicits emotions ranging from compassion, through indignation or titillation, to approval, as each misery heaves into view.

Four months ago Sontag published a book called Regarding the Pain of Others. It challenges the common assumptions about the powerful effects of camera work, whether in print or on television or on museum walls. Sontag writes that the image as shock and the image as cliché are two aspects of the same presence. Harrowing photographs do not inevitably lose their power to shock, "but they are not much help if the task is to understand".

Hopefully Sontag's book, with its thoughtful explorations of visual images in a world of war and deprivation, will overturn some coy assumptions. "Photographic images cannot be more than an invitation to pay attention, to reflect, to learn," she concludes. "Who caused what the picture shows? Who is responsible? Is it excusable? Was it inevitable? Is there some state of affairs which we have accepted up to now that ought to be challenged?"

Many people reacted strongly to President Bush's "top gun" imitation when he jetted onto an aircraft carrier near San Diego a couple of months ago. Bush fans swooned. More sceptical observers noticed the shameless manipulation. But everyone was looking at identical images. The determining factor was not the choreography of the photo opportunity but the outlooks of those who watched.

This seems to be the season for fabricated reality, with Matrix Reloaded, which highlights Phillip K. Dick's fascination with manipulated reality, taking over at the box office. In The Matrix, parts I and II, hidden forces feed a fake reality into human minds; but with a compliant media "manufacturing" news, who needs The Matrix?

Now from the BBC comes a story within a story that might make Orwell shout "I told you so!" from his grave. The BBC report concerns a headline news story which dominated the world press for several days. This is the tale of Private Jessica Lynch, allegedly wounded in action in the early days of the American invasion of Iraq. On April 3, the Washington Post reported that Lynch "was fighting to the death," and "continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds." The story added that she was also stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in.

But BBC investigators who talked to Iraqi doctors discovered that Private Lynch was not injured by enemy fire at all. She was neither shot nor stabbed; her injuries were sustained when her vehicle overturned. There was no physical mistreatment from Iraqi forces. American doctors confirmed this account, and also maintained that she was well cared for by Iraqi doctors.

Major news media also reported that Ms Lynch was slapped by an Iraqi security guard. The report cannot be verified because the Iraqi lawyer who claims to have witnessed the slapping was reported to have been secreted away, along with his family, and given a job in America with a defence industry lobbying firm.

Before you conclude that this sounds like a paranoid thriller wait, there is more.

The manufactured story continued with the bold assault by US Special Forces on the hospital where Ms Lynch was recovering, followed by her rescue and transfer by helicopter. TV viewers around the world watched as guns blazed and doors were kicked in. Now we hear from hospital staff interviewed by the BBC that Iraqi forces abandoned the area before the rescue, that the US had been informed of this two days before the assault, and that the staff had in fact made arrangements to turn Private Lynch over to US forces.

And what about those blazing guns? Dr Anmar Uday told the BBC: "We were surprised. There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital. It was like a Hollywood film. [The US forces] cried 'Go, go, go', with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions," Dr Uday said. "They made a show for the American attack on the hospital - [like] action movies [starring] Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan."

This "movie" was shot, not by journalists, but by soldiers with night vision cameras. It was fed directly to central command in Qatar, from where it was allegedly released to major news media as reality. Concludes the BBC commentator: "[Private Lynch's] story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived."

For the record, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said any claims that the facts of Private Lynch's rescue were misrepresented by the US military were "void of all facts and absolutely ridiculous".

He could say that because "the Pentagon never released an account of what happened to Ms Lynch because it didn't have an account. She never told us".

Doctors now say Jessica Lynch has no recollection of the whole episode and probably never will.