Has war reporting given the real picture at Iraq?
Yes, it's the real picture even if it's not the full picture

Kim Fletcher, Consultant Editor, The Daily Telegraph, London
In just 10 minutes of rolling news we can watch a reporter on the streets of the Iraqi capital and another from a colleague with the Coalition forces preparing to lay siege to the city.
Another coverage shows the Iraqi Information minister explaining why the Saddam government will triumph. The next minute President Bush’s spokesman assures the world that the Coalition forces are on course for victory.
This is a war where soldiers’ wives know that their husbands are in a battle because the information flashes up on television; a war where we hear about two British Sea King helicopters colliding at sea, even before relatives of the dead crew.Here, surely, is the global village that technology promised to bring us. We know exactly what is going on in this conflict, don’t we? Well, no, we don’t actually.
We’ve seen more images and read more words from this war than from any other, but only the most senior military commanders know what is actually going on in and around Baghdad. Or, to be more specific, only the most senior commanders from the USA and Britain.
There are three reasons why we know so little, despite the resolution of hundreds of journalists to bring us the news. First: most of these correspondents are working under restrictions. Whether they’re under the control of the Iraqi regime or working with the Coalition forces outside, they cannot report all that they know.
Second: reporters cannot be everywhere. If they’re not eyewitnesses they can report only what they’re told. If they’re told lies or if the officers briefing them are "economical with the truth," then their stories are wrong.
Third: media in general and television in particular has to tell a story through images, even if what can be seen is only a small part of what is going on. Imagine this war as a large jigsaw: we are trying to make sense of the full picture from a handful of pieces. Because these pictures are so vivid, we feel we’re getting inside the war. But these are only colourful fragments; who knows what is happening where no cameras turn?
According to the former BBC foreign correspondent Martin Bell, modern television "shows more than it knows". The image becomes more important than the context. We lose perspective and get no real analysis. I watched the principle in operation when one news channel devoted more than three hours of live television to a small action on the outskirts of Umm Qasr. For military commanders, that skirmish was a small detail of the day. Television made it appear to be a major event in the war.
This is not to denigrate the brave work of the correspondents who are risking their lives to try to bring us the bigger picture. It is not their fault that it is out of their grasp. We would be infinitely worse off without them, but let’s not delude ourselves that our seat in the front stalls allows us to see the drama in its entirety.