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Negotiating Peace: Politics,Television News and theNorthern Ireland PeaceProcessGraham Spencer aa University of PortsmouthPublished online: 21 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Graham Spencer (2000) Negotiating Peace: Politics,Television News and the Northern Ireland Peace Process, Irish Studies Review,8:2, 217-231, DOI: 10.1080/713674245

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Irish Studies Review, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2000

Negotiating Peace: Politics, Television Newsand the Northern Ireland Peace Process

GRAHAM SPENCER, University of Portsmouth

Much of the available literature which looks at news coverage of Northern Irelandbefore the peace process emphasises the propagandistic role of television news inrelation to con¯ ict, its preoccupation with terrorism and the British state’s effort tocontain it, and the emotional dimensions of violence [1]. Particularly evident in thisliterature is a broad recognition of the media’s centrality in interpreting and explainingthe con¯ ict, and how it developed [2]. A recurring theme is that the media has provedespecially important in helping to legitimise state policy and outlaw the motivations ofthose engaged in terrorism, so providing an ideological role for understanding thepolitics and contestations of con¯ ict [3]. Less clear and less examined, however, iswhether the television news media has proved as central to the politics and negotiationsof peace, as it has of con¯ ict. The Northern Ireland peace process which started in thelate 1980s, but attracted wider political involvement from the early 1990s, representeda signi® cant change in political orientation towards the Northern Ireland situation, andbrought forward a series of proposals and initiatives aimed at removing the foundationsof con¯ ict. As the political parties became increasingly concerned with the discourse ofpolitics rather than violence (although the discourse of violence was also part of politicaldiscourse), so the Northern Ireland problem became recontextualised within a set ofarticulations and dialogues oriented towards negotiations and a peace settlement. Themain concern of this essay is to address the role of television news as part of this newprocess, and to question its involvement in the politics of negotiation and peace.

An early attempt to address the role of the news media in negotiations is made byMiller and McLaughlin in their essay `Reporting the Peace in Ireland’ [4]. In thisarticle, the authors look at how the British government has used television news to helpminimise damaging publicity after secret contacts with Sinn Fe in were leaked to themedia in November 1993, and how it was engaged in a process of `clari® cation’ overthe contents of the Downing Street Declaration. In their analysis, Miller and McLaugh-lin draw attention to how the television media is used to conduct `megaphone diplo-macy’ and its centrality to the peace process. From this premise they contend that newsis essential to the practice of negotiations and the developing peace, and do not discernany noticeable difference in the way the media reported the peace process from how itreported the years of con¯ ict in Northern Ireland. The media is still seen as largelysubservient to of® cial articulations about developments in the peace process, in muchthe same way as it was subservient to of® cial interpretations about the con¯ ict and thewar against terrorism.

My essay challenges the view that the reporting of the peace process operated asessentially a continuation of reporting about the con¯ ict. It argues that the peaceprocess represented a fundamental rupture with the years of con¯ ict, which impacted

0967-0882 print/1469-9303 online/00/020217-15 Ó 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd

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on how the politics of Northern Ireland was explained and presented in television news.Importantly, it indicates how the role of news during the early years of peace negotia-tions was much more complex than Miller and McLaughlin suggest, and that of® cialarticulations were, at times, undermined and destabilised by reports now concernedmore with contestations over peace than with the consensus about terrorism. Becauseof a tendency to emphasise con¯ ict and disagreement between the respective partiesinvolved in peace talks, politicians were encouraged to adopt a con® dential approach tonegotiations, and this raises questions about news playing a supportive role in relationto political objectives.

Because of a propensity to provide simplistic explanations about problems, televisionnews tends to obscure the complex and detailed nature of negotiations and to producesimplistic expectations about the peace process which, in turn, can have politicalconsequences. Thus, using news to promote peace can be counterproductive as well asproductive, leading to unintended consequences and obstructions which, in turn, makepolitical movement dif® cult. I will argue that for many politicians involved in the peaceprocess, television news had little positive impact on the direction of negotiations.Because of a tendency to focus on con¯ ict rather than reconciliation, reports oftenhindered the possibilities for constructive dialogue between the groups, and it wasbecause of this ability to undermine rather than facilitate the peace process that the roleof news in the politics of peace was different from the role of news in the politics ofcon¯ ict. To explain these differences, I will draw on original interview materialgathered from politicians and journalists who were involved in the peace process from1994 to 1997. As part of a larger study, the interviews were designed to interrogate theway in which each perceived the negotiation process as `news’ , and to see how eachviewed the functions of reporting in relation to political objectives. This interviewmaterial allows us to see if dominant political positions were supported by coverage,and what problems were created by the pressures of news. Many of the politiciansinterviewed here were working at the highest political levels during the formative stagesof peace, and offer valuable information on how they dealt with television news and sawits role in connection with problems of development and direction.

For reasons of con® dentially, all the interviewees in this essay remain anonymous,identi® able only by the positions (former and current) occupied at the time of inter-view. They were contacted by letter after appearing in news bulletins, and arrangementswere made for interview once agreement had been reached. Respondents for the mainparties were interviewed along with senior British and Irish ministers and a peace envoyrepresenting the Clinton administration. Journalists were contacted on the basis of theirreports for the mainstream news networks, including journalists based in Belfast, as wellas those based in London. The samples used here are representative of the larger studyand typify the kinds of responses elicited.

The Northern Ireland peace process, which began in the late 1980s as a series ofdialogues between SDLP politician John Hume and Sinn Fe in’s Gerry Adams, signi® eda considerable change in the development of political relations in Northern Ireland.The ability of those dialogues to capture broader political interest, more particularlyfrom the beginning of the 1990s, re¯ ected concerted efforts by republicans, nationalistsand the Irish government to move the British into a con¯ ict-resolution approach, aswell as a recognition for many republicans that the years of violence had led to a`political and military stalemate’ [5]. It was this struggle to initiate a deliberative andcredible peace plan which inspired a process of communication between British, Irishand American governments and led to the British and Irish governments releasing the

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Negotiating Peace 219

Joint Declaration of December 1993 [6]. The document had particular relevance fornationalists and held out the prospect of constitutional change:

The British government agree that it is for the people of the island of Irelandalone, by agreement between the two parts respectively, to exercise their rightof self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given,North and South, to bring about a united Ireland if that is their wish. [7]

Though the wording of the Declaration held interest for nationalists, it also attemptedto satisfy unionists by stating that any constitutional change would have to re¯ ect theprinciple of consent in Northern Ireland’ . Appended to the document, to assuageProtestant fears, were commitments by the British government that it would not act asa persuader to bring about a united Ireland, or exert pressure on the people of NorthernIreland to join a united Ireland against their will [8]. The Declaration therefore heldelements of interest for both unionists and nationalists [9]. However, the main inten-tion and the underlying thrust of the document, to develop the concept of inclusive-ness’ and draw paramilitary groupings away from violence and into the political process[10], also created problems for republicans, who maintained carefully planned movesin an effort to avoid splits within paramilitary ranks. The efforts by nationalist andrepublican leaders to provide pressures and responses which would ease activists’ fearsand reduce the possibility of a rupture in the republican movement, indicated distrustof the British government’s motives [11].

The primary aim of the Joint Declaration was to bring the political parties togetherin a talks process which would address the critical issues supporting con¯ ict andreconcile the opposing sides through some kind of agreement about how a possiblesolution to the con¯ ict might be reached. The dif® culty of achieving this outcome isindicated by the ideological extremes of republicanism and unionism. For republicans,the potential success of a lasting peace depends ultimately on British withdrawal fromNorthern Ireland, since it is British involvement which is seen to sustain the causes ofcon¯ ict. The Sinn Fe in document Towards a Lasting Peace, produced in 1992, under-lined this perception, stating that `British rule in Ireland and con¯ ict have been and aresynonymous’ and that `British rule in Ireland and peace are incompatible’ . Thedocument continued: It follows that the creation of conditions in which peace can bemade permanent in Ireland must involve at some future date the removal of Britishinterference from the political equation in Ireland’ [12]. This stands in direct oppo-sition to the unionist position where the continuation of British sovereignty andpreservation of the union remain central to unionist culture and identity. Emphasisinghow the Ulster Unionist Party views nationalist perceptions of this condition, a partydocument states:

For Nationalists the real problem is their inability to accept the legitimacy ofthe Irish Unionist identity [¼ ] The Union with Great Britain is a Union in thehearts and minds of the Unionist people, and it is something which we cannotchange, even if we wanted to. This feeling of Britishness is so deeply ingrainedas to be almost genetically encoded. It is not a device or arti® ce which hasbeen imposed on unsuspecting people; neither is it something Unionists wishto impose on those who have different aspirations. But for Unionists theirbasic political heritage is their Britishness. [13]

For unionists, the nationalist ideology fails to recognise the legitimacy of NorthernIreland as part of the UK and so fails to recognise the existence of the unionist case,which seeks to preserve and consolidate that linkage. Thus, for many unionists `all

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action and perceived intention, by Nationalists has not convinced Unionists to date thatthe former are prepared to accept the border and to work within institutions ofgovernment which recognise that status of NI as an integral part of the UK’ [14].

Unionist fears of an erosion of the linkage between the UK and Northern Irelandwere further stoked by the Framework for the Future document released by British andIrish governments in 1995. This outlined a greater role for Dublin in Northern Irishaffairs and proposed the creation of North/South institutions:

with clear identity and purpose, to enable representatives of democraticinstitutions, North and South, to enter into new, co-operative and construc-tive relationships; to promote agreement among the people of the island ofIreland; to carry out on a democratically accountable basis delegated execu-tive, harmonising and consultative functions over a range of designatedmatters to be agreed; and to serve to acknowledge and reconcile the rights,identities and aspirations of the two traditions. [15]

Though the document stated that such changes would only operate on the basis ofconsent among the people of Northern Ireland, for unionists it represented a seriousattempt by the British government to change the political status of Northern Irelandand its willingness to take steps towards disengagement. Between the publication of theJoint Declaration and the Framework document, the Provisional IRA and loyalistparamilitary groups called cease® res, following their lengthy communications anddiplomatic exchanges. And although the IRA broke its cease® re in February 1996, itwas reinstated once the Labour Party had been elected and conditions had been createdwhich allowed for a more favourable promotion of the republican position. A recogni-tion that such conditions existed was underlined by Sinn Fe in signing up to theMitchell Principles, giving an absolute commitment to democratic and exclusivelypeaceful means of resolving political issues’ [16]. The Good Friday Agreement whichwas signed by the respective groups through multi-party negotiations in April 1998,effectively bound the parties together on the substantive issues of con¯ ict and outlineda framework for addressing those issues. It also received overwhelming public supportin a referendum, with over 70 per cent of the adult population of Northern Irelandvoting for its implementation. Thus the peace process’ (itself interpreted not as oneprocess but as a number of versions depending on political persuasion and identity)posed a signi® cant reinterpretation of the Northern Ireland problem and a chance toremove the foundations of con¯ ict.

The prospect of political parties negotiating through the news media is raised byMiller and McLaughlin. In their analysis of how the British government used the newsmedia to defuse revelations about secret contacts with Sinn Fe in and to engage in issuesof clari® cation about the Downing Street Declaration, the authors note how thetelevision news media `was unable to consider that the government had lied and stuckto promoting the version of events given in of® cial brie® ngs and statements’ . Further-more, `Because of this they were able to approve the contacts. They accepted theof® cial line that the IRA had offered a cease® re and the government would have beenirresponsible to turn down such an offer’ [17]. In reproducing the British government’sinterpretation of the contacts, the authors assert that `TV journalists refrained fromasking the hard questions about British government strategy and about contradictionswith previous policy’ . They continue that the brie® ngs which journalists incorporatedinto reports `are not a transparent re¯ ection of government thinking but [are] actuallypart of the negotiation process’ , and that the role of the British media has been to

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defend the government for its principled or astute action even as the government shiftsfurther towards negotiations with the ª terroristsº ’ . In highlighting that television newsplayed a supportive role towards the British government’s version of events, Miller andMcLaughlin represent coverage as highly favourable to the government’s negotiatingposition and indicate the media’s role as one which both legitimised interaction withrepublicans and which enabled the government to in¯ uence the momentum of contactsso as to regain the public relations initiative from Sinn Fe in after the Downing StreetDeclaration’ [18].

Stressing the central importance of news for communicating and initiating dialogueabout the peace process, Miller and McLaughlin argue that the British, the republicansand the Irish government have all used the media to engage in megaphone diplomacy,by ¯ ying kites, ¯ oating suggestions, giving clari ® cations or issuing threats’ [19]. Al-though they recognise that Sinn Fe in’s role in the dispute about contacts with theBritish government was not totally effective (i.e. It was only when Sinn Fe in hintedthey had documentary evidence of contacts that the government owned up’ [20]), theynevertheless fail to ask whether Sinn Fe in’s contact with the news media made any realdifference to the British government’s negotiating position, and if so, how. The fact thatthe government had `gone to extraordinary lengths to minimise the perceived extent oftheir contacts with Sinn Fe in and to cling to the of® cial position that no ª negotiationsºhave taken place’ [21], indicates that the news media can bring pressure to bear on thegovernment’s position which political opposition can exploit, and that negotiatingthrough the news media is not a process which is easy to control or predict. Thus theargument presented by Miller and McLaughlin depicts the role of news in the politicsof peace as an interaction largely unaltered by the changing political climate, withcoverage continuing to support of® cial British needs and agenda as before.

There is a clear case for arguing that the news media has been used from time to timeby politicians engaged in a kind of `megaphone diplomacy’ [22]. During the early stagesof the peace process, for example, the Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Brooke usedjournalists to send messages to the republican movement about the unlikeliness ofBritish forces defeating the IRA, signalling a reappraisal of the stalemate between thetwo. Picked up by republicans, a response was also carried through the media, withSinn Fe in representatives Gerry Adams, Martin McGuiness and Mitchel McLaughlinadmitting that Brooke’s comments had created some `partial debate’ within the repub-lican movement [23]. One year later, Brooke went further and made a keynote speechclearly marking a departure in the government’s thinking about the union, announcingthat `The British government has no sel® sh or strategic or economic interest inNorthern Ireland [¼ ] Partition is an acknowledgement of reality, not an assertion ofnational self-interest’ [24]. This stimulated a sequence of secret contacts between SinnFe in and the government until those contacts were revealed by the Observer inNovember 1993. The news media which had been important in helping to initiatecommunications had, ironically, undermined those communications by exposing them.

Maintaining progressive talks despite the con¯ icting and opposing viewpoints used intelevision news also created dif® culties for those involved in developing peace. Thesedif® culties (which still continue) tend to derive from a news emphasis on con¯ ictualand divisive scenarios (which also serve to invest coverage with the values of drama andnegativity). Noting the ability of news to reinforce or amplify notions of difference anddisagreement because of this emphasis, Bantz observes how con¯ ict in news is `necess-

ary, ordinary, valuable, routine and such expectations make con¯ ict legitimate’ [25].Tuchman also observes how television news tends to construct and prioritise positions

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towards subjects as oppositional poles, and within a `presentation of con¯ icting possi-bilities’ [26]. In relation to Northern Ireland, this emphasis on con¯ ict has had obviouspolitical uses over the years, facilitating clear distinctions between terrorism and stateresponses to that terrorism. Of® cial condemnations and reactions towards politicalviolence have reinforced an `us and them’ scenario which has helped to legitimise statepolicy in Northern Ireland. But, promoting peace through news created a different setof concerns for politicians, with a shift in emphasis from division to reconciliationbringing new problems for effective communication. The ability of news to amplifydisagreement rather than agreement was a key consideration in in¯ uencing politiciansto conduct negotiations in con® dence, away from the media, during the early tentativestages of talks. The potential for coverage to have a destabilising impact on negotiationsand to hinder progress was seen as a likely prospect by many, and affected decisions toexclude the media from reporting developments. As one former Northern Irelandsecretary put it:

The disadvantage is when you’re conducting delicate negotiations the mediaare a bloody nuisance, because, particularly if it’ s multi-lateral negotiations,you’re putting everybody in a position where they don’t know if somebody elseis leaking and therefore they don’t know if they should leak themselves.Negotiations like that just can’ t be conducted on the basis of all the negotiat-ing positions being out in the open. The whole purpose of dif® cult negotia-tions is that they’ve got to be done privately and con® dentially. As we knowwith the Israeli ones, they were done in somewhere like Norway or Denmark.They were done in Scandinavia, miles away from anywhere.

The decision to conduct negotiations in private is indicative of how politicians saw themedia as a negative force. In highlighting the potentially destabilising impact ofreporting on the peace process, one former Ireland minister said:

You are trying to put people in positions which they don’t want to be in andtrying to move people from where they have been to where they have not been.In that context, it is far more preferable to do work behind closed doors thanin front of the media. People are always very sensitive of their own positionsand what they might appear to be accepting through television spins or newsin general. That’s basically the reason why so much work on the DowningStreet Declaration for about eighteen months was done behind the scenes ina con® dential manner, and in fact, no leak got out until about two weeksbefore it was published and at that stage it wouldn’t do too much damageanyway. I don’t think it would have succeeded if we had tried to do it out inthe open with the television cameras breathing down our necks every time wewanted to do something. We were always careful about what the media mightknow during that particular sensitive period.

Clearly, it was because of a tendency for the news media to reinforce images of divisionand con¯ ict rather than facilitate reconciliation and trust, that con® dentiality became soimportant. Stressing how essential it was for the British government to develop `Strand2’ of the talks process (designed to strengthen the role of the Irish government innegotiations) out of the news spotlight and without media intervention, the ministercontinued:

We couldn’t have got to `Strand 2’ had we allowed the media into ourmeetings. We had to do it behind closed doors and we had to do it with agreed

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communique s to the press. Had we been open, we wouldn’t have hadnegotiations because individuals would have been criticised for whatever theysaid from one side of the divide or the other. It was also useful having themedia completely out of Strand 1 because some politicians do play to thecameras and they play to the journalists and therefore, you don’t actually getto the real nitty-gritty discussion unless you’re doing it behind closed doors.In the main, we reckoned we’d get much more in negotiations if we didn’tmake daily comments, daily press releases and say what had happened everyday.

One explanation of why the media can undermine political aspirations and thepolitical process is given by Thompson:

Given the nature of the media, the messages produced by political leaders maybe received and understood in ways that cannot be directly monitored andcontrolled. Hence the visibility created by the media may become the sourceof a new and distinctive kind of fragility. However much political leaders mayseek to manage their visibility, they cannot completely control it; the phenom-enon of visibility may slip from their grasp and on occasion, work againstthem. [27]

Thompson underlines the possible disparity between the aims of politicians and thoseof reporters. Furthermore, complex negotiations aimed at trying to bring peopletogether are not helped by a news preoccupation with con¯ ict, drama and negativity atthe expense of examining the broad contextual factors which underscore con¯ ict. AsZolo reminds us:

Newsworthiness demands a systematic decontextualisation and fragmentationof events. Background situations simply cannot be established in the veryshort time-spans allowed by newsmaking, and news items can only be such ifthey are in fact new, that is in some measure sudden, unexpected andspectacular. They have to be offered up to the consumer in the most immedi-ate and concise form possible. Each item has to be constructed in the form ofa narrative ¯ ash which is self-standing and conclusive in itself. Thus the focusof a narration inevitably tends to be upon what has happened, and rarelytouches upon any of the deeper reasons for why it has happened. [28]

Similarly, Wolfsfeld concluded from his work on the news media’s role in the Oslopeace process, that news is more useful for the promotion of con¯ ict than of peace.This is because of its tendency to focus on events rather than processes: to emphasisethe unusual, the dramatic, and the con¯ ictual aspects of the process; and to make itdif® cult to conduct successful negotiations [29]. Concluding that the needs andconventions of journalism are at odds with the political imperatives of those working tocreate peace, he writes:

There is an inherent contradiction between the logic of a peace process andthe professional demands of journalists. A peace process is complicated;journalists demand simplicity. A peace process takes time to unfold anddevelop; journalists demand immediate results. Most of the peace process ismarked by dull, tedious negotiations; journalists require drama. A successfulpeace process leads to a reduction in tensions; journalists focus on con¯ ict.Many of the most signi® cant developments within a peace process must take

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place in secret behind closed doors; journalists demand information andaccess. [30]

Wolfsfeld also highlights how news may be assigned a peripheral role for developingpeace, which compares markedly with the central role it occupies in political con¯ icts[31]. Using the media to try and in¯ uence or inject momentum into negotiations canbe taken as an indication that negotiations are faltering: `The fact that negotiators areturning to the media, rather than dealing with each other, may be a sign that the talksare failing rather than a cause [¼ ] When the two sides are making progress they are lesslikely to turn to the news media, especially because they realise the damage such actionscan cause’ [32]. In discussing how efforts to communicate political positions throughnews can contribute to problems, he notes:

As every diplomat knows, negotiations can succeed only when they are held inprivate. Leaders and negotiators must constantly defend themselves againstcharges of `giving in’ to the enemy. Leaks about concessions provide valuableammunition for opposition forces in their attempts to discredit the govern-ment. Concessions, especially costly ones, are seen as failure. Both sides ® ndthemselves spending more time engaging in public posturing than in bridgingthe gaps that divide them. [33]

In his account of events which led to the Good Friday Agreement, the Chairman ofthe Northern Ireland talks, Senator George Mitchell, was later to write:

All of the participants sought to advance their negotiating positions by manip-ulating the press outside. Whatever the result from the standpoint of theparties, it made the process of negotiation much more dif® cult. Countlesshours were to be consumed by attacks and counterattacks, accusations andrecriminations, over what had appeared in the morning newspapers. It didn’tjust take up a lot of time, it poisoned the atmosphere, creating and exacerbat-ing hostility among the participants. [34]

This is not to say that news coverage is entirely negative in terms of its impact. Themedia is particularly useful for communicating positions, articulating concerns andcarrying the ¯ ow of issues and discussion. News may emphasise and amplify impres-sions of con¯ ict, but it also has potential to shape pressures and sound out develop-ments. According to another former Northern Ireland minister, the news media servesa dual function, trying to develop trust and con® dence on the one hand and acquiringpolitical advantage on the other:

Basically we wouldn’t use the media to communicate with politicians, wewould do that directly. Often politicians would criticise us if we said some-thing on the news that we hadn’t said to them ® rst, because they wanted to beforewarned so that they could react immediately. If you say something ontelevision without telling the politicians in Northern Ireland, they almostalways leap to the conspiracy theory rather than anything else. They thinkyou’re doing it deliberately to get at them, or go behind their backs, soopenness in Northern Ireland is vital. You would never do anything, neverbegin a day without anticipating what the press and the media are going tosay; what will come out. I would never begin a day either without analysingwhat was in the media that morning and wondering how to counter some ofthe stories. Anticipating how the press and television will take a particularmatter is vital to modern politics. We had a meeting every morning at

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Stormont at 9.00 am, sometimes earlier, every single day and it would beattended by ® fteen or sixteen people as well as ® ve cabinet ministers. Wewould analyse the day’ s media coverage which would be established duringthe breakfast bulletins, and decide what we thought should be in the develop-ing day’s news. We would try to set or determine the agenda as much aspossible because it is crucial to not be seen as reacting to events, which makesyou appear weaker. We would try to shape the stories as much as possible.

The importance of managing news in order to exert political advantage was alsoreinforced by a former Northern Ireland secretary, who said in interview:

Much of the news not being made by terrorists was being made by thegovernment. The news media need the government and will make themselvesreadily available if they think an important announcement is about to bemade. One method we used to deploy was one day a week somewhere in theprovince, I would do a full scale press conference and the only warning thatthey would get would be about 2.00 pm on the same day, when they wouldbe told that there was a worthwhile press conference. They wouldn’t knowwhat the event was about. Since we always set this up in advance we alsocontrolled the environment for interviews. This allowed us effectively to createnews.

Such access and in¯ uence is particularly useful in defusing possible criticism andhelping to legitimise policy. A former Northern Ireland minister made reference to thispotential by explaining how continued access to news after the IRA ended its cease® rewith the Wapping bomb, helped to avoid potential criticisms of Sir Patrick Mayhew forcommunicating with the IRA the following day:

Within half an hour of the Wapping bomb I was in touch with the radio andtelevision. At that time there had also been a run of communications betweenthe IRA and the British government. I dominated the radio and televisionnews from 8 o’clock until around 12.30 pm. On Monday morning, all theeditorials said that the government had been right and was justi® ed. Normally,you would get accusations that the policy hasn’ t worked etc. As a result, onthe communication story, Sir Patrick Mayhew had an easier time on theMonday in the House of Commons. The prime minister wasn’t criticised andour approach was vindicated.

Political intentions are therefore assisted by managing news in order to divert criticismand using it to increase pressure on others, aiming at the same time to facilitatemomentum and development. As an Irish minister put it when questioned on usingnews to create pressure:

In an interview you put out an angle on something that might attract a bit ofattention and put a bit of pressure on those that might be dragging their feet.Politicians also use the media as a conduit for a message and what they’rethinking in relation to where the next move should be, or the next step, orwhat takes place.

Pressure does not always result in developing movement; it can also contribute tointransigence. To illustrate this, it is useful to look at reactions towards media specu-lation about a possible IRA cease® re in the summer of 1994. The belief of some keyplayers in the peace process was that speculative pressure designed to accelerate acease® re made little difference in terms of bringing one about, and indeed had the effect

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of delaying it. One American peace delegate involved in communications between allthe groups, said of news pressure:

It would have made no difference. Unfortunately, the republican movementhas a very tin-ear about the media. They were putting things in motion in1988 that ended in August 1994. They would be enormously frustrating tosome people who would say they should have done this sooner or whatever,but that’s their own internal process. In fact, they just dismiss the media as anelement of the establishment and they are not swayed by what might bebroadcast or written. That’s my understanding of it anyway. They might besurprised from time to time with what’s broadcast or written, but they won’tbe swayed by it.

This compares with the view of a key Irish minister who argued that coverage did makea difference to a forthcoming IRA cease® re by obstructing its announcement:

I know at one stage where there was speculation in the British media supposedto be coming from a senior republican source. I knew that at that point intime, there was intense debate going on within the republican movement onwhether there should be a cease® re or whether there shouldn’t, and thatcertainly set it back for about two months, because the speculation set backthe debate. The debate was just stopped for a period because they didn’t wantthe media to dictate what they should or shouldn’t do.

In this sense, pressure applied through news did make a difference, but seemed to becounterproductive.

Television news can also operate as a productive communications conduit, allowingopponents who would not meet directly or through conventional political means toarticulate positions and responses. A former Northern Ireland secretary hinted at theimportance of using outlets like the news media, when in response to the question `Didpoliticians make a deliberate effort to talk to opposing groups through the media?’ hereplied: It was necessarily the case that as it was the government’s position to not betalking directly to terrorists while terrorist campaigns went on, then by de® nition someof the communication had to occur by indirect and oblique means.’ His commentswere echoed by another senior former Northern Ireland minister who stressed: If Iwanted Sinn Fe in to pick up a message, then certainly prior to the peace process onewould have used the news media. Another advantage of doing this was that you couldbe seen to be open. You couldn’t be accused of hiding anything.’

For those groups who feel unable to talk directly with opponents, the news media canplay a key role in the development of dialogue. This is especially apparent betweenloyalists and republicans, where as one senior representative of the Progressive UnionistParty (PUP) pointed out, the news media is central for allowing oppositional positionsand gestures to be measured:

Gerry Adams and I communicate by television all the time. Every nuance isanalysed, every programme taped and gone over again and again to seewhether there is any movement. And there are occasions where we listen verycarefully and ask what exactly was said, so we can look for any progression interms of what the last move was and what the next might be, and I know thatthey do that with us as well.

According to the PUP representative, the news could also be used to undermine the

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support base of political opponents by challenging perceptions inherent to their com-munities:

I can want Adams to pick up things, but mostly, I’m wanting to split him fromhis constituency. The more I can get the Catholic people to trust me, the moreI can get Catholic people to believe me when I talk about trying to create awholesome society and constructive negotiations, then the more I can chal-lenge the dogma which affects how the other side see us.

The question of whether negotiation through the news media is an important part ofthe peace process produces a divided response from journalists. Indicative of those whosaw news as playing a key role in the conduct and development of negotiations, a BBCpolitical correspondent responded:

There’s little doubt that the news media do affect political negotiation anddialogue. During the 1980s the big industrial disputes were negotiated to alarge degree by the news media, where employers and unions were havingtheir positions tested, and when we saw a crack or an inconsistency, we wouldprobe that crack or inconsistency to see whether it was a concession of somekind. That was of tremendous signi® cance to employers who would study thewords and similarly with regard to Northern Ireland, groups study the wordsused by other groups to see whether they have moved or shifted in relation tothings. The media play an important role in helping to shape movement, andalthough on the one hand this might not be seen as a help, it does forceexplanation and allow for an examination of movement or intransigence.What has lost Gerry Adams support in the US is the television pictures andquestions put to him about going to the IRA and asking for a cease® re. Thatis pressure. Northern Ireland is a classic example of where the pressure ofnews is forcing representatives to provide a soundbite about what they aredoing. In one sense this is counter-productive because it forces black andwhite answers when the issue is not black and white, but in another sensepoliticians are being forced to say what they mean. You could say that thenews media create unfair pressure by always demanding reactions and thatenhanced access to the media by politicians has augmented that pressure, buton the other hand we are now demanding much greater precision in theexplanations of those involved.

But, consistent with the perception among politicians that negotiation through themedia can be counterproductive, other journalists emphasised how news can destabiliseand obstruct reconciliation and constructive dialogue. To quote one freelance BBCjournalist based in Northern Ireland:

The SDLP has tried to avoid negotiating through the media and has said that.At the time when John Hume thought a cease® re was possible, before it hadmaterialised, he actively called on the media to refrain from comment,because he said that comment would be dangerous and unsettling. Hume issomebody who very much operates behind the scenes. When he speaks on themedia he tends to be repetitive. He acts like someone who has planned hisstrategy years in advance, and for ® ve years, he will say the same thing:`Agreement which threatens no section of our divided people’ . Ian Paisley usesthe media not so much to send signals to his enemies or political rivals, but toreinforce his intransigence, or to disclose information which undermines

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228 Graham Spencer

reconciliation. He has contacts in the police who will tell him things not in thepublic domain and he will disclose them publicly and make sharp claims.During the cease® re, Paisley made an announcement that republican paramil-itaries had imported a large quantity of arms from the US and he gave detailsabout what the quantity of arms contained. Paisley tends to ® ght his positionpretty much through the media, but overall, there is very little negotiationthrough the media by the parties involved because there are no gains to bemade for example by Paisley whether publicly, politically, or electorally, byshowing any kind of consideration for problems which the SDLP might haveand vice versa. There are just no votes to be gained by conceding groundthrough the media. No Unionist is going to make the step forward to get aNationalist vote, especially when that vote isn’ t there for him anyway.

Expanding on why it was doubtful that the news media should play a crucial role in thedevelopment of negotiations and the facilitation of peace, a Channel 4 politicalcorrespondent highlighted the prominence of intermediaries as more central for suc-cessful communications and dialogue:

Clearly, there are intermediaries between groups and there is a range of waysby which politicians acquire information; feelers are put out and responses aremade. I remember how the Reverend Roy Magee was used a lot early on andwas clearly instrumental in communicating with loyalist prisoners. He wouldcommunicate with a number of groups and would report back to a higherpolitical level. So, television news is not particularly important as a means ofcommunication. Indeed, politicians will refuse to use your programme as ameans to talk to whoever. They will merely say, if so and so wants to talk tome, then he can pick up a phone. I would think that since the Peter Brookedays there are some sophisticated and well tried communication routes otherthan the media, now well developed.

The assertion that communications between the respective parties in the peaceprocess is more effective when through channels other than news was endorsed byanother highly respected freelance journalist working in Belfast, who, when asked ifrepublicans and loyalists communicate through the news, responded:

They don’t need to use the media as a conduit because there are all kinds ofother channels available. We now know that for some ® ve or six years the UVFwas in secret contact with the IRA through various priests and ministers inwest Belfast; they didn’t need the media to do that. If David Ervine respondsto some comment made in the media by Gerry Adams, that’s little differentthan the British Labour Party responding to Conservative thinking which theymight read about in the Daily Telegraph. There have always been conduitsbetween republican paramilitaries and loyalist paramilitaries and conduitsbetween paramilitarie s and the rest of society, including government. Iwouldn’t put too much stall on the media having any important function toplay in helping to drive negotiations and dialogue. If anything, it tends to dothe opposite.

Other journalists take a different line when considering the communicative possibilitiesof using news as a means to develop negotiation and dialogue. Giving an example ofwhere he thought the news media could be seen to be operating as a conduit, onefreelance journalist based in Belfast said:

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Clearly, in such a divided society as Northern Ireland, one of the cross-cuttingphenomenon is the media. If someone wanted to send a signal to the otherside then one of the ways of doing that would be to use the media. Moreover,the lack of interrogation by the media would be a plus because it allowsstatements to be made more deliberately, without interference. An instancewould be recently, when the issue was ¯ oated of whether there should be anelection and some kind of forum. Mitchel McLaughlin [Sinn Fe in] gave aninterview on television news where he said that republicans didn’t like the sizeof the elected body (some 90 members), so the implication was that maybe theprinciple of an elected body wasn’t a stumbling block as long as republicanconcerns could be met in other ways. That was picked up and widely assessedas a kind of signal. As it happened, Gerry Adams quickly responded with acounter-statement attacking the idea of elections and the forum and MartinMcGuiness subsequently went on RTV to say absolutely no way. That was aninstance of what might have happened if there were no movement on the issueand movement had been made available because space was found in themedia to accommodate both the moderate and more hardline versions ofrepublican thinking on the matter. Clearly, these differences signalled thescope for movement.

This view was reinforced by a BBC journalist working in Northern Ireland who stressedthe importance of the media carrying communications between opposing sides andsometimes allowing voices to be heard which are largely excluded from the institutionalpower exerted by the larger parties:

The politicians do use the media as a conduit, especially when they’re nottalking to each other. Gerry Adam’s speech at Sinn Fe in’s annual conferenceis always crafted as a statement of positions, which the media duly promote.Certainly, when Martin McGuiness goes on Newsnight, every single word isanalysed by the other side to see what he has said. Unionists do closely readstatements made by republicans in the media and we know that television isseen by all sides as a very important mechanism within their communicationsstrategy. Furthermore, the fringe parties who can’t get direct access to Down-ing Street can still make their positions known through the media. Sinn Fe inonly allow certain representatives to appear on programmes like Newsnight,when they know that the interviewer will be very sharp and invariably watchedby those who make important political decisions and have power to in¯ uencethe direction of the peace process. If it weren’ t for the power and potential ofnews to affect political pressure and movement, then it’ s unlikely that groupswould be so careful in who they select to speak for them. If one slip-up ininterview can have signi® cant political repercussions then doesn’ t that suggestthat news can affect the political process? For me, that’s what politicians strivefor in news, to make the opponent slip up, or appear ineffective and this canhave tremendous impact on the promotion of political ideas and initiatives.

The interviews used in this article indicate that there is a range of complex problemsassociated with negotiating peace through television news. Although using news isclearly important for diverting criticisms or gaining the public-relations initiative, it canalso be counterproductive to political objectives. That some politicians seem to havetried to apply a strategy of deliberately not negotiating through news highlights that itsimportance for gaining political advantage can be questioned. Political efforts to create

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230 Graham Spencer

conciliatory dialogue by using news are hardly assisted by news values which emphasisecon¯ ict and antagonisms, just as the intricacies and nuances of peace negotiations arenot well served by simplistic representations which concentrate on reactions anddifferences, rather than on explaining contexts. As Wolfsfeld reminds us:

Government policies, especially those that involve signi® cant amounts ofchange, take a long time to implement. Journalists, however, are not in thebusiness of waiting, they expect to see results immediately. Leaders whoattempt to initiate signi® cant amounts of change run into setbacks andproblems. The event-centered orientation of journalists leads them to exagger-ate the severity of such problems and to ignore subtle developments whichcould, in time, prove more signi® cant. [35]

What is apparent is that, for many, news is perceived as having a negative impact on thedevelopment of peace, at least during the early stages. Yet, even though the conventionsof news discourse lend themselves more towards the expression of con¯ ict, that con¯ ictalso has important rami® cations for exacting pressure, forcing dialogue, testing posi-tions and producing momentum. In the case of those political groups who feel unableto engage in direct contact with their opponents, news operates as a useful channel ofcommunication which allows for some measurement of where the opposition stands ona particular issue and where it may be moving to next. In this respect, news is able tofacilitate negotiating positions and, by demanding a more precise statement of inten-tions, may assist the process of clari® cation. However, such uses need to be consideredin relation to the range of political intermediaries also at work. Using news to createpressure can also result in unintended consequences, indicating both the unpredictablenature of reporting and its potentially destabilising in¯ uence on the political process.That news may be helpful to certain parties at some times and not at others, presentsa dilemma for politicians and also illustrates that they must communicate their messageto ® t’ the frames and conventions of news discourse in order to achieve advantage inthe negotiation process. Although the notion of `peace process’ is highly contested andthose contestations are played out in the media, the interview responses suggest thatusing the media as part of this process is more important at particular times than atothers.

Finally, it is important to bear in mind the extent of political change which the peaceprocess represented. The shift from con¯ ict to con¯ ict resolution produced a trans-formation in the relationship between political and news discourse which affected thepromotion of dialogue. It is also important to remember that in the early stages ofnegotiations, developments were both tentative and incremental, and that communica-tions seemed to follow a similar pattern. The lack of any single, ® xed political directionhardly assisted the possibility of constructive and comprehensive negotiation throughnews, which continued to focus on obstructions and divisions. Given these factors, andsince television news operates more effectively for the promotion of con¯ ict rather thanpeace, perhaps it should not be surprising that reporting tended to obstruct rather thanfacilitate the early years of the peace process.

NOTES

[1] Liz Curtis, Ireland: The Propaganda War (Pluto Press, 1984); Philip Elliot, `Reporting NorthernIreland: A Study of News in Great Britain, Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland’ , inEthnicity and the Media, ed. UNESCO (UNESCO, 1977); David Miller, Don’ t Mention the War

(Pluto Press, 1994).

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[2] David Butler, The Trouble with Reporting Northern Ireland (Avebury, 1995).[3] Philip Schlesinger, Philip Elliott and Graham Murdock, Televising Terrorism: Political Violence in

Popular Culture (Comedia, 1983); Philip Schlesinger, Putting Reality Together (Methuen, 1987).[4] David Miller and Greg McLaughlin, `Reporting the Peace in Ireland’ , in War and Words: The

Northern Ireland Media Reader, ed. Bill Rolston and David Miller (Beyond the Pale Publications,1996).

[5] Mitchel McLaughlin, `The Irish Republican Ideal’ , in The Republican Ideal, ed. Norman Porter(Blackstaff Press, 1998).

[6] See Tim Pat Coogan, The Troubles (Hutchinson, 1995); Trevor Birney and Julian O’Neill, When

the President Calls (Guildhall Press, 1997); Sean Duignan, One Spin on the Merry-Go-Round

(Blackwater Press, 1996); Eamonn Mallie and David McKittrick, The Fight for Peace (Heinemann,1996); Brendan O’Brien, The Long War (O’Brien Press, 1995); Conor O’Clery, The Greening of

the White House (Gill and Macmillan, 1996); Brian Rowan, Behind the Lines (Blackstaff Press,1995).

[7] Paul Bew and Gordon Gillespie, The Northern Ireland Peace Process 1993± 1996 (Serif, 1996), p. 33.[8] Thomas Hennessey, A History of Northern Ireland 1920± 1996 (Macmillan, 1997), pp. 293± 294.[9] Peter Taylor, Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fe in (Bloomsbury, 1997), p. 343.

[10] Paul Bew, Henry Patterson and Paul Teague, Between War and Peace (Lawrence and Wishart,1997), pp. 203± 215.

[11] See Gerry Adams, An Irish Voice (Roberts Rinehart, 1997); Henry Patterson, The Politics of Illusion

(Serif, 1997), pp. 225± 269.[12] Sinn FeÁ in, Towards a Lasting Peace (Belfast, 1992), p. 9.[13] Hennessey, A History of Northern Ireland 1920± 1996, p. 281.[14] Dermot Nesbitt, Unionism Restated (Belfast, Ulster Unionist Information Institute, 1995), p. 51.[15] Frameworks for the Future (British Government document, HMSO, 1995), p. 25.[16] Miller and McLaughlin, Reporting the Peace in Ireland, p. 429.[17] Miller and McLaughlin, Reporting the Peace in Ireland, pp. 431± 436.[18] Miller and McLaughlin, Reporting the Peace in Ireland, p. 435.[19] Miller and McLaughlin, Reporting the Peace in Ireland, p. 430.[20] Miller and McLaughlin, Reporting the Peace in Ireland, p. 422.[21] Miller, Don’ t Mention the War, p. 284.[22] Taylor, Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fe in, p. 316.[23] Mallie and McKittrick, The Fight for Peace, p. 101.[24] Taylor, Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fe in, p. 318.[25] Charles R. Bantz, `News Organizations: Con¯ ict as a Crated Cultural Norm’, in Social Meanings

of News, ed. Dan Berkowitz (Sage, 1997), p. 134.[26] Gaye Tuchman, `Objectivity as Strategic Ritual’ , in Glasgow Media Group Reader Volume 1: News

Content, Language and Visuals, ed. John Eldridge (Routledge, 1995), p. 213.[27] John B. Thompson, The Media and Modernity (Polity Press, 1995), p. 141.[28] Daniel Zolo, Democracy and Complexity (Polity Press, 1992), p. 159.[29] Gadi Wolfsfeld, `Promoting Peace through the News Media: Some Initial Lessons from the Oslo

Peace Process’ , Press Politics vol. 2, no. 4 (1997), p. 52.[30] Wolfsfeld, `Promoting Peace through the News Media: Some Initial Lessons from the Oslo Peace

Process’ , p. 67.[31] Gadi Wolfsfeld, Media and Political Con¯ icts (Cambridge University Press, 1997).[32] Gadi Wolfsfeld, `Promoting Peace through the News Media’ , in Media, Ritual and Identity, ed.

Tamar Liebes and James Curran (Routledge, 1998), p. 229.[33] Wolfsfeld, `Promoting Peace through the News Media’ , p. 221.[34] Senator George Mitchell, Making Peace (William Heinemann, 1999), p. 62.[35] Wolfsfeld, `Promoting Peace through the News Media’ , p. 220.

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