Power, propaganda and technology are shaping war reporting making truth harder to discern while human suffering is being normalized or overlooked around the world
Monalisa Changkija
Last week, Pope Leo XIV had urged journalists to highlight the suffering caused by war and “tell it through the eyes of victims”. Reportedly, in a meeting with broadcasters from Italy’s TG2 television news programme, the Pope made a direct appeal for reporters “to show the face of war and tell it through the eyes of the victims, so as not to turn it into a video game” adding journalists must work “in verifying the news so as not to become a megaphone of power”. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and his aides ratcheted up pressure on journalists – through lectures, scolding and outright threats – to cover the war on Iran the way his administration wants. This summarizes the news coverage we are consuming on the West Asia war and the media’s centrality as another battle field. At the best of times, news coverage is never easy, especially in countries where the leadership is extremely sensitive to how it is projected resulting in tight control over the media and/or silencing the media and propaganda being passed off as news through fake news and trolling especially of the opposition and voices of dissent. At times of conflict or war, news coverage is even harder particularly for independent journalists and media houses.
Because we still like to believe that democracy is alive or want to ensure its survival in our nations, it is hard to digest that democracy is dying everywhere and people have become merely tools, vote banks, markets and labour in the 1%’s quest for political and economic power. The state seems to have become merely a tool for power seekers as all social contracts have been violated ironically by the use of power of the state. If such a situation has created the scope and space for misinformation and disinformation, the very same misinformation and disinformation have also been used to weaken the power of the state and strengthen the power of the 1%, who has appropriated and undermined all democratic institutions for undemocratic ends.
Under the circumstances, it has become extremely difficult and dangerous for independent journalists and media houses to exercise their democratic rights and fulfill their responsibilities to the people. So the choice to speak truth to power and give a voice to the people by informing the public with correct news or cower to the might of political and economic power is well encapsulated by the Pope urging journalists to highlight the suffering caused by war and “tell it through the eyes of victims” and President Trump’s fulminations against what he perceives to be unflattering news coverage on his presidency and the West Asia war, which he typically cast as unpatriotic.
In the US, the media’s ideological stances has always been quite clear ~ highlighted especially during elections ~ something we are seeing in India too in the recent past although in India economic considerations seem to over-ride ideological stances. Now, because we naturally rely on the US media for news on the West Asia war as it is more available than the Iranian media, it is time to question their news coverage, sources and motives. In other words, not take things at face value, which we shouldn’t regarding any news or anything anyway. What compounds matters even more these days is that besides the legacy print and electronic media, there is a surfeit of online portals, YouTubers, X and numerous other social media. Everybody has their own YouTube pressing forward their own takes on everything under the sun and now the West Asia war. Then there is AI.
There is an information overload to the point of making us immure to the human tragedy that is happening in that region. Somehow, technology has made us insensitive to the wasteful tragedy of war in terms of human lives and limbs, resources and energy. This began with Operation Desert storm, which was televised live. It was as if we were watching an epic Hollywood war movie. Therefore the Pope’s direct appeal for reporters “to show the face of war and tell it through the eyes of the victims, so as not to turn it into a video game”, is not without reason and is indeed guidance to us through reporters to focus on the tragic consequences of war on the human race. Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich had also sharply rebuked the White House for posting a video on social media featuring footage from the Iran war, spliced with scenes from video games and action films. Cupich called the video “sickening”. But would the Pope’s guidance have an impact on us, who are so glued to our smartphones?
Despite the maze-like cornucopia of misinformation, disinformation, fake news and propaganda and despite protestation of victory in this war, clearly things are not going well, especially for war waging sides. Besides lives lost and the huge destruction of economic and energy infrastructure and resources, one of the casualties has been the truth, as is the wont of any contestation. Everyone wants to assert their prowess and might ~ in the process there is a deliberate concealment of deaths, injuries and destructions. But truth always wills out and in this instance too truth will out, which is when reputations and careers will most likely be destroyed, nations shamed, grandstanding exposed and the posturing, propaganda and projections of power will be pierced.
We don’t know exactly what is happening because we probably haven’t ascertained how much of what the legacy media and social media are informing is actual news, how much is opinions and how much is propaganda, misinformation and disinformation. We also tend to be impressed and believe those who were/are in powerful positions with claimed expertise. However, it looks like a lot of what we have known in our lifetime will likely become the past and we will wake up to a different world after the end of this West Asia war, whenever that happens. That different world could hold different political, economic and social systems because everything runs its course after a certain point. Right now, we are looking at severe economic upheavals and fall-outs that will likely upset a lot of political and economic projections and the 99%ers will bear the brunt. Will the past repeat itself or will the 99%ers reclaim the earth out of the ashes of man’s hubris, ego, greed, delusions and foolishness?
This is exactly the situation when nations will need independent journalists and media to make sense to the people, who will likely grapple to survive in a different and possibly depleted world.
(The Columnist is a Dimapur-based veteran journalist, poet and former Editor of Nagaland Page. Published in the March 25, 2026 issue of Assam Tribune)
