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Gallipoli and the Australian Media

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Gallipoli and the Australian Media Jump TO Article The article on the pages below is reprinted by permission from United Service (the journal of the Royal United Services Institute of New South Wales), which seeks to inform the defence and security debate in Australia and to bring an Australian perspective to that debate internationally. The Royal United Services Institute of New South Wales (RUSI NSW) has been promoting informed debate on defence and security issues since 1888. To receive quarterly copies of United Service and to obtain other significant benefits of RUSI NSW membership, please see our online Membership page: www.rusinsw.org.au/Membership Jump TO Article INSTITUTE PROCEEDINGS “A simple epic”: Gallipoli and the Australian media an address1 to the Institute on 28 October 2009 by Harvey Broadbent Senior Research Fellow, Macquarie University Centre for Media History Harvey Broadbent examines the way the media have presented the Gallipoli story over the past 90 years. For the first 50 years, the media presented what Broadbent describes as the ʻtradition messageʼ viz. that the Anzacs at Gallipoli created a distinctive tradition, which included qualities such as mateship, military prowess and a reputation as the campaignʼs most successful troops. The message changed in the 1960s to a ʻmyth messageʼ, viz. that this image of the Anzacs was essentially an overly generalised myth perpetuated to assist the realization of a national identity. Since the 1980s, a more balanced blend of these two messages has evolved as new generations of Australians have made pilgrimages to the Gallipoli battlefields. With the centenary of the campaign approaching, it is trusted that this more balanced and nuanced message, incorporating the achievements of other participating nations, especially the Turks, will prevail. This presentation has two main concerns: the nature combines desired qualities in both men and women, of the received knowledge about the Gallipoli such as the fair-go or egalitarianism, concern for one’s Campaign as a founding myth of Australia; and the fellow countrymen and women and hardiness. Or as channels or outlets by which the received knowledge Charles Bean advocated, a healthier, fitter, more has reached the Australian population since 1915. The optimistic transplanted version of the British race, media were involved even before the 1915 landings in exhibited in their performance first at Gallipoli, and determining both the way the Gallipoli story became thereafter. Some or many original Anzacs possessed rooted in the Australian psyche and its place as a these qualities, but many did not, and other nations’ founding myth for the nation. I define ‘media’ as the troops also exhibited similar qualities. various modes of communicating information and ideas In communicating these messages, at different relating thereto. It includes: newspapers; radio and times the various media modes have been responsive television news, documentaries and current affairs; to public sentiment in Australia and generally have narrowcasting (e.g. on the worldwide web); cinema; attempted to stroke it. The complexity arises when theatre; and books. determining: • how far the various modes of media go in their Received Knowledge stroking – public broadcasters such as the Media practitioners love to reduce knowledge they Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and have acquired for communication to a digestible, even ‘independent’ journals, have a strong record of simplistic, message. The received knowledge about questioning dominant public sentiment and Australia’s part in the Gallipoli Campaign can be perceptions; summarized in two distinct, but contrasting, messages. • how far the media actually influence that collective The first message, which I call the ‘Tradition sentiment; and Message’, can be encapsulated as: The Anzacs at • whether public sentiment influences media Gallipoli created a tradition or perception that they were coverage or vice-versa. distinctive by exhibiting qualities, such as an elevated So let us look at the nature of the received ideal of mateship and other attributes special to them, knowledge about the Gallipoli Campaign and the which enabled them to be the troops who achieved the channels by which the received knowledge has most during the Gallipoli Campaign. reached the Australian population. The second message, which I call the ‘Myth Message’, contradicts the first. It is that this sturdy Media Censorship in World War I image of the Anzacs is essentially an overly After the outbreak of war in August 1914, generalised myth perpetuated for the purposes of newspapers, the main source of public information, assisting the realization of a national identity that reported events as they unfolded. The imposition of war-time censorship was a source of frustration for journalists and editors. The measures were excused by 1Attended by 81 members and guests. Chief of the General Staff, Colonel Legge, as being United Service 61 (1) March 2010 Page 11 necessary to prevent any “unpatriotic disclosures of casualty lists. The Argus of 3 May 1915 (p. 6) stated that some of the daily press”. The newspapers complained “Australians have all the high patriotism and self-control constantly that the appointed censors, who Legge had of a ruling race and they will not let their private described as “hard-working citizen officers, who are sufferings dim their eyes to the glory of wounds and doing their best in a difficult task for the safety of the death incurred in their country’s cause by its gallant Empire,”2 had no real understanding of the newspaper sons”. And with the main message in mind, “Australia industry. The Argus (Melbourne) on 29 December 1914 could not wish for a more inspiring scene in which to (p.4) pointed out that those chosen as censors had “no make her European debut as a fighting unit of the training and possess no aptitude” for dealing with Empire … already our troops have established a newspaper work, “which they do not in the least superiority that should have a potent moral effect upon understand” and frequently “showed ludicrous the Turk and cause the German to reconsider his views ignorance … and some of them have not the least on the solidarity and military resources of the British notion of when to censor or how”. But that was the dominions”. And this without any hard facts of the pattern when the first landings occurred at Gallipoli. The situation available. news from the front came through a series of filters, The pattern leading to the Tradition Message is thus starting with the war correspondent, who was subject to established from the outset and it continues when the the local high command, and was further scrutinized by first war correspondent’s report of the landing arrives various authorities before publication. Frequently the and is published on 8 May 1915, two weeks after the news was minimized to the degree that it event. The report comes not from the official Australian misrepresented or put a spin on events and more war correspondent, Charles Bean. His report was still importantly their war-time implications. under the censors’ scrutiny. It comes instead from British war correspondent, Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett. It The Gallipoli Landing is a colourful, derring-do, dramatic account, devoid of The most potent example of this is the reporting of any tactical reporting or accurate assessment of gains the Anzac landing itself. News of the landing was kept and losses. It is published in newspapers around from publication in Australian newspapers until the 30 Australia and in Britain and combines moments of April, five days after the event. Details, announced by accurate description with less-than-accurate lashings of the British War Office, with no contributions allowed hyperbole and emotion. It was a heaven-sent report for from the war correspondents at the front, were reduced the secure establishment of the Tradition Message. It to a such a cryptic minimum of nineteen lines as to be reads as if it might have been designed for the purpose: frustratingly inadequate given that the landing was the “The Australians rose to the occasion … it was over in first active service in which the Australian Imperial a minute … those colonials, practical above all else, Force (AIF) and the New Zealanders were involved, an went about it in a practical way … this race of athletes historic event. Moreover, the cursory report was proceeded to scale the cliffs without responding to the inaccurate and misleading.3 enemy’s fire. They lost some men but did not worry … However, even with so little information, the The courage displayed by these wounded Australians newspapers of the day were true to representing the will never be forgotten … In fact I have never seen received knowledge as the pre-determined message of anything like these wounded Australians in war Anzac distinctiveness. Since the outbreak of war, before. Though many were shot to bits, without the newspaper columns had lauded praise born of hope on hope of recovery, their cheers resounded throughout the AIF and at the landing they followed the already the night … They were happy because they knew that established pattern of substituting facts with hyperbole. they had been tried for the first time and had not been The editorials on 30 April, with no real information, found wanting … There has been no finer feat in this knowingly obliged public hope. The Argus wrote: “But war.” while in one respect we know little, in another we know Reaction from Australians was widespread, much. We know that our troops are credited with emotional and pride-filled, and with a sense of relief that ‘splendid gallantry and magnificent achievement’ … It the AIF had not, according to a British report, been now appears that the Canadians at Hill 60 [on the found wanting. This report is highly significant. It colours Western Front] and the Australians at Gallipoli and influences so much of what follows in Australia distinguished themselves in action almost relating to the mythology of the Anzac story.
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