Leading Article: The Prime Minister hits the wrong target
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Your support makes all the difference.MODERN WARS are fought in imagery: the determination you convey to your opponents and the emotions you sustain among your own people. Slobodan Milosevic has chosen this moment of diplomatic disarray, following the bombing of the Chinese embassy, to announce a reduction of his troop levels in Kosovo to pre-bombing levels. The British Prime Minister, in contrast, has chosen this time to turn on his own media for not giving the allies more "balanced" coverage.
The Serbian president is a past master at opportunism. His move is subtly aimed at making the task of continuing with the bombing more difficult for Nato. It may also be a way of preparing for negotiations, should they develop. The troop withdrawals he has announced change none of the facts he has created on the ground, but change a lot in terms of the image that he wishes to project.
Which is precisely why Tony Blair's criticism of the coverage of the conflict in Kosovo is so ill-advised. Mr Blair argues that the media is suffering from "refugee fatigue". His accusation is laughable. Newspapers have given over pages day after day to the stories of the Kosovar refugees. Like others in the media, The Independent will continue to cover the story. The Prime Minister's problem is really his fear that, in the war of images, the public needs to be constantly enthused with new pictures of Serbian atrocities if it is not to become taken by new stories of Nato blunders. He is wrong: wrong about the press (if anything, it is almost too tilted towards Nato), and wrong about public opinion. What the alliance needs is to show it has a strategy that it is carrying out competently, and that the central war aim - to return the refugees to their own land in peace - remains unaltered. That needs honesty and purpose, not slights against the media.
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