The accuracy of the war in Iraq's news coverage leaves a lot to be desired

To complicate matters, there is nothing more impatient and ignorant than the average journalist during a war, inflated and made righteous by the memory of Vietnam. The media has a right to know every possible detail, and operational secrecy sounds like a military cover-up to them. A story must happen, preferably before deadline, complete with military incompetence and/or casualties both friendly and civilian. However, the media is quite happy to run with a favourable story, especially if it involves a young blonde female soldier rescued by Special Forces. The media can relate to that, it's just like a movie script. What would have happened if Private Lynch were a crusty middle-aged sergeant? Of course, this may be unfair, Private Lynch may have been the easiest to save and we know that after the ambush in Mogadishu the United States government pulled out all the stops to secure the release of Chief Warrant Officer Michael Durant.

The onus is on the Coalition forces to prove that they have not caused civilian casualties, and even then journalists like Robert Fisk are sceptical (doesn't help that he allegedly finds US ordinance debris in a bombed market place). It seems that people haven't quite grasped how amazing the Coalition technology and strategy is. Few, if any, military campaigns have been fought with such attention to limiting civilian casualties. Australian human shield Donna Mulhearn didn't really need to turn up, she must have got pretty bored guarding that grain silo. Still, it's an easy job to be a human shield when the good guys are doing the shooting.

In the first Gulf War much was made of an air strike that killed several hundred Iraq civilians. An absolute tragedy but people forget or don't know that beneath the civilian bunker was an Iraqi command and control centre. The media is quick to examine the conduct and motives of Coalition forces but is a little slower with the Iraqis. Journalists don't censure them, at times this appears to be a form of inverted racism; we mustn't judge the Iraqis for they know not what they do. Plus it's easier to examine the West. The Iraqi regime isn't exactly open and accountable, it's hard work finding out what those boys are up to, pretty dangerous too, plus there's that deadline, let's have a crack at the US instead.

Military operations are incredibly complicated and technical, plans will change after the first round has been fired, but don't try to explain any of this to a journalist who has 2 minutes on a satellite link-up or a print journalist who has 200 words to write 15 minutes ago. I can't help but hear Ralph Wiggum from The Simpsons asking his teacher: "Ms Hoover, what's a battle?"

Naturally they are going to resort to the old stalwarts of simplification, sensationalism and dumbing-down - and newspaper proprietors aren't exactly complaining.

Obviously the power of the modern media in war isn't a new phenomenon, the British Government recognised it during the Falklands. Desperate for a break-out from San Carlos they sent Lieutenant Colonel 'H' Jones and his parachute battalion to Goose Green and someone thoughtfully leaked this information to the BBC World Service; we mustn't let the media think we're bogged down. Had the Argentinians been listening to the World Service they would have worked out that 2 Para was on its way. 'H' Jones was livid, "I'll bloody sue" he was heard to say.

However, military men in the current Gulf War must now look at the Falklands War media management with envy; a handful of print journalists, reliant on military communications, and TV crews effectively restricted to rear areas because of the extreme difficulty in carrying the equipment. The Battle for Goose Green took 24 hours, some of the other battalion attacks took nearly as long.

Imagine what today's media would make of that, I can see headlines now: Thatcher underestimates resistance of Argentine Conscripts. Funny that some are surprised when a battle is hard, dangerous and brutal. The British were also fortunate that journalists in the Falklands were of the standard of Max Hastings and Robert Fox.

Briefings in the Gulf seem to be the informed telling the ignorant and impatient what happened, so they can tell the uninformed. Some are worried about the propaganda from Coalition Forces. Notwithstanding the need for probing media scrutiny, I'm more concerned about the analysis some journalists concoct.

As Arnold Bennett once said: "Journalist say a thing they know isn't true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true."