World

never intended to resolve the banana trade dispute.(ITN: 1645, 6.3.99)On 11 occasions, there were references to US attemptsto minimise the dispute. These included statements bythe American ambassador, who referred to the bananadispute as an ‘irritant’, and secondly to news statementswhere his comments were interpreted as minimising theconflict:US ambassador: The friendship is so deep and so broad.We share so much in economic and political terms. This isan irritant in this overwhelmingly positive relationship.(Sky News: 1800, 5.3.99)Reporter: the US ambassador did his diplomatic best tominimise the conflict. (BBC1: 2100, 4.3.99)Finally in this section, a further response to thedispute came from environmentalists who campaignedon the street in Edinburgh:Reporter: Suitably attired, environmentalists inEdinburgh urged shoppers to boycott bananas grown on USownedplantations. (Man dressed in furry banana suitoffers free bananas to passers by) (BBC1: 1300, 5.3.99)The same footage was shown again in The Six O’clockNews the same day, and one further reference was madeon Channel 4. However, the reasons for Scottish environmentalistsurging a boycott of US plantations werenot explored anywhere in the coverage.C.2.1.6. Potential consequencesA number of potential consequences of the dispute werecovered to varying extents by the different televisionchannels. Statements about possible consequencesformed the largest section of the coverage, with a total of178 references. Top of the list of possible outcomes wasthe potential for damage to British industry, resulting injob losses. There were 59 such references:Newscaster: Thousands of British jobs could be at risk.(BBC1: 1800, 4.3.99)The primary concern here was for the industry whichwas expected to be hardest hit by the sanctions, theScottish Borders cashmere industry. All six channelsreferred to this issue, although more than half of thestatements in this category were made by BBC1, whointerviewed a number of representatives from thecashmere industry:Chief Executive, Scottish Borders Enterprise:It would be immensely serious. There’s 22 companiesinvolved, employing 2,300 people and we believe that1,000 jobs are immediately at risk as a result of thesesanctions. (BBC1: 1800, 4.3.99)Reporter: This is an industry on which two and a halfthousand jobs depend in an area which has seen a spate ofredundancies in recent months. The American measureswill slap a tax of more than £200 on each cashmerejumper made here for the US market. (ITN, News atTen, 4.2.99)Secondly, concerns about an escalation of the conflictwere raised, with the possibility of a trade war betweenthe United States and the European Union. Reportersraised the question of whether there would be furtherdisputes over a range of controversial trading issues. Intotal, there were 57 references:Reporter: tonight all sides acknowledge that a disputeover bananas could rapidly escalate into a majortransatlantic trade war. (ITN: 2200, 5.3.99)Reference was made to pending disputes between thetwo trading blocks on four separate issues: geneticallymodified food, plane noises, hormone injected beef, andtrade with China:Reporter: Alas more disputes may be on the way.Europe hopes to ban noisy American planes. The US saysit will ban Concorde in revenge. They’re arguing aboutChina and its trade with the rest of the world. And the bigone is Europe’s attempt to keep American hormoneinjected beef out. (BBC2: 2230, 4.3.99)Thirdly, 39 references were made to the likelihood ofdamage to the fragile economies of the WindwardIslands in the Caribbean, with concerns about theexisting high levels of unemployment, and the fear thatillegal drug production would increase if the trade inbananas was overtaken by US companies:Grenada Ambassador to the US: For us we have madethe point, we have sounded that very, very criticalwarning that our island will be severely threatened. (SkyNews: 1800, 4.3.99)A fourth potential consequence of the bananadispute which was referred to 18 times, across thechannels in our sample, was of damage to the ‘specialrelationship’ between the US and the UK. Six of thesereferences were made by Sky News. What was viewed as‘special’ about this relationship was not made clear:Newscaster: The special relationship between TonyBlair and Bill Clinton is under threat tonight. (Channel5: 1900, 5.3.99)Newscaster: It started with a dispute over bananas. Nowit’s threatening Britain’s special relationship with the US.(Sky News: 1800, 4.3.99)28 DFID – July 2000