Fast news, slow truth: Can diplomacy survive the spectacle

Co-authored by Anthony Hughes and Richard Griffiths 

It’s been one of the fastest moving stories in recent memory and in the latest confrontation between the US and Iran, geopolitical tensions have been pushed to precarious new heights. The confrontation seems to have been shaped as much by hashtag diplomacy and inconsistent messaging as the actual airstrikes themselves. With both sides delivering unclear signals to the international community, the line between strategy and spectacle is increasingly difficult to discern. Such is the speed of the current crisis, journalists have told us they are struggling to keep up with such a rapidly evolving story.

On Sunday morning, much of the world was woken up to the overnight news that the US had launched a series of airstrikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, using 30,000-pound “bunker busters”. The strikes were framed by President Trump as a “great success” though, at the time of writing, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has yet to confirm the full extent of the damage. From a communications standpoint, the US administration’s messaging has been characteristically triumphant but also prone to quickly changing both in substance and tone, faintly reminiscent of the tariff announcements.

Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted the goal was not regime change. However, hours later, President Trump posted on Truth Social that if Iran couldn’t “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN” perhaps regime change was on the table after all. Strategic ambiguity? Who knows. Meanwhile, Iran’s response has oscillated between the bellicose and the theatrical but arguably less reflective of what has felt like a more carefully calibrated response. The Iranian foreign ministry declared the strikes “outrageous” and warned of “everlasting consequences”. However, Tehran’s response of launching missiles at a US airbase in Qatar was well telegraphed in advance. Qatar said all the missiles were intercepted.

The news (and public statements from all sides) has come so thick and fast that the headlines in the print editions of the UK papers this morning were out of date with President Trump’s overnight declaration of a ceasefire between Iran and Israel coming too late for many of them. It was the type of overnight breaking story that provides perfect material for the Radio 4 Today Programme. When Today Programme presenter Anna Foster delivered the first reaction from the Israeli government to the news of the overnight ‘ceasefire’, she had to take a breath saying: “This has just arrived … I am scanning it as I speak to you… Erm it says that… Israel has agreed to the President’s proposal for a bi-lateral ceasefire.” Just over an hour later reports broke of Israel saying Iran had violated the ceasefire and vowed to retaliate. By the time you are reading this, the story will have undoubtedly moved on further. In this environment, headlines are outdated before the ink dries, and public understanding is shaped more by memes than by maps.

Mixed messages, inflammatory rhetoric, and high-stakes military theatrics make for compelling headlines — but poor diplomacy. To borrow and potentially misappropriate Gary Vaynerchuk’s aphorism that whilst “Content is King, Context is God”, in an era of hashtag diplomacy and real-time outrage, understanding the motivations behind the messaging is more important than the messaging itself. You could cynically argue, for example, that Trump’s posts are designed to dominate the (cable) news cycle and energise supporters. Iran’s rhetoric, meanwhile, is calibrated to reinforce its narrative of victimhood and resistance, both at home and among sympathetic audiences abroad.

The irony, of course, is that both sides claim to want peace. Trump insists this is about stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions, not starting a war. Iran insists it’s defending its sovereignty, not seeking conflict. Yet here we are, with missiles flying, jittery oil prices, diplomats scrambling to schedule peace talks between air raid sirens – and experienced correspondents trying to make sense of it all. If either side truly wants peace, they might consider swapping bunker busters for briefings, and hashtags for handshakes. As Margaret Atwood said: "War is what happens when language fails".