US media applaud bombing of Iraqi TV
When Iraqi TV offices in Baghdad were hit by a US missile strike on Mar. 25, the targeting of media was strongly criticized by international press and human rights groups. The general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, Aidan White, suggested that “there should be a clear international investigation into whether or not this bombing violates the Geneva Convention.” White told Reuters (3/36/03), “Once again, we see military and political commanders from the democratic world targeting a television network simply because they don’t like the message it gives out.” The Geneva Convention forbids the targeting of civilian installations, whether state-owned or not, unless they are being used for military purposes.
Some US journalists, however, have not shown much concern for the targeting of Iraqi journalists. Before the strike, many were anxious to know why the broadcast facilities hadn’t been attacked yet, including Fox News Channel’s John Gibson: “Should we take Iraqi TV off the air? Should we put a stove pipe down there?” After the attack, other reporters expressed satisfaction or even endorsed the attack: CNN’s Aaron Brown recalled that “a lot of people wondered… why the coalition allowed Iraqi TV to stay on the air as long as it did,” while New York Times reporter Michael Gordon appeared on CNN saying, “And personally, I think the television, based on what I’ve seen of Iraqi television, with Saddam Hussein presenting propaganda to his people … was an appropriate target.”
On March 26, Human Rights Watch affirmed that it would be illegal to target Iraqi TV based on its propaganda value. “Although stopping enemy propaganda may serve to demoralize the Iraqi population and to undermine the government’s political support,” said HRW, “neither purpose offers the ‘concrete and direct’ military advantage necessary under international law to make civilian broadcast facilities a legitimate military target.” (FAIR)

Channel wants its MTV without allusions to war
Though images of war are dominating television screens, one channel is not having it. The day after the war on Iraq started, a memo was distributed through the offices of MTV Europe by its broadcast standards department.
In the memo, Mark Sutherland, one of the department’s managers, recommends that music videos depicting “war, soldiers, war planes, missiles, bombs, riots and social unrest, executions,” and “other obviously sensitive material” not be shown on MTV in Britain and elsewhere in Europe until further notice.
An MTV spokesperson said that the memo applied only to MTV in Europe, and that specific videos mentioned were not banned but were rather examples of the kinds of videos that it is advising against showing. Sutherland cites as justification for the recommendation the programming code of the Independent Television Commission, the regulatory body for commercial TV in Britain. The code sets down rules against programming that “offends against good taste or decency.”
The rap mogul Russell Simmons and the rapper Mos Def have said that MTV in the United States would not show anti-war public service commercials they had created. The MTV spokesperson confirmed this, saying that “MTV does not accept advocacy ads.” An MTV spokesperson said that MTV in the US was also “being sensitive to the heightened sensitivities of its audience.” (NYT)

US media along for the ride
Al-Jazeera.net has been defaced, and the Internet site now carries a map of the US wrapped in red, white, and blue -­ just like the ones adorning almost all US news outlets now.
“This broadcast was brought to you by: Freedom Cyber Force Militia. GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS!” says the electronic signature left on the website of the Qatar-based news agency.
Al-Jazeera, whose coverage of the US-led invasion of Iraq focused on casualties on both sides, the human cost of the invasion, and also gave more space to Arab and Iraqi views on the conflict -­ upsetting Washington along the way -­ had just launched the English site on Mar. 24. Two of the network’s reporters were banned this week from stock trading floors in New York while another website, YellowTimes.com, which published photographs of the US soldiers who were killed and captured by Iraqi forces, was temporarily shut down.
Many media observers in Washington say the two websites are only minor casualties of the war. The larger victim is the flow of accurate and fair information.
The New York-based liberal media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting says it has been detecting a trend from well before the start of the war to muzzle the free flow of information and choke off a real debate in the US about the war.
US networks and their websites are largely echoing what US generals say, streaming pictures of US tanks rumbling towards Baghdad or of troops fighting heroically. Terms coined by the administration, such as “liberating Iraq,” the “coalition of the willing,” and “clean and precise war” go unchallenged. Voices opposing the war have also been completely ignored. According to Laura Miller, associate editor of “PR Watch,” which has been following the war coverage, the media are “Propelling [the war]. They are feeding the propaganda. They are an excellent source for maintaining … public support for the war.” (IPS)

New York Stock Exchange bans Al-Jazeera reporters
Al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language satellite TV channel, said today that the New York Stock Exchange is banning its reporters, a move the channel attributed to its reports on the Iraq war.
Al-Jazeera has received an official letter from the New York Stock Exchange informing it that the channel’s financial reporters can no longer present their reports from the exchange, the satellite channel reported on its morning financial broadcast.
The channel reported that the letter said the exchange wanted to limit the number of television stations covering the exchange. But Al-Jazeera, which has been covering the NYSE for years, said it was believed to be the only channel affected by the action. The station said the action occurred because of Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the war on Iraq.
US military officials on Mar. 23 criticized Al-Jazeera for carrying Iraqi television images of US prisoners of war and the station has given extensive coverage to widespread Arab criticism of the US war of Iraq.
The station said the exchange withdrew the press card of Al-Jazeera reporter Ammar al-Sankari and ordered its other reporter, Ramzi Shiber, to hand over his press card immediately. (Qatar News Agency)

Lack of skepticism leads to poor reporting on Iraq weapons claims
A lack of skepticism toward official US sources has already led prominent American journalists into embarrassing errors in their coverage of the US invasion of Iraq, particularly in relation to claims that proof had been found that Iraq possesses banned weapons. On Mar. 20, US military sources initially described missiles launched by Iraq as “Scuds” ­- the US name for a Soviet-made missile used by Iraq during the Gulf War. They exceed the range limits imposed on Iraqi weapons by the 1991 ceasefire agreement. While some reporters appropriately sourced the Scud reports to military officials, and cautioned their audience about the uncertainty of the identification, others rushed to report claims as facts. NBC, ABC, and NPR journalists all definitively reported the launching of a Scud missile by Iraq. However, the Associated Press reported on March 22 that a Pentagon news conference had revealed that “…the Iraqis have not fired any Scuds and that US forces searching airfields … have uncovered no missiles or launchers.” Even so, the next day, columnist Peter Bronson of the Cincinnati Enquirer was still writing, “The Scuds he swore he did not have were fired at Kuwait, and Iraq was launching lame denials while the craters still smoked.”
Reporters were also embarrassed on March 23 by an evaporating story about a “chemical facility” near the town of Najaf, Iraq. While hyped by TV and print outlets ­- Fox News Channel treated the report as fact in a series of onscreen banners like “Huge Chemical Weapons Plant Found in Iraq,” and the Philadelphia Daily News reported it as the “biggest find of the Iraq war” -­ the “discovery” turned out to be a false alarm, prompting TV networks to begin changing their stories. (FAIR)

More journalists jailed in climate of ‘war on terrorism’
The number of journalists thrown in prison around the world rose sharply in 2002, in contrast to a fall in the number of those killed in connection with their work, according to press watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
While CPJ noted a fall in media worker fatalities, it stressed that the number of journalists in prison rose sharply last year, and suggested that Washington’s “war on terrorism” -­ and the speed and determination with which a number of allied governments have used it to crack down on opposition press -­ bore a not insignificant amount of responsibility.
By the end of 2002, 136 journalists were in jail, a 15 percent increase over 2001 and “a shocking 68 percent increase since the end of 2000, when only 81 journalists were imprisoned,” according to an introduction to the 424-page report by CPJ director Ann Cooper.
CPJ has also raised concerns about the ongoing US-led attack on Iraq. Last week, the group asked US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld to explain the bombing of Iraq state television facilities in Baghdad, which it says are protected under the Genevea Conventions governing conduct during wartime. (IPS)

back to top