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Press watchdog ‘deeply disturbed’ by
Iraq’s media clampdown
By Jim Lobe
Washington, DC, Nov. 15 – A leading US-based press watchdog
says it is “deeply disturbed” by a directive issued last week
by the Iraqi interim government’s new media commission that warned
the press operating in Iraq to reflect the government’s position
in fighting by US, coalition, and Iraqi forces against insurgents.
The warning came in a statement released Nov. 11 by the government’s
Higher Media Commission (HMC) which was created by interim Prime Minister
Iyad Allawi last summer and is headed by a senior member of Allawi’s
Iraqi National Accord (INA) party, Ibrahim Janabi, a former intelligence
agent for ousted President Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party.
Citing the 60-day state of emergency declared by Allawi on the eve of
the US offensive against insurgents in Fallujah, the HMC directive said
news media must differentiate between “innocent citizens”
of the city and the insurgents.
It warned that journalists should not attach “patriotic descriptions
to groups of killers and criminals,” and urged the media to “set
aside space in your news coverage to make the position of the Iraqi
government, which expresses the aspirations of most Iraqis, clear.”
“You must be precise and objective in handling news and information,”
according to the statement, which was reported by Associated Press and
Reuters. “We hope you comply …otherwise we regret we will
be forced take all the legal measures to guarantee higher national interests,”
it said, without elaboration.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it was
“deeply disturbed” by the statement.
“We are very troubled by this directive, which is an attempt to
control news coverage through government coercion,” said CPJ’s
executive director, Ann Cooper. “It damages the government’s
credibility in establishing a free and democratic society.”
CPJ recalled that the commission was created shortly before the Qatar-based
satellite television station, al-Jazeera, was barred for one month from
newsgathering in Iraq, although it was not clear that the commission
had a role in that decision. The ban against al-Jazeera has since been
extended indefinitely.
The existence of the HMC was first disclosed in the international press
by the Financial Times which reported that the panel was planning to
move into “the old information ministry building, which is undergoing
refurbishment,” amid hopeful speculation by former employees of
the ministry that they may reclaim jobs that had been axed by the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA) last year.
At the time, Janabi told the Times that the state broadcasting company
would be absorbed by the HMC which would also advise an independent
media committee established by the CPA. The HMC’s specific responsibilities
have not yet been publicly established, however, and its directive last
week bore the letterhead of Allawi’s office.
The language of the HMC statement suggested that the order was tied
to the 60-day state of emergency that applies to all of Iraq except
the northern Kurdish provinces.
When the HMC was first announced, both CPJ and the Paris-based Reporters
Without Borders (RSF) expressed concern. The latter suggested that the
commission may have been set up to ban “certain criticism of the
prime minister.”
Both groups wrote to Allawi, asking him to “clarify the role and
functions” of the commission and “ensure that any official
regulation of the media conforms with international standards for a
free press.”
At the time, Allawi’s spokesman, George Sada, said without elaboration
that it was created “to organize the work of the media.”
Several months before, the government had temporarily banned both al-Jazeera
and another Arab satellite station, al-Arabiya, from working in the
country.
In mid-July, on the other hand, Allawi issued a directive permitting
the reopening of al-Hawza, a controversial weekly magazine linked to
Moqtada Sadr, which had been closed by the CPA the previous March. Its
closure helped spark a month of violence by Sadr’s Mehdi militia
against the occupation forces in the predominantly Shi’a southern
part of the country and in Sadr City, a district of some two million
people in Baghdad.
While the Iraqi press has enjoyed unprecedented freedom since Hussein’s
ouster, it has also found itself under great pressure from a range of
interests, including political parties, the interim government, insurgents,
and coalition forces themselves.
Nearly 50 journalists and media professionals have been killed since
the US-led invasion of Iraq in March, 2003, although most died in combat
situations. Several have been kidnapped, others detained and, in some
cases, mistreated by armed groups, including coalition forces.
On Nov. 13, the Syrian driver and interpreter, Mohammed Al-Joundi, for
two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and George Malbrunot, who
were kidnapped more than a month ago, was discovered by US forces in
a building in Fallujah where he had apparently been held since the kidnapping.
He said, however, that he had been separated from the two reporters
at the time of his capture and did not know their fate.
Source: One World
On media and the election
By Robert W. McChesney
Nov. 9 — Perhaps the most important function our media
serves is to provide voters with the information they need to make sound
decisions in the voting booth. If people don’t know what they’re
voting for, our democracy is in serious trouble.
Unfortunately, it appears that we’re in serious trouble.
This election has been marked by a staggering amount of voter ignorance.
Polls show that voters — especially Bush supporters — were
grossly misinformed about their candidate’s position on a broad
range of issues. Surveying supporters of the President, a University
of Maryland PIPA/ Knowledge Networks poll found:
* 72 percent still believe that there were WMD’s in Iraq.
* 75 percent believe that Iraq was providing substantial support
for al-Qaida.
* 66 percent believe that Bush supports participation in the
International Criminal Court.
* 72 percent believe that he supports the treaty banning land
mines.
The catch? None of these statements are true.
How do we know who our candidates are and what they stand for when the
media fixates on polls, controversy and spin instead of the issues?
How do we have meaningful elections when people don’t know what
they’re voting for? Our Founders understood this; that is why they
inscribed freedom of the press into the First Amendment of the constitution.
Our media are responsible for giving us a balanced inspection of all
claims, careful fact checking, and reasoned analysis. But that was all
but abandoned in this presidential campaign. And it is exactly what
we would expect. As a result of media consolidation and pressures to
cut costs, media corporations have gutted investigative journalism and
hard-hitting analysis. Hence we get hours and hours of coverage of the
baseless and idiotic “swift boats for truth” story, and barely
a look at what the actual policies of this administration are, and how
they affect the people of the nation and the world.
The complicity of our major media in subverting public discourse runs
even deeper. The handful of enormous media corporations that own most
of our major local TV stations and networks raked in $600 million from
presidential TV ads alone, shattering previous records and subjecting
voters to half-truths and distortions from both sides. Political ad
revenues now constitute well over 10 percent of commercial broadcasting
revenue, up from less than three percent in 1992. Overall, federal elections
cost $3.9 billion this year, representing a near 30 percent increase
since 2000.
An iron law in commercial broadcasting is that you do not do programming
that undermines the credibility of your sponsors. The result: more political
ads and little-to-no critical journalism that exposes the spin and lies
in these TV ads. A more brash insult to our intelligence can hardly
be imagined. This also explains why the corporate media giants are as
enthusiastic about campaign finance reform as the NRA is regarding gun
control.
Lastly, media companies have a conflict of interest; they benefit from
seeing the re-election of George W. Bush and his industry-friendly policies.
Viacom owner Sumner Redstone made it clear when his CBS was enmeshed
in “Rathergate” that he was a supporter of the president —
because the president would allow Viacom to get much larger and face
less competition.
All in all, we face a situation that could scarcely have been imagined
by our nation’s founders. Our “fourth estate” is hardly
an independent sector in service to the citizenry. It is a massive industry
dedicated to serving the needs of its owners. It is a central tension
in our democracy, and one that we must address if we are to get off
this downward spiral of misleading political campaigns driven by massive
contributions from corporations and wealthy individuals. Reforming the
media is not the only issue that faces our nation, but it is an unavoidable
one.
So what are we going to do about it? Reform means giving citizens more
outlets of independent news and analysis that isn’t beholden to
the bottom line. It involves giving citizens more access to their own
airwaves to let Americans know what’s really going on in their
cities and neighborhoods. It involves making sure that access to information
is equitable and affordable.
For the most part, the Bush administration is no friend to media reform,
but there is cause for hope. Liberals and conservatives alike oppose
letting big media corporations get bigger, and we are going to work
hard together to prevent further consolidation of our media. Liberals
and conservatives alike favor journalism over spin and dislike the commercial
marination of our culture. There was a reason President Bush did not
brag about his plans to let media companies get bigger and have less
competition on the campaign trail — he knows Americans from all
walks of life oppose the idea. For him, this is an issue best kept behind
closed doors.
While the short-term prospects for structural reform at the federal
level are limited, there is important defensive work to be done. Remember
that three million Americans organized in 2003 to stop the FCC from
relaxing media ownership rules. And we are much stronger as a movement
today than we were 18 months ago. We can continue to make headway on
a number of issues and plant seeds for eventual victories. Now is the
time for the media reform movement to do the foundation work to prepare
for big fights coming years down the road. We have to think in terms
of the long haul if we are going to be effective.
In addition, there is a great deal of optimism for a number of victories
at the state and local level. If we get enough citizens to take a stand,
politicians will be forced to act. There are promising, activist-driven
efforts underway to challenge local cable providers so they ensure funding
and channel “set-asides” for independent and diverse programming.
Amazing noncommercial wireless technology has the potential to deliver
more diverse TV offerings, and provide phone and Internet as an affordable
public utility like water, sewers and electricity.
The past few months remind us again that media reform is not a left-versus-right,
technocratic or obscure issue; it addresses the singular importance
of media to a self-governing society. Never again should we allow our
media system to send the voters to the polls without the information
they need to make well-reasoned decisions. There is a national emergency
when voters go to the polls ignorant of the most elementary facts about
our economy, foreign policy, health care, and environment. It is unacceptable.
Now is the time to plug in and take action to create a better media
system so that when the next big election comes along, Americans actually
have a clue about what their candidates stand for. Pass this along,
become an e-activist at www.freepress.net, and tell your friends to
get involved. As Saul Alinsky put it, the only way to beat organized
money is with organized people. Remember this, act on it, and we will
prevail.
Source: CommonDreams.org
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