War in Iraq

This is a continuation of the first posting on the subject "The Media War":
Comment and analysis from Ottawa, Chennai, New Delhi, Doha, Sydney, London,
Canberra, Tehran, Ramallah, Beijing, Bangkok, and Jidda

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Ramallah Al-Ayyam (pro-Palestinian Authority), April 3: From the first day
of the aggressive war on Iraq, the cameras were there, but they were
distributed among the opposing camps of the war. British, U.S., and
coalition countries' press became tools working according to military plans
and in parallel with them, covering up the crimes committed by the troops,
and in many cases participating in the falsification of facts and the
beautification of crimes..Among these journalists, there are dozens of
Israeli journalists and correspondents who entered Kuwait with the invading
forces, crossed the borders into Iraq, and then started to send their
reports to the Israeli media. They have entered using foreign passports
with prior coordination, and perhaps with the knowledge of the Kuwaiti
authorities. The correspondent of Israeli Jerusalem Channel 1 TV, Dan
Scemama, and the correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot,
Boaz Bismuth, who were expelled on charges of spying, reported some of the
criminal atrocities committed by U.S. and British soldiers even against
those considered followers of the coalition. Scemama and Bismuth, together
with two Portuguese journalists, had entered with the troops without prior
passes, and hence were prevented from continuing. Everything has to be
synchronized with the clock of the military plan; whoever deviates from
this course will be brutally expelled. -Talal Awkal

London Al-Quds al-Arabi (Palestinian exile), April 3: The Iraqi government
has fought the media war with a high capability and a high degree of
shrewdness. It has managed to tease the other party to this war and expose
its false claims of professionalism and objectivity. U.S. officials, led by
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, cheered with joy when Iraqi Information
Minister Muhammad Sa'id al-Sahhaf read the Iraqi president's latest speech,
in which he asked his people to wage jihad against the invaders. They
viewed this as an indication that the Iraqi president was killed or wounded
in the U..S. missile bombardment at the beginning of the aggression..The
Iraqi president indeed appeared on television yesterday, smiling and
looking happy, amid a group of his ministers, just as he appeared before
with his two sons, who were said to have been killed in the U.S. missile
bombardment. The Iraqis are not known for their media progress or
absorption of its modern electronic tools..They have completely
failed to launch a successful, competitive satellite channel or publish a
newspaper. But they have benefited from the experiences of war. They have
pursued distinguished media policies and fought the propaganda war using a
modern media method..The U.S. administration now needs to make a lot of
efforts to restore credibility to its media machine.

Beijing Renmin Wang (Communist Party), April 3: Two weeks into the Iraqi
war, the media have directed their criticisms of this war pointedly at the
decision-makers behind the war. In recent days, the self-proclaimed models
of "press freedom," i.e. the U.S. and U.K. media, have finally been fixed
by their governments..Peter Arnett, who had won awards for his coverage of
the Vietnam War and the first Gulf War, was fired on Monday by the U.S.
network NBC and MSNBC because he had stated on Iraqi state television that
the U.S. war plan on Iraq had "failed.".The U.K.'s Labor Party chairman
John Reid has accused the BBC coverage of being Arab propaganda. The BBC
correspondent Rageh Omar, who had made a live report of the bomb explosion
at the Baghdad market, was denounced as being a "friend of Baghdad." The
effects of fixing the U.K. media have been remarkable because "positive"
reports have become the mainstream coverage now..The story about the rescue
of a 19-year-old female American soldier from a Baghdad hospital by
coalition forces has been expanded into a "human-interest story" and has
become the second-most reported story in the news..But two other news items
that are also related to the war and to the main humanitarian theme have
been quietly "dropped" in order to reduce their negative impacts on
society. The first news is about the ambush of British Special Forces in
northern Iraq.the second news is the tragedy involving the U.S. air raid
that hit a Red Crescent maternity clinic in Baghdad. There was no
headline, no picture, not even a mention in the streaming news on screen. -
Shi Xiaohui

Bangkok The Nation (liberal, English-language), Apr. 4: Good taste and free
speech invariably come under an intense spotlight whenever journalists
report on sensitive matters, especially one as controversial as the ongoing
U.S.-led war against Iraq..Few are willing to admit that they have already
taken a position on this war and that all the reports in the world will
never be good enough unless they reflect their own thinking. So
when "unfavourable" reports come out, people complain bitterly that they
are biased, while at the same time conveniently ignoring the nature of the
media business. The media tends to package its news products to meet the
requirements and expectations of their targeted viewers. There is also the
factor of limitations on those media outlets while operating in the war
zone. It helps tremendously to understand the nature of the various news
organizations. There is the U.S.-based CNN, a business enterprise that
caters largely to an American audience and those in other parts of the
world who take the trouble to tune in. The BBC is a British outfit widely
recognized for its objectivity in reporting world affairs.
Al-Jazeera is a Qatar-based station that caters mainly to 35 million
viewers in the Arabic-speaking world..The complaints about Al-Jazeera are
not something new, nor should they be taken lightly. The way the station
slants its news angles, rigs the debate, and puts a spin on things may not
go down well with many people outside the Arab world-such as calling
suicide bombers "martyrs."
But this does not mean doors should be shut to them. Funded by the emir of
Qatar, the station has 35 million viewers and is the only independent
broadcasting voice in the Arab world. In other words, Al-Jazeera is exactly
the kind of television station that should be encouraged.

Jidda Arab News (pro-government, English-language), April 3: So Peter
Arnett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, has now been fired from NBC,
MSNBC, and National Geographic..The reason given for the abrupt dismissal
was "a serious error in judgment" on Arnett's part..But I believe the real
cause of poor Peter's dismissal was the almost wholly predictable reaction
of the U.S. administration, and its mouthpiece, the U.S. media..If Arnett
had been working for a totalitarian regime, then I could certainly
understand his dismissal, for it would be totally in character. But, if
memory serves, poor Arnett is a Western reporter, reporting for Western
news agencies, serving Western interests, and Lord knows, we have been
repeatedly told over and over again-by the Western media-that the West
stands for freedom, liberty, and the God-given constitutional right of free
thought and expression. Does anyone see the irony here? -Hani Nuwaylati

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