News Coverage of Iraq. How Fair Is Your Deal?

Dear Husker:

I don't see this war as a sporting game. I don't cheer and I don't boo at the "plays".

Diane's link is great, because it tells us things as they are felt in the Arab world. At the same time, it is terrible, because it tells us about the hatred that is being amassed with the war, beyond the boundaries of Iraq.

One thing the American leaders and public must regain, is the grip to reality, even if reality can be very ugly. The fact is that growing groups of Arabs and Muslims have crossed the line from distrust to fear to hatred towards the USA. I'm certain that's not what the American people want, but it's happening.

(Edit) PS: If I read the news to feel good, I would stick to the comic strips, not the war coverage.

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fbaezer
I was being more rhetorical or cynical, I'm certainly not comfortable with evoking more hate from the middle east or anywhere for that matter. Me personally - I'm always trying to rid myself of the "ugly american" perspective

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A friend sent me a copy of an article by Arundhati Roy on the war. It is very long and was sent without a link, so I have copied one paragraph that is extremely sensitive to the dangers of hatred on both sides, especially against the citizens of any country who's leadership has undertaken an action that is unpopular or immoral.

Roy gives an excellent read on the war and the attitudes that are hardening around the world and how the arrogance of Bush in his unilateral push to war is viewed.

If you want to read the entire essay, which I strongly recommend, you can find it on ZNet.com. They list the names of contributors.

This article is titled: Mesopotamia, Babylon, The Tigris and Euphrates.

"Suddenly, I, who have been vilified for being "anti-American" and "anti-west", find myself in the extraordinary position of defending the people of America. And Britain.

Those who descend so easily into the pit of racist abuse would do well to remember the hundreds of thousands of American and British citizens who protested against their country's stockpile of nuclear weapons. And the thousands of American war resisters who forced their government to withdraw from Vietnam. They should know that the most scholarly, scathing, hilarious critiques of the US government and the "American way of life" comes from American citizens. And that the funniest, most bitter condemnation of their prime minister comes from the British media. Finally they should remember that right now, hundreds of thousands of British and American citizens are on the streets protesting the war. The Coalition of the Bullied and Bought consists of governments, not people. More than one third of America's citizens have survived the relentless propaganda they've been subjected to, and many thousands are actively fighting their own government. In the ultra-patriotic climate that prevails in the US, that's as bra

(The last sentence was cut off in the article.)

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Did anyone catch Bill Moyers show tonight about the Media and the Iraq War? The interview with Susan Sontag was very well done. I am an admirer of Sontag, and her views on this war mirror mine. She made mention that those who have been in war are never the same afterward...the soldier, the aid worker, the others and I assume she means the medical personnel. She said this is an "elective war." My sentiments exactly, and I cannot say with quite enough vehemence how I deplore the way this was "hatched" and presented to the American people.

I am disgusted that so many believe that this was a "moral imperative." President Bush and his administration have changed their reasons with this war to suit their needs to perpetuate the lies. I do not believe for a second that their is an altruistic goal here. Yet the people swallow this.

Tartarin has said many things well, including the failure of our education system. I too fault the system. Having traveled extensively, I know where we are deficient. We are NOT exceptional, yet so many Americans see themselves as such. That so many Americans feel comfortable to sit in their living rooms with the war 24/7 as if it were a game, disgusts me.

The Iraqi people deserve better than Saddam Hussein, but to think that they will appreciate our presence in their country is not a surety.

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a little comic relief...

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/bo/2003/bo030404.gif

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and there's entirely too many french-loving commie scum on this thread Wink

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I have noticed that Wolf Blitzer somehow never inhales, he only exhales.....

I suspect that this is the key to the hypnotic thrall he holds over teevee viewers. Without a pause in speaking, there is no moment to tear your attention away. My theory is that Wolf has a special compressed air tank inserted into his chest cavity to keep his lungs perpetually inflated. A small hose protrudes from the small of his back to a gas-powered compressor to keep him constantly tanked up, ready to talk-blast his way through the war news of the hour...

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de Volkskrant (my translation) wrote:

AL-Jazeera is like a sponge

By Hassnae Bouazza
AMSTERDAM
3 April 2003

He who watches Al-Jazeera for a day to follow the war, will be almost literally overwhelmed by the amount of information that the station sends out to its viewers. The reporting itself is as impressive as the spots about the war.

One spot in particular is meaningful: images and quotes from both Bush and Saddam are interchanged with images of anti-war demonstrations. This way the station wants to make clear it reports all sides of the story and shows really everything: images from the front, reporters in the country and at all the relevant press conferences.

In that way, on Wednesday for example, the live connection with the British House of Commons is interrupted for a live press conference of the Iraqi minister of Information, which again is interrupted for the live press conference of Colin Powell and his Turkish colleague in Ankara. The viewer is made a direct participant in all developments, either through live reports or through the news ticker at the bottom of the screen.

The station functions as a window to the world and refrains from any explicit commentary. [..] The guests (in the studio or through satellite connection) can be Arabic experts, but also Arabic-speaking spokespersons from the American government. American and British army functionaries give interviews to Al Jazeera.

The reports from the front are provided by its own people. Al Jazeera has reporters in Basra, Baghdad, Nasariyah and Mosul. [..] The moment the bombardments start, the station switches to the reporter who - while putting on his helmet and a bullet-proof vest - describes how fierce they are.

There are also regularly "triangle"-interviews between a presentator in Quatar with two reporters about what is true about the Western reporting on the cities they are in.

The station approaches the western guests in the same way as its Arabic guests. That, plus the reports on the progress of the American and British forces have led many Arabs to reproach Al Jazeera for choosing the side of the Americans. But Al Jazeera shows the propaganda from both parties, like a sponge that absorbs everything, and lets it all drain again - onto the airwaves.

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Whose 'truth' is being reported?

http://csmonitor.com/2003/0408/p09s02-coop.html

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I am appalled at the way the US television stations have downplayed the killing of 3 journalists in Baghdad.

I have also been told by a journalist in Washington that CNN presented two different versions of the story. One in their international edition; an edulcorate one in their US edition. I cannot verify this.

Clearly, this tends to provoke a bias in the US public opinion: "Why are the press making all this fuss about their dead; our actions were legitimate".

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A variety of reports from the Arab world on the fall of baghdad

News from the Arab world

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nimh wrote:

de Volkskrant (my translation) wrote:

AL-Jazeera is like a sponge

By Hassnae Bouazza
AMSTERDAM
3 April 2003

He who watches Al-Jazeera for a day to follow the war, will be almost literally overwhelmed by the amount of information that the station sends out to its viewers. The reporting itself is as impressive as the spots about the war.

One spot in particular is meaningful: images and quotes from both Bush and Saddam are interchanged with images of anti-war demonstrations. This way the station wants to make clear it reports all sides of the story and shows really everything: images from the front, reporters in the country and at all the relevant press conferences.

In that way, on Wednesday for example, the live connection with the British House of Commons is interrupted for a live press conference of the Iraqi minister of Information, which again is interrupted for the live press conference of Colin Powell and his Turkish colleague in Ankara. The viewer is made a direct participant in all developments, either through live reports or through the news ticker at the bottom of the screen.

The station functions as a window to the world and refrains from any explicit commentary. [..] The guests (in the studio or through satellite connection) can be Arabic experts, but also Arabic-speaking spokespersons from the American government. American and British army functionaries give interviews to Al Jazeera.

The reports from the front are provided by its own people. Al Jazeera has reporters in Basra, Baghdad, Nasariyah and Mosul. [..] The moment the bombardments start, the station switches to the reporter who - while putting on his helmet and a bullet-proof vest - describes how fierce they are.

There are also regularly "triangle"-interviews between a presentator in Quatar with two reporters about what is true about the Western reporting on the cities they are in.

The station approaches the western guests in the same way as its Arabic guests. That, plus the reports on the progress of the American and British forces have led many Arabs to reproach Al Jazeera for choosing the side of the Americans. But Al Jazeera shows the propaganda from both parties, like a sponge that absorbs everything, and lets it all drain again - onto the airwaves.

Thats what i'm saying the entire war. BBC World and Al-Jazeera are the winners(if there are any in a war) of this conflict. Their reports were unbiased and with criticism to what officials, on both sides, said. When Centcom said their were no soldiers missing. A few hours later A-J showed the POWs. When the crazy minister of Information said the troops were 100 miles from Bagdad A-J showed the US troops on the tarmac of the Bagdad(Saddam) airport.

What do people like Au have against a channel they probably not watch. Xenofobia? Or worse, Arabofobia?

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Statue Saddam? Surrounded by a minority of jubilating people.
Mainly the neatly printed cardboards with 'Thank you Mr. Bush' reaked so much of CIA disinformation they nearly made me throw up my breakfast.

http://www.voxfux.com/archives/00000085.htm

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wolf wrote:

Statue Saddam? Surrounded by a minority of jubilating people.
Mainly the neatly printed cardboards with 'Thank you Mr. Bush' reaked so much of CIA disinformation they nearly made me throw up my breakfast.

http://www.voxfux.com/archives/00000085.htm

I agree that there is ample incentive for skepticism.

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This excerpt and link are from Information Clearinghouse. (Arbitrary decisions have become par for the course).

THE IMPERIAL MOMENT ARRIVES: For many Iraqis, released from decades of oppression, how could there not be something euphoric in this moment, whatever the state of their homes and their country, however it was brought to them? For them, however, post-liberation tristesse is likely to come soon enough.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2820.htm

As Harold Meyerson of the American Prospect magazine writes in the Washington Post (see below), "Deployment precedes -- and damn near obviates -- debate." This has been the secret to Bush administration policy so far, at home and abroad. (See tomorrow's tomgram for how this works on the domestic "front.") In all those months of "talk," they were mobilizing, and then the "facts on the ground" -- remember all that onrushing hot weather? -- took over. Now, having had a preventive war, we're evidently about to have a preventive occupation sorry, "liberation." The Pentagon in the first democratic gesture of the postwar era has moved swiftly and preemptively to insert its candidate for next head of Iraq, the exile Ahmed Chalabi, much hated by the State Department and CIA, into Iraq. As Jim Lobe reports in the Asia Times today ( Pentagon's favorites get a foot in the door)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED10Ak02.html.

"It came as some surprise when, as [Condi] Rice was speaking [out against an all-exile future government], the Pentagon flew some 500 INC activists - plus Chalabi himself - from the northern Iraqi safe haven where they had been cooling their heels into the southern US-occupied city of Nasiriyah, where Chalabi quickly met with local dignitaries, apparently to gain their backing.
"That this took place on the eve of Bush's Belfast meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair was regarded as particularly significant, since Blair had lined up solidly behind the State Department. 'Bush agreed that we would not dream of parachuting people from outside Iraq to run Iraq,' a senior Blair aide had told Newsweek two days before
"'You can call this another aspect of [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz's preemption strategy,' said one administration official. 'You can call this a coup d'etat.''

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Quote:

"Another difference between television in the US and elsewhere has been coverage of Iraqi casualties. Despite constant discussion of "precision bombing," the US invasion has produced so many dead and wounded that Iraqi hospitals stopped trying to count. Red Cross officials have labeled the level of casualties "incredible," describing "dozens of totally dismembered dead bodies of women and children" delivered by truck to hospitals. Cluster bombs, one of the most indiscriminate weapons in the modern arsenal, have been used by US and UK forces, with the British defense minister explaining that mothers of Iraqi children killed would one day thank Britain for their use."

-- Robert Jensen, a British reporter quoted in al-Jazeera (English version)

The other night Jon Stewart was mocking FOX News for fellating Bush every minute of every day and he showed some of the bigger bombs that have rocked Baghdad, and I swear, some of those explosions were stadium-sized blasts, and they were all in the center of town.

I understand about "precision" bombs, but you can't precisely blow up a high-rise building at Fifth & Main and expect the folks and Third and Main to survive unscathed. The entire rest of the world is seeing what we are really doing over there, but as always, the US media is keeping the facts unreported, hoping Bush can be elected for the first time in 2004 and the network owners can get another billion or two in tax deductions.

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More arbitrary decisions!! This time with the awarding of contracts to a subsidiary of Haliburton, KBR, without putting out bids.

http://truthout.org/docs_03/041303A.shtml

Excerpt:
Waxman has said federal procurement data shows the government has awarded KBR work worth more than $624 million from October 2000 through March 2002.

He said there had been previous problems with KBR, including overcharges, such as:

* A GAO finding in 1997 that the company billed the Army for questionable expenses for work in the Balkans, including charges of $85.98 per sheet of plywood that cost $14.06.

* A year 2000 follow-up report on the Balkans work that found inflated costs, including charges for cleaning some offices up to four times a day.

* $2 million in fines paid in February 2002 to resolve fraud claims involving work at Fort Ord, Calif. The Defense Department inspector general and a federal grand jury had investigated allegations by a former employee that KBR defrauded the government of millions of dollars by inflating prices for repairs and maintenance.

The Securities and Exchange Commission began in December a formal investigation into Halliburton's accounting practices, focusing on an accounting change made in 1998 during Cheney's tenure as CEO.

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http://www.rense.com/1.imagesE/thank.jpg

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And this, should go here ...

<copying post from thread to thread>

Sorry, I have a thing with archiving - stuff should be in the right place ;-)

-------

Walter Hinteler wrote:

The "British Life And Internet project" recently did a research about "Media and the War in Iraq", which can be read online here:

Link to "Media and the War in Iraq Report Summaries"

Annoying thing is that you have to register with your e-mail address to see the reports in question.

So to make it easy for ya, this is from the report on UK respondents.

(The full sample was one of 1909 UK Internet users and some 749 non-UK residents, self-selected volunteers from a database of 14667 e-mail addresses. "Although not statistically representative of the general UK population, the return sample comprised a wide demographic mix.").

Quote:

Opinions about the Way TV has Covered the War

Respondents were presented with 21 statements of opinion about the way television news has covered the war against Iraq with which they were invited to agree or disagree. [..]

Although respondents were more likely to agree (44%) than disagree (33%) that TV news has generally presented realistic accounts of the war, relatively few believed that TV coverage has given the public the complete picture about what is happening (10%). [..]

Significant proportions of respondents agreed that the TV coverage has been over dramatic and sensational (48%) and too superficial (46%). The most widespread critical judgement of all was that the TV war coverage has been too repetitive (65% agreed). Men (51%) were markedly more likely than women (36%) to agree that the TV coverage has been over dramatic and sensational. Men (54%) were also more likely than women (38%) to agree that the coverage has been too superficial.

Respondents were far more likely to agree that TV coverage has placed too much emphasis on the US point of view (53%) than that it has placed too much emphasis on the British point of view (36%). Fewer respondents still agreed that TV coverage has given balanced coverage of both pro- and anti-war lobbies (26%). One in ten believed that the coverage has placed too much emphasis on Iraqi spokespersons (10%). Women (30%) were much less likely than men (42%) to agree with the view that TV coverage has placed too much emphasis on the British point of view. Women (7%) were also somewhat less likely than men (12%) to agree that too much emphasis has been placed on Iraqi spokespersons. [..]

More than one in two respondents (54%) agreed that the presence of [embedded] reporters on the front line gives you a better impression of what war is like. Far fewer respondents (27%) agreed that it is unnecessary for TV correspondents to report from the front line. A narrow majority of respondents (54%) also agreed that the use of experts in TV news has been effective in helping to explain what is going on. Fewer respondents, though still a significant minority (39%), agreed that the use of experts in TV news is simply used to fill time. [..]

[D]espite concerns about the impact of war coverage on younger viewers, respondents were more likely to disagree (45%) than agree (22%) that TV had dwelled too much on images of destruction in Iraq.

Despite their potentially upsetting quality, fewer respondents agreed (32%) than disagreed (45%) that it was wrong for British TV to show Iraqi TV pictures of captured American service personnel.

One widespread issue concerned the quality of information in some TV reporting. A clear majority of respondents (71%) agreed that there has been too much speculation by TV reporters about events in Iraq.

There was also strong feeling about getting all sides to the story. Thus, overwhelming majorities of respondents agreed that it is important for the news media to tell the Iraqi side of the story (89%) and in relation to that wish that more use should be made of Arab reporters to explain the situation in their own countries (80%).

The report on US respondents is based on only 267 respondents, so I'll leave that. The one thing I'll highlight is that

Quote:

Looking at how these news media compared in terms of respondents trusting them a lot, the Internet was endorsed most frequently, followed by radio (17%), national newspapers (11%), local newspapers (7%) and magazines (7%), and then television (6%). One in two American respondents (50%) said they would distrust television a lot.

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Here's an interesting article at the BBC website. It lists some reports made during the Iraq war which were later debunked:

BBC

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News Coverage of Iraq. How Fair Is Your Deal?

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