Susan Hu wrote earlier this evening about the latest incident in which the U.S. military seems to be targeting foreign journalists in Iraq. This time it was an award-winning Iraqi journalist, Ali Fadhal, on assignment to The Guardian and Channel 4 to investigate “claims that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated.”
I won’t re-hash Ali-Fadhal’s horrific experience. You can read about that in Susan’s story and in The Guardian.
What I want to know is why the U.S. mainstream media continues to ignore incidents that strongly suggest a war on journalists in Iraq (and elsewhere) by the U.S. military. As far as I can tell, not a single outlet of the U.S. mainstream media reported this incident. If you know about it it is probably because of the efforts of Editor & Publisher; The Guardian; Al-Jazeera; Juan Cole; Susan Hu’s piece here at Booman Tribune; or elsewhere on the blogosphere where the Guardian article is linked.
It wasn’t long ago that much of the U.S.media was bemoaning the fate of Judith Miller, pining away in jail for shielding White House officials who had outed Valerie Plame in order to punish her whistle-blower husband. The Society of Professional Journalists even awarded her its First Amendment Award.
Yet the U.S. mainstream media continues to wear blinders despite ever growing evidence that the U.S. military is targeting journalists in incidents ranging from harrassment to arrest to humiliation to murder.
There was overwhelming evidence that the U.S. military was targeting Al-Jazeera, virtually all of it ignored by the mainstream U.S. media until a British memo was leaked in which it was revealed that Tony Blair had to talk President Bush out of bombing its headquarters. Even then, the story was played down and even mocked by much of the media.
When the Committee to Protect Journalists released a report in May 2003 revealing that the Pentagon officials and commanders on the ground knew the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad was full of international journalists before it was shelled by U.S. troops the month before, the U.S. mainstream media largely ignored their findings. Two journalists died in that shelling, and three others were wounded.
In February 2005 the International Federation of Journalists:
…accused [the U.S. government] of hiding behind a “culture of denial” over the deaths of at least 12 journalists who are alleged to have perished at the hands of the US military in Iraq.
…Since US, British and other soldiers first began Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003, more than 70 journalists have been killed in the country.
The IFJ said that at least 12 journalists had met their deaths at the “hands of US soldiers”, including the killings of Taras Protsyuk of Reuters and Jose Couso of Spain’s Telecinco after US tanks opened fire on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad…
…”On that day journalists around the world will once again protest over impunity [and] secrecy over media deaths and, in particular, at the failure of the United States to take responsibility for its actions in Iraq which have led to the killing of journalists,” said the IFJ general secretary, Aidan White…
The U.S. mainstream media ignored the IFJ charges as well.
Yet the U.S. mainstream is not always silent when suggestions arise that the military is targeting journalists. Eason Jordan, former chief news executive at CNN, was forced out of his job in February 2005 after comments he made the month before at The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland were leaked. Jordan dared to opine that coalition troops had “targeted” journalists in Iraq. The media firestorm that followed was relentless:
…Blogs operated by National Review Online, radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt and commentator Michelle Malkin were among those that began slamming Jordan last week after a Davos attendee posted an online account, but the establishment press was slow to pick up on the controversy. The Washington Post and Boston Globe published stories Tuesday and the Miami Herald ran one Thursday. Also on Thursday, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Bret Stephens, who was at Davos, published an account accusing Jordan of “defamatory innuendo,” and the Associated Press moved a story…
Linda Foley, president of the 35,000 member Newspaper Guild was likewise pilloried when she made similar remarks in St. Louis:
…According to a tape of her remarks, Foley said: “Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or … ah, or … ah, politically. They are also being targeted for real, um … in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there’s not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq.”
Foley continued, “They target and kill journalists … uh, from other countries, particularly Arab countries like Al -, like Arab news services like al-Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios with impunity. …”
Much of the world believes that the U.S. military is engaged in a war on journalists in Iraq. Why does the U.S. media relentlessly avoid reporting incidents like the ordeal of The Guardian’s Ali Fadhal while attacking all those who suggest that the U.S. military war on journalists is real?
Much of the world believes that the U.S. military is engaged in a war on journalists in Iraq.
We’re not talking about religion here; we know that the U.S. military is engaged in a war on journalists in Iraq.
I’m always annoyed when someone claims they beleive a fact is true or false. There’s nothing religious about facts. Facts are facts.
From the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), (referenced in the above article) on dangers in Iraq:
Indeed, facts are facts. Go read the whole report.
Could they be scared? Sometimes I think they know a lot more than they tell as far as whether any journalists have been threatened…I wouldn’t be surprised.
and let’s not even go into David E. Rosenbaum…let’s just stay away from that. I notice I’ve seen NOTHING about it on TV, and even the Times downplayed their own story. You’d think it’d get more press, huh?
Yeah, does anyone else think the Rosenbaum hit is something more than has been reported? I mean, two “muggers” take a wallet and get away in a CAR? Also, who “takes a walk”, in DC at 9 pm, in that neighborhood? I could see if he lived in Georgetown or Adams Morgan… but if he lived in one of those neighborhoods, he wouldn’t have been taken to Howard U. Hospital. And on top of that, then no one covers the story? And we will never hear about any follow up to the investigation.
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My thoughts and prayer go out to Jill Carroll, truly our voice calling from the Iraqi desert. Jill is a journalist, a witness to the atrocities taking place daily since the U.S. attack, invasion and occupation. Leave now!
● IDEALS — Rachel Corrie in London Play
● Marla Ruzicka Dies in Her Line of Duty
● Yasser Salihee ● Reporter Murdered :: Story He Died For
● Shooting Nicola Calipari No Accident
● Salvador Option: Death Squads in Iraq ◊ by HalC
Dems’ Template for Success: Follow Jack Murtha …
LEAVE Iraq to the Iraqis
● CPJ – From Iraq to Philippines, MURDER is top cause of journalist deaths in `05

Reporters Without Borders
There is a lot more background to the abduction of Jill Carroll :: Sunni-Shia Civil Strife
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Kidnap-linked raid on Iraq mosque sparks angry protests
Umm al-Qura mosque - No to occupation!
Iraqi Sunni Muslims protest in Baghdad
U.S. news outlets agreed a news black-out — USA Today’s Web site apparently carried an AP story about the abduction on Saturday — and then killed the link.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Yes! The silence of the US corporate media is truly deafening. Their failure to perform the service to the public for which they received constitutional protection does grave damage to us all.
I won’t re-hash Ali-Fadhal’s horrific experience. You can read about that in Susan’s story and in The Guardian.
Ali-Fadhal was interviewed on NPR this morning, and stated that the military arrested/raided other houses on his block at the same time. He also acknowledged the danger of the particular area he lives in, the frequency of IED explosions, and an understanding of the “why” he was arrested.
By the way, if you search for the topic on Yahoo.news, this diary comes up.
I don’t vouch for the report in the Guardian. It could be wrong. Nevertheless, this incident cried out for coverage by the media, especially given the mounting evidence that journalists are being targeted.
The problem is that the media decides not to report such incidences before they have any basis in fact to decide that they are not newsworthy.
You seem to be justifying the non-coverage based on hindsight.
And by the way, even if the troops did not know this man was a journalist does not justify shooting blindly into his bedroom where he and his family were sleeping. It is just that kind of behavior that feeds the insurgency.
Couple things. He was arrested and returned home within about 6 hours, unharmed, and paid $1500 “restitution” for the damage. By his own admission he had been filming structures inside the Green Zone, and understood why the authorities held and reviewed that film. Further, the story was not carried wide because of the fact that Al-Fahdi was a free man who had actually received an apology from the authorities.
Hindsight? Hardly. The Guardian’s story was published yesterday, based on an incident on Sunday. Today is Tuesday, meaning 48 hours elapsed. Not much time for the great “MSM” to fully develop a story, and given the outcome, no reason to.
As to the firing inside the home: if the warning shots had been fired by anyone other than trained teams, the entire family would be dead. They come in loud and fire warning shots because too many of them have died failing to follow those rules.
The insurgency grew as a result of the administration’s failure to provide security immediately following the “hot” war. Our people and Iraqi civilians have been paying the price since.
Your arguments ring hollow, I am afraid. The media systematically avoids reporting on provocative incidents involving the U.S. military and the foreign press. When they do cover such things it is usually from an adversarial point of view in which they try to underplay the evidence of deliberate provocation.
If it were not for the clear pattern one might make a reasonable case for why this was not news.
Our people and the Iraqis are suffering from the brutality of the insurgents, our own indifference to the lives of Iraqis, and the Iraqi police. Our mistakes at the outset have never been remedied, and that is why the Iraqis hate us and why we are destined to lose this conflict. We are an occupying force with ulterior motives, and the Iraqis know it.