Category: Media and Journalism

Just gonna quickly link to important stories I read yesterday:

John Peacock – Why alJazeera were right to show those pictures.

There appears to have been some liberal quoting going on, early in the story of missing journalist Terry Llyod and his news team. One cameraman escaped to safety – but there are conflicting reports on what happened. Sky News tells the story here.

What Daniel Demoustier is saying is that they came under fire from UK tanks and small arms.

Demoustier told her they had been fired on by tanks from the coalition forces at Iman Anas, while they were trying to drive away from a group of Iraqi soldiers.

“Immediately the allied tanks started heavy firing directly at us. Rounds were coming straight at the Jeep, smashing the windows and puncturing holes in the bodywork,” he is quoted as saying.

It should be noted that Terry Llyod was a unilateral – not embedded with any military force.

Sky News then says:

MoD sources have said the ITN group had gone through several checkpoints where they had been warned to turn back but instead they chose to carry on.

I have read counter claims to this by Daniel – he said they were waved through without problem.

And quotes the Ministry of Defence (MoD)

“They went into an area against the advice of the military. We wouldn’t deliberately target journalists.”

Of course we all know what Kate Adie said about this before the war started – that journalists would indeed be fired on.

I wonder whether this was an honest mistake – their vehicles were clearly marked ‘TV’. I wonder also if we will ever know the full story.

Antonia Zerbisias gives a good account of many of the stories that have not made it to the mainstream US media. Well worth a look. Meg also links to it.

Fergal Keane of the BBC writes this thoughtful article in the Indepedent. He does’t mention the war poetry and stories from Greek and Roman history. Greek history is littered with some excellent accounts of the trauma of war. Interesting comparison could be drawn between the experiences soldiers of the First World War had, and Greek soliders during the various wars.

Just having a look over at Dan Gillmor’s e-Journal, he has an interesting story taken from the American Prospect. When the Observer story broke last week about US spying in the UN security council, the US media failed to mention it. Dan is not impressed. As Dan says:

But what’s instructive about this episode is not what will happen now, 10 days after the story broke. It’s what didn’t happen during those 10 days — how the right-wing media shot a true story down, and how the bulk of the mainstream press accepted those terms. And we wonder why we’re charging off to a war that nearly half the population is against.

What is it with the media in the US? I read so much about how biased TV networks and US papers are, but are they really this bad? I would have a daily browse through the NY Times, Washington Post and CNN, and I do find that the writing is skewed in many ways compared say, to the BBC. But what this article in the American Prospect is saying is that the mainstream media in the US willfully ignored an important story – one wonders what agenda editors in the United States have?

Maybe I have read too much Noam Chomsky.

Robert Fisk has an article this week on the editorial process now being used within CNN. The new process is startling.

Indeed, reading a new CNN document, “Reminder of Script Approval Policy”, fairly takes the breath away. “All reporters preparing package scripts must submit the scripts for approval,” it says. “Packages may not be edited until the scripts are approved… All packages originating outside Washington, LA (Los Angeles) or NY (New York), including all international bureaus, must come to the ROW in Atlanta for approval.”

I knew CNN was bad for this kind of thing – but they just got 10 times worse.

Paul Krugman writes a of media between the US and Europe. Karlin linked to this story last week, as she seen it in the NY Times. Nevertheless it is definately worth looking at how CNN/FOX/ABC reported on the recent protests around the world. He argues that US media has taken it as their patriotic duty to sell the war, and not call the administration into question.

The well-known anti-globalisation activist Naomi Klein writes about Hugo Chavez and the situation in Venezuela. As always Klein’s reading of the situation is second-to-none. Brilliant media piece.

Lee Dembart poses the questions surrounding ‘fair use’ of media, and the industries attempts to stop the downloading and free distribution of large amounts of music and films. He fails to mention the industries attempts to poison networks such as Kazaa with bogus files – but otherwise it sums up the issue well.