IHT: Dying to tell the story? More (Iraq journalists) than you know

[DeepModem Mom]

Dying to tell the story? More than you know
Eason Jordan, International Herald Tribune
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2006


....a disparity exists between what is widely reported and the true loss of life in Iraq, but the discrepancy centers around the number of reported journalist deaths in Iraq - the deadliest war ever for news organization employees.

Few people, even among journalists, know how many news organization staffers have paid the ultimate price in Iraq since the conflict began in 2003.

After the ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff and his cameraman were wounded in Iraq, dozens of news reports cited the Committee to Protect Journalists as saying 61 journalists have been killed in Iraq .

The CPJ count is the most widely cited number in reporting on journalist deaths in Iraq. But the CPJ tally of 61 is misunderstood and incomplete because it excludes dozens of journalists and news organization employees killed or who otherwise died on assignment in Iraq.

The actual death toll among news organization employees in Iraq is 101 - 66 percent higher than the CPJ's count - as correctly noted in a rarely reported tally by the International News Safety Institute....


http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/06/opinion/edjordan.php

[Angry Girl]

1. Reuters Says U.S. Troops Obstruct Reporting of Iraq!

This is a most fundamental issue of our lost democracy. And it passed by with nary a whisper back in September.... RIP.

Reuters Says U.S. Troops Obstruct Reporting of Iraq
Published: September 28, 2005 10:10 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) The conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq, including increasing detention and accidental shootings of journalists, is preventing full coverage of the war reaching the American public, Reuters said on Wednesday.

In a letter to Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Reuters said U.S. forces were limiting the ability of independent journalists to operate.

The letter from Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger called on Warner to raise widespread media concerns about the conduct of U.S. troops with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee on Thursday.

Schlesinger referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by U.S. forces in Iraq."

Continued....
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001217159

More Dissent, More Censorship

Being a journalist for 25 years and having covered the war in Yugoslavia as well as having worked in Moscow during Perestroika, he said this type of overt political pressure to be a first for him.

“I’ve never experienced political pressure like this, not even in Russia when I was being critical of Gorbachev, nor in Yugoslavia when I was being extremely critical of Milosevic,” he added.

Continued...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10404.htm

[phoebe]

2. Independent journalists were told b4 the war that they would be targets

http://homepage.eircom.net/~gulufuture/news/kate_adie030310.htm

snip

10th March, 2003
by Fintan Dunne, Editor
http://www.GuluFuture.com

The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon officer had said: "Who cares.. ..They've been warned."

According to Ms. Adie, who twelve years ago covered the last Gulf War, the Pentagon attitude is: "entirely hostile to the the free spread of information."

"I am enormously pessimistic of the chance of decent on-the-spot reporting, as the war occurs," she told Irish national broadcaster, Tom McGurk on the RTE1 Radio "Sunday Show."

Ms. Adie made the startling revelations during a discussion of media freedom issues in the likely upcoming war in Iraq. She also warned that the Pentagon is vetting journalists according to their stance on the war, and intends to take control of US journalists' satellite equipment --in order to control access to the airwaves.

Another guest on the show, war author Phillip Knightley, reported that the Pentagon has also threatened they: "may find it necessary to bomb areas in which war correspondents are attempting to report from the Iraqi side."

[cantstandbush]

3. This thread should be in the main GD forum where more people would see it.

I've been harping on the targeting of journalists by coalition forces for at least two years. Nobody seems to care...not even the journalists.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Done, cantstandbush -- just posted in GD. Was moved from LBN. nt