IRAQ WAR JOURNALISTS' HAMSTRUNG BY CENSORSHIP

There are two major problems for journalists trying to cover the Iraq war.

The first is they are always in grave danger when they venture out into any of the Iraqi provinces.

The second is the journalists are constantly being force fed propaganda from the military, and their accounts of the war are censored.

The Iraq War has become an after thought with most of the mainstream media in the United States and yet we still have 160,000 troops in Iraq with soldiers getting killed every single day.

It borders on treason and is criminal how the media in the United States has relegated the Iraq war to nothing but sidebar stories or a crawl along the bottom of the television screen on FOX NEWS, CNN and MSNBC.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/ a blog designed to bring readers the facts about the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Reporting Iraq: Journalists' Fight Against Propaganda in a Censored War

By Onnesha Roychoudhuri, AlterNetPosted on February 8, 2008, Printed on February 8, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/76219/

The late British journalist James Cameron, known for his coverage of the Vietnam War, said of his journalism, "I may not have always been satisfactorily balanced; I always tended to argue that objectivity was of less importance than truth." Perhaps in times of peace, objectivity naturally hews closer to truth. But when leadership misleads (or, euphemisms be damned, lies to) the public, journalists bear a greater responsibility. "Reporting" can all too easily translate into providing a megaphone for intentionally misleading information.

It is these issues that are at the forefront of Reporting Iraq: An Oral History of the War by the Journalists Who Covered It. Comprised mainly of interviews with over 40 journalists who covered the war, Reporting Iraq offers a candid view of the difficulties and complexities of working in an environment so hostile to reporters.

In one episode Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post recalls the difficulty of getting any relevant information from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA): "Well, off the record," CPA advisor Dan Senor told him, "Paris is burning, but on the record, security and stability are returning to Iraq." Such double-speak motivated reporters to take great risks to find the facts -- and spurred a wartime environment where journalists have now come to rely heavily on Iraqi stringers who, unlike western reporters, are able move more freely around the country.

Reporting Iraq takes a close look at the triumphs, challenges and regrets of reporters working to cover the first three years of the occupation of Iraq.

Mike Hoyt, co-editor of Reporting Iraq and executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review recently sat down with AlterNet to discuss some of the major themes raised by these war-time journalists. He also explains why he thinks we may have to push beyond the conventions of journalism to ensure we're getting at the truth of war.

Go back to link to read the full story.