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What Europe reads
EMBEDDED: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION
SOURCES like these are being believed more
than US TV news reports, according to USA
Today: “Channel-surf from Britain’s BBC to Germany’s
ZDF, or flip through newspapers from
Spain to Bangkok, and one finds stories that tilt
noticeably against the war and in favor of
besieged Iraqi civilians. Often, these are emotional
first-person accounts of visiting hospitals
or bombed-out apartments, accompanied by
graphic photos of the dead and dying that would
never appear in U.S. outlets.
“‘Most Europeans do not support this war, and
so the coverage is simply a reflection of that,’
says Giuseppe Zaffuto, project director at the
European Journalism Centre in Maastricht, the
Netherlands. For now, it seems much of the
world’s media still need to be convinced of Washington’s
position.”
We still don’t know why al-Jazeera was booted
from Baghdad and according to them, at least
officially, they don’t either. An official statement
says: “The Iraqi Information Ministry told al-
Jazeera office in Baghdad its decision to ban
Diar al-Omari, al-Jazeera’s Baghdad correspondent,
from practicing his journalistic duties. The
decision also said that Tayseer Allouni should
leave Iraq as soon as possible. The ministry did
not provide any reasons for that decision. Al-
Jazeera network is sorry for this unpredictable
and unreasonable decision by the ministry.”
It helps to have friends in high place
GUESS who is going back to the front? The well
politically connected Faux News Network seems
to have made a few calls and Geraldo Rivera is
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going back. Reports the NY Post: “The Pentagon
says Geraldo Rivera is welcome to go back into
Iraq with U.S. troops now that he’s ‘learned his
lesson.’
“It was a stunning turn-around for Geraldo,
who appeared just 24 hours ago to be on the
verge of a career meltdown. Rivera’s latest gaffe
infuriated U.S. war commanders who – at one
point Tuesday – threatened to remove him physically
from the battle zone if he did not “voluntarily”
agree to leave.” There were anti-war, antimedia
protests yesterday at Fox News HQ in San
Francisco.
What the polls show depends
on what polls you read
HOW does the public feel about the war coverage?
TV Guide’s Max Robins cites a poll that says
they can’t get enough. The Gallup people meanwhile
offer an opposite conclusion: “A poll shows
a sharp decrease in the percentage of Americans
who rate media coverage as “excellent” since the
wargasm coverage began. Say the pollsters:
“Interestingly, those Americans who support
the war with Iraq are most likely to rate the
media coverage positively.
“At the same time, war supporters are also the
most likely to have downgraded their views of
news coverage since the war began, suggesting
that this group is most sensitive to how the war
is being portrayed.”
What should we call it?
ON the Language Front, Larry Piltz from Austin,
Texas, offers his own lexicon to differ with the
conventional view.