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eport is compromised.”
“When a media company takes an advocacy
position on a significant public policy issue, it
can certainly undermine the credibility of that
media company’s journalists,” said Bob Steele,
director of the journalism ethics program at the
Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida.
But Ami Forester, a spokeswoman for Clear
Channel subsidiary Premiere Radio Networks,
whcih syndicates their shows, said, “There is no
hidden agenda here.” . . .
She’s right: it is not hidden and she was also
correct to note that some of their competitors
are now staging similar events. ●
APRIL 7: DECAPITATION
STRIKES TARGET SADDAM
SURPRISES, “strategic” and otherwise, seem to
be the order of the day as spring takes hold. In
Baghdad, US Marines staged one of their raids
into the center of town because it was there, and
so were they. Its point: to demonstrate the weakness
of the town’s defenses, to prod and to probe,
and to score more psychological warfare points
by strutting through one of the palaces and hanging
out on the lawn. Sadly eight died in this
demonstration. A soldier called Flip told his
buddy Greg of Fox News that it “showed we are
here to stay.”
Eyewitness to hell
LIFE, like war, is chaotic and sometimes it is hard
to tell friends from foes. Sometimes friends are
foes. I was watching Michelle Martin on ABC’s
WAR KILLS JOURNALISTS
175
This Week mentioning that 25% of the US casualties
in Gulf War l came from friendly fire. It
seems to be happening again. BBC warhorse
John Simpson and team were traveling with Kurdish
fighters and US Special Ops troops when
the skies exploded overhead. He described the
hellish scene on BBC online:
“I saw two F-15 American planes circling quite
low overhead and I had a bad feeling, because
they seemed to be closer to us than they were to
the tank. As I was looking at them – this must
sound extraordinary but I assure you it is true, I
saw the bomb coming out of one of the planes –
and I saw it as it came down beside me. It was
painted white and red. It crashed into the ground
about 10 or 12 meters from where I was standing.
“It took the lower legs off Kamaran, our translator,
I got shrapnel in parts of my body. I would
have got a chunk of shrapnel in my spine had I
not been wearing a flak jacket, and it was buried
deep in the Kevlar when I checked it. Our producer
had a piece of shrapnel an inch long taken
out of his foot.
“The planes circled round. I shouted out at the
American special forces, ‘Tell them to go away –
tell them it’s us – don’t let them drop another
bomb.’ It was a mistake. They were so apologetic
afterwards.”
News addiction
INCIDENTS like these were observed and
reported on. But the full extent of other casualties,
including the US war toll, is buried (some
say deliberately in that ever present fog of war.)
CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks brags:
“We don’t do body counts.” IraqBodyCount.net
does. They claim there is a maximum of l,050