Of the more than 700 journalists who have registered with the CentCom
Coalition Media Center here, two have emerged as celebrities. One is Omar
al-Issawi, the suave, gregarious, goateed correspondent for Al Jazeera
TV. At two separate briefings, his network was dressed down by military
officers (one American, the other British) upset over its airing of clips
showing POWs being interrogated and soldiers lying in pools of blood. The
attacks struck most journalists here as entirely unwarranted, and they
served mainly to enhance the Qatar-based network's reputation for
aggressiveness. Al-Issawi, who speaks excellent English, has been
repeatedly sought out for interviews, and he has appeared on Larry
King Live more than once.
The other star has been Michael Wolff, media critic for New York
magazine. Brash and persistent, Wolff stood up at one of the afternoon
sessions and challenged the presiding officer, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks,
to explain why the hundreds of journalists who had come to Qatar to
report on the war should stay, so useless and barren of information were
the briefings. His comments were greeted with applause, and for days
afterward journalists approached him to thank him for giving voice to
what they all had been thinking. Getting hold of a clip of Wolff's
remarks, Rush Limbaugh played it on the air, then gave out Wolff's e-mail
address and urged listeners to vent their displeasure. More than 3,000
messages poured into Wolff's inbox, accusing him of being unpatriotic,
antimilitary and worse.
Yet even Limbaugh's listeners, had they sat through the daily
presentations on the sleek CentCom set, would no doubt have been dismayed
by the level of distortion, obfuscation and misinformation served up to
them. Journalists--expecting the type of slick news management for which
the Bush Administration has become famous--have been astounded by the
amateurish nature of the press operation here. It's not just the lack of
hard information that's troubled them but the crude efforts at
manipulation. Most briefings begin with the showing of several videos of
"precision" bombing that seem recycled from Gulf War I. When a
short clip was aired showing US soldiers being greeted by two waving
children, a journalist from Chinese state television sitting next to me
snorted, "What propaganda!" (And he should know.) With each
passing day, the labels applied to the Iraqi irregulars who have been
harassing US troops became more lurid. They were "armed thugs,"
then "terroristic behaving paramilitaries," then
"terrorist-like cells" and finally, "death squads"
(this from Gen. Tommy Franks). Nicole Winfield, an AP correspondent,
stood up to note that the term "terrorist" is generally applied
to those who seek to kill civilians, not soldiers. Franks brushed her
off.
A correspondent for a European newspaper told me he regarded the
information coming from the Americans as no more dependable than that
from the Iraqis. "The Americans have been so restrictive with
information that they're hurting their own cause," he said.
Despite the transparent efforts to spin them, American TV correspondents
have, for the most part, saluted smartly. Watching the row of TV monitors
in the main working area of the press center, I've seen reporters for
CNN, MSNBC and Fox dutifully appear on screen and relay almost verbatim
the blather they've just been handed. One network correspondent told me
that she was worried about how hard she could push the generals at the
briefings--they might stop calling on her. Reports on such British
outlets as the BBC and Sky, by contrast, tend to offer more analysis and
less nationalism. "We're very conscious that our listeners are not
just a coalition audience but an international one, and that affects our
tone, style and terminology," says Jonathan Marcus, a BBC defense
correspondent.
The Brits here have benefited from the presence of British press officers
who have been more forthcoming than their US counterparts. The head of
the British detachment, Simon Wren, is an out-of-shape, chain-smoking
rogue in sneakers who has developed a good rapport with the dozen or so
Fleet Street hacks here, and they can often be spotted gathered around
him, trying to extract nuggets of info while Wren in turn tries to woo
them.
Unfortunately, Wren usually gets the better of the encounter. In fact,
the British flacks have used their facade of congeniality and cooperation
to spread some of the most blatant falsifications of the campaign. A good
example is the much-heralded Basra "uprising." This supposed
popular revolt against the ruling Baath party was broadly touted by
journalists during the first week of the war, feeding notions that the
Shiites of the south were preparing to rise up against the regime and
greet the invading force as liberators, as advertised.
But the uprising never amounted to much. In fact, it may never have
occurred. It originated with a report by an embedded British journalist
who said he saw Iraqi troops firing on restive Basra residents. This
report was then fanned by Wren and his crew into a full-fledged
insurrection. And the British reporters here--eager for any tidbit that
might give them an edge--gleefully ran with the story. Now they confess
that they were had.
What has really been happening in Basra remains a mystery. Only Al
Jazeera has a correspondent there, and he is subject to tight control by
his minders. When Saddam Hussein is gone, the long-suffering residents of
Basra may very well embrace the Western forces, but it serves no one to
spread false stories about what's going on there. Yet too many such
stories are coming out of this press center. And while the briefers and
spinners deserve some of the blame, the press itself--ready to swallow
whatever is fed it--does too.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030421&s=massing
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