-Caveat Lector-
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Date sent: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:14:03 GMT
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From: FAIR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [FAIR-L] ACTION ALERT: FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES,
IRAQ DEATHS ARE THE OTHER GUY'S FAULT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports
ACTION ALERT:
FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, IRAQ DEATHS ARE THE OTHER GUY'S FAULT
August 26, 1999
Journalism best serves the common good when it focuses attention on social
problems that its audience can help to solve. But establishment media
outlets like the New York Times are often far less interested in the ills
caused by the U.S. government than they are in the sins of distant
regimes--especially those that have been designated as official enemies.
On August 23, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan released his latest report
on the Iraqi oil-for food program, which allows Iraq to exchange a limited
amount of oil in return for humanitarian supplies to alleviate the
devastating effects of the U.N. sanctions on Iraq's population.
But while Annan criticized both the Iraqi government and the
U.S.-dominated U.N. Sanctions Committee for the program's shortcomings,
only his criticisms of Iraq were featured in the New York Times headline
the following day: "Do More to Aid Nourishment of Very Young, U.N. Tells
Iraq" was the title of U.N. correspondent Barbara Crossette's August 24
article.
That article illustrates the Times' skewed vision of what is newsworthy.
Of course, the Times has a responsibility to cover all aspects of Iraq's
ongoing humanitarian crisis, including the performance of the Iraqi
government in coping with U.N. sanctions. But as an American newspaper,
the Times might be expected to highlight the U.S. role in Iraq's plight.
For example, the U.N. Secretary-General wrote in his latest report that
"There has been a significant increase in the number of holds being placed
[by members of the U.N. Sanctions Committee] on applications" for
humanitarian supplies, "with serious implications for the implementation
of the humanitarian programme." Most of these holds were placed by the
United States, which dominates the Sanctions Committee.
But rather than focusing on that role, Crossette's piece mentions it only
in passing: Only one paragraph of her article discusses the U.S.-led
Sanctions Committee, which is criticized in the Secretary-General's
report, while Iraq's shortcomings in implementing the oil-for-food program
are discussed in more than a dozen paragraphs, as well as the headline.
Furthermore, Crossette tries to portray Annan's criticisms of Iraq as if
they were evidence of a sinister Iraqi conspiracy to deny food and
medicine to the country's children. For example, she refers to "mounting
evidence that [the Iraqis] have significantly stalled at least parts of a
relief program." In reality, the U.N. report is an assessment of Iraq's
performance on dozens of technical issues pertaining to the complicated
bureaucratic endeavor of providing food and medicine to a country of 22
million people.
Thus, while Crossette ominously quotes the U.N. report as saying that
"Large quantities of essential materials remain in storage," she omits the
subsequent sentence which reads: "The main explanation is the substantial
decline in staff with sufficient skills to verify, transport and use the
inputs ordered. The distribution rates are unlikely to improve without a
programme of in-service training."
For Crossette, the secretary general's report seems to be an opportunity
to score political points against Iraqi officials, who "continue to accuse
the United States of being entirely responsible for the deaths of
thousands of Iraqis under the sanctions." The idea that it might be more
important for the New York Times to inform its readers--overwhelmingly
citizens of the U.S.--of what their government could do to help prevent
those thousands of deaths does not seem to have occurred to the reporter
or her editors.
ACTION: Please contact the New York Times and tell them to give more
coverage to the U.S. role in prolonging the humanitarian crisis in Iraq.
Let the editors know that downplaying American responsibility for a
situation that has killed at least 700,000--including hundreds of
thousands of children--is not acceptable.
New York Times, Letters to the Editor
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036-3959
Fax (Foreign Desk): 212-556-3690
Fax: 212-556-3738
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Andrew Rosenthal-Foreign Editor
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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