Abstract

Journalists Take Flak in Iraq

The author reports on claims by journalists that they are being blocked by the U.S. government and military from covering the occupation of Iraq. When US Central Command has good news to report in Iraq, as it did after troops from the Fourth Infantry Division captured Saddam Hussein on December 13, it adores the media. But journalists say that when there's bad news--a helicopter crash, a mortar attack--they are increasingly being blocked from covering the story by US soldiers, who frequently confiscate and destroy their film disks and videotapes. On November 12, Sandy Johnson, Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press, sent a letter to the Pentagon, signed by thirty other media companies, which cited their concern at "a growing number of incidents in Iraq in which journalists are harassed by U.S. troops in the course of covering the news." Journalists covering the home front complain that their job is becoming more politicized and is being made more difficult by Pentagon red tape. Journalists are disturbed by what they see as very deliberate decisions made by the White House and the Pentagon to restrict the media's ability to cover the most politically sensitive aspect of the war at home -- the repatriation of the bodies of troops killed in action in Iraq.