US propaganda efforts to promote pro-American news in Iraq must be stopped, a new Defense Department
investigation says, if the US wants to protect its credibility in the Middle East. But the Defense Department’s conclusion doesn’t mean anything will change with regards to the US practice of
paying off Iraqi journalists, the
New York Times reported today.
The Los Angeles Times reports that an anonymous source has confirmed that the campaign of planting pro-US stories originating from the military in the Iraqi press, operated by Lincoln consulting and exposed in December, (see previous posting) was still in operation as recently as a week ago.
The scandal concerning pro-American stories planted in Iraqi newspapers (see previous postings here and here) has caused outrage among Iraqis. Khalid Samim of the Iraqi Journalists Association (IJA) has been particularly critical of the practice saying it ammounts to a US abuse of power.
The general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Aidan White has condemned the recently discovered US practice of planting stories in the Iraqi press (see previous postings here and here). White said the US "is manipulating media with stories by stooge journalists which tell lies and distort the reality facing millions of people in Iraq."
"In Iraq, Exporting a bunch of budding Jayson Blairs simply feeds the unhelpful image of Americans as inept and hypocritical puppetmasters" says Jonathan Alter, Newsweek columnist in a very challenging article after the Los Angeles Times revealed that the American government had been planting stories in the Iraqi press that promote the idea of Iraqi democracy and self-rule (see former posting).
What is interesting in Alter's article is the comparison between the cold war and the current war in Iraq: "My problem with all of this is less ethical than practical. If it helped build Iraqi democracy or blunted anti-American propaganda, it might even be worth it (though certainly not at those prices)...
Posted by John Burke on December 1, 2005 at 9:37 AM
The Los Angeles Times reports that the American government has been planting stories in the Iraqi press that promote the idea of Iraqi democracy and self-rule. The American government adopted this strategy in Iraq despite it having been declared illegal in the United States in the spring of 2005 and having spent millions of dollars to properly train Iraqi journalists in freedom of the press.
