Independent Press Was a Target in Iraq

[paineinthearse]

Danny Schecter was the one who broke the Eason Jordan story out of Davos. Here are his latest writings. For prior postings, use "advanced search" and my DU handle and search word "Eason Jordan". The posts were made on or about February 12.

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http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/affalert331.shtml

Independent Press Was a Target in Iraq

By Danny Schechter
Television Week

NEW YORK, February 28, 2005 -- With CNN's Eason Jordan silent, or silenced, the right brain of the blogosphere has nailed a new media scalp to its belt. Mr. Jordan, who had been with CNN for 23 years, said during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that a dozen journalists covering the war "not only been killed by U.S. troops in Iraq but they had in fact been targeted," according to press accounts. Mr. Jordan quickly tried to back off his statement, but the reverberations led to his resignation. Now the issue he raised seems destined to disappear, with many believing that since he didn't offer backup, there is nothing to the story.

Not true. Mr. Jordan's remarks about the targeting and killing of journalists were not invented out of whole cloth, even if he did do what executives often do: attempt to dampen a controversy that turns out to be too hot to handle. Fox News commentators said that even raising the issue of targeting journalists was "sliming our troops." Like the Pentagon's efforts, this was a way to dismiss the issue, even though there is evidence to make such a case.

The reality is that Jordan's concerns have a background and context that were under-reported in our media. Before the war, the Pentagon issued warnings that sounded like threats, saying it would not guarantee the safety of journalists who were not officially "embedded" into assigned U.S. military units. Pentagon publicist Victoria Clarke, around the time the war began, said that journalists who went out on their own were "putting themselves at risk."

On March 8, 2003, 12 days before the invasion, Kate Aidie, then a war correspondent for the BBC, said on RTE radio in Ireland that she was told by Pentagon officials "that any uplinks by journalists would be fired on" by coalition aircraft. What they were doing was creating an environment of intimidation and threat. This was a ploy to ensure that the reporters who did go to Iraq without Pentagon cooperation would be blamed when anything happened.

much more....

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