Amid controversy over whether U.S. troops did or didn't target journalists in Iraq and what CNN's Eason Jordan did or didn't say, and as the right-wing blogs are storming against what many of them believe to be MSM (mainstream media)'s anti-military bias, comes a documentary assailing MSM from the left: Weapons of Mass Deception. I have not yet seen it. Just the trailer and this interview on AlterNet, in which Amy Goodman interviews media critic and filmaker Danny Schechter about "fishy deaths of unembedded reporters." The interview includes the following excerpt from the film's transcript:
Narrator: Journalists and media workers were
targeted in Iraq. Was it deliberate? To keep the story on message by
intimidating un-embedded journalists. How did the media in the street
challenge these killings? Some were killed by so-called friendly fire.
Others victims of calculated attacks, missiles, tank shells, and bombs
dropped on or near journalists. Some media critics concluded it was
intentional, although the Pentagon denied it. Before the war, the BBC's
Kate Adey reported she was told by the Pentagon that independent
journalists could be targeted.
Reporter:: The 15th floor of
the Palestine Hotel was the target. A U.S. tank shelled the Palestine
Hotel, which was crowded with journalists, killing two cameramen. One
works for a Spanish network, and the other one works for Reuters.
Narrator:
Now another incident. Look at this. An American tank on the bridge
across from the Palestine hotel in Baghdad. A soldier claimed his tank
was fired on. Listen carefully. There are no sounds.
Samia Nakhoul:
We moved to the Palestine Hotel because the Pentagon asked our
organizations to let us leave because it was a target and when we moved
to the Palestine Hotel our organization told the Pentagon we were at
the Palestine Hotel. So did every news organization.
Narrator: Again, minutes later no sounds were heard, no one firing at U.S. soldiers. Suddenly without provocation –
Samia Nakhoul:
We saw an orange glow, and this was the tank shell that hit our office.
And you can imagine the panic, the wounded – it was me and another
photographer. I can't imagine that they would target journalists. You
know, I couldn't believe why would they target us? What have we done to
them?
Narrator: After the war press freedom groups were
still demanding a real investigation. The Pentagon's Victoria Clark
told me there was a report that showed that the soldiers were acting in
self-defense.
Narrator: Was there any attempt to find out the facts independently or a thorough investigation?
Samia Nakhoul: No – the Pentagon never interviewed me personally on it. I don't think any of my colleagues were interviewed by the Pentagon.
Narrator:
Samia's organization, Reuters, demanded an independent investigation,
but most media companies didn't even press on this issue. No one was
held accountable. It was all passed off as an accident, the fog of war
and all that.
In the interview Schechter says: "What's also outrageous is that the American media companies did not
demand an investigation of this, did not join Reuters in demanding an
investigation. So it just wasn't just complicity and collusion in the
coverage of the war but a refusal to get involved in an effort to try
to find out what really happened, what the facts were. To try to get at
the truth of what happened to their own people. That to me compounds
the shock of the way in which the media played the role it did."
The film is apparently opening in New York and a few other places this weekend. Info is here.
Again, it would be useful if we could hear from more journalists on the ground in Iraq about this...