Control the Press, Control the Public.
Iran recently came under sharp criticism in the US for detaining journalist Roxanne Saberi on espionage charges. Saberi was convicted, sentenced to 8 years imprisonment, and subsequently released after an appeals court reduced her sentence to 3 months. Some of the criticism of Iran centered on censorship of the press by the government. Iran has detained several journalists in the recent past, although most have been expelled from the country rather than being detained.
Meanwhile the US has detained Reuters cameraman Ibrahim Jassam since last September, without lodging charges against him. An Iraqi court ordered his release last November, but he continues to be held by US forces, citing him as a "high security threat". Our war on the media coverage in the Iraq invasion has been unwritten policy since its' inception. In retrospect the 'embedding' of the media with the troops, while offering first hand color commentary on the operations did little to shed light on the bigger picture of what was and is transpiring in country. One thing that the ruling political class took to heart following the Vietnam War was to not let the press have access to 'off-message' media images. So the war imagery has been heavily controlled from the battlefield to the returning caskets laden with the fruit of war. But more than this passive manipulation of journalists and journalism, we're seeing for the first time, the strategic importance the government has placed on controlling the media, through the active constraint and even murder of journalists. Al Jazeera, an international pro-Arab news agency was on the list of approved targets during the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Their facilities as well as Abu Dhabi TV's were attacked virtually simultaneously on the same day as an attack on The Palestine Hotel, in Baghdad, where many journalists were staying at the time of the invasion. These attacks killed 3 journalists.
Meanwhile the US has detained Reuters cameraman Ibrahim Jassam since last September, without lodging charges against him. An Iraqi court ordered his release last November, but he continues to be held by US forces, citing him as a "high security threat". Our war on the media coverage in the Iraq invasion has been unwritten policy since its' inception. In retrospect the 'embedding' of the media with the troops, while offering first hand color commentary on the operations did little to shed light on the bigger picture of what was and is transpiring in country. One thing that the ruling political class took to heart following the Vietnam War was to not let the press have access to 'off-message' media images. So the war imagery has been heavily controlled from the battlefield to the returning caskets laden with the fruit of war. But more than this passive manipulation of journalists and journalism, we're seeing for the first time, the strategic importance the government has placed on controlling the media, through the active constraint and even murder of journalists. Al Jazeera, an international pro-Arab news agency was on the list of approved targets during the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Their facilities as well as Abu Dhabi TV's were attacked virtually simultaneously on the same day as an attack on The Palestine Hotel, in Baghdad, where many journalists were staying at the time of the invasion. These attacks killed 3 journalists.
