WERE JOURNALISTS TARGETED IN IRAQ?

[paineinthearse]

Received from Danny Schecter.

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<snip>

As I reported in recent days, CNN executive Eason Jordan stirred a hornets nest by telling an off-the-record panel at the World Economic Forum that 12 journalists were killed by the US military in Iraq.

The reaction, to read Howard Kurtz's account in the Washington Post, was SHOCK and denial by people like Senator Chris Dodd and even Congressman Barney Frank. After a blogger broke the confidentiality of the session, Jordan was besieged with attacks from the right with angry demands for proof . Conservative bloggers went into action by criticizing the rest of the media for not covering the story. Their assumption: Jordan is lying.

As viewers of WMD (see link below) know, there is a section in the film that asks: "Were Journalists Targeted in Iraq?" It points out that BBC's Kate Adie was told by the Pentagon that independent journalists would be targeted. It shows how the Al Jazeera office whose coordinates were given to the Pentagon was bombed and its bureau chief Tariq Ayoub was killed. It shows what happened to the Palestine Hotel where two journalists were killed by a tank shell. It interviews one of the journalists who were wounded who asks "why did they target us; what did we do to them?" It reports that press freedom groups and Reuters demanded an investigation that was not forth coming. It concludes with a quote by veteran war correspondent Phillip Knightly, author of "the First Casualty," a book on the history of censorship in war who says that he believed that occasional shots at media sites are "not accidental."

When I heard about this statement from a friend who was at the panel. I thought that some new information was on the verge of coming out. So I reached out to Jordan who I once worked around at CNN to ask if he could help me get on CNN to discuss and debate the issue.

more....

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Please see details about WMD (the film) at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3074164&mesg_id=3074164

[applegrove]

1. It is pretty hard to deny that you are at least partially responsible

It is pretty hard to deny that you are at least partially responsible for the deaths of a journalist or two when you are given their co-ordinates and a smart bomb hits them right there.

I didn't know that they actually threatened the BBC journalist. Now that is nasty!!

[radwriter0555]

2. Of course they were. It's easier for the bush regime to murder the truth

than to explain it.

[neweurope]

3. We had been reading this here all along. There's no doubt in my mind that

they were killed on purpose. My guy and I said a number of times "These Al Jazeerah-guys must be the bravest people in the world." Their building was attacked twice and they kept right on reporting.

---------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[paineinthearse]

4. This is a new twist

Schecter is reporting how CNN's Eason is backing away from his words and refuses to discuss it openly, and Faux is more interested in bashing CNN than to investigate Eason's purported words.

[paineinthearse]

5. International Federation of Journalists Report

The IFJ says that the investigation by the US government into the killing of two journalists at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on April 8 2003, which was issued last November, was a tragic example. “Here was an incident where soldiers fired on media in broad daylight, yet the military exonerate themselves and fail to take responsibility. It is denial of justice on a shocking scale.”

The IFJ says that the unexplained killing of media staff and journalists in Iraq, involving 12 of the 69 violent deaths since the war began, shows why new international rules are needed to force independent investigations of media killings. The Federation plans a worldwide protest over the failure of the US to carry out such inquiries on April 8th – the second anniversary of the Palestine Hotel attack.

See full report at http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?Index=2903&Language=EN

For further information contact: [phone]
The IFJ represents over 500,000 journalists in more than 110 countries

[TomClash]

6. Do you have a link to this?

I want to spread this around. It might be quite important.

[paineinthearse]

8. Media Channel

I got it by email subscription to http://www.mediachannel.org/

I'm sure it is on that website somewhere. PM me if you cannot find it.

[paineinthearse]

7. CNN CLARIFIES IRAQ COMMENTS

CNN CLARIFIES IRAQ COMMENTS
Two weeks ago at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan, raised eyebrows when he suggested that some of the 63 journalists who have been killed in Iraq had been targeted by US troops. Although Jordan quickly tempered the remarks, a controversy has been building over them on the web. CNN has responded, issuing a statement clarifying Jordan's comments.

(Boston Globe)
http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2005/02/08/cnn_clarifies_iraq_comments/

CNN clarifies Iraq comments
By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff | February 8, 2005

Two weeks ago at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan, raised eyebrows when he suggested that some of the 63 journalists who have been killed in Iraq had been targeted by US troops. Although Jordan quickly tempered the remarks, a controversy has been building over them on the web. CNN has responded, issuing a statement clarifying Jordan's comments. Jordan made his remarks at a panel discussion on Jan. 27 in Davos about the media and democracy. Several sources, including the author of a weblog written at the event, said Jordan quickly amended his comments. Since then, the web has been abuzz with commentary about Jordan's statement and his intentions. CNN's statement says Jordan ''was not clear enough in explaining his assertion."

''While the majority of the 63 journalists killed in Iraq have been killed by insurgents, the Pentagon has acknowledged that the US military on occasion has killed people who turned out to be journalists," the CNN statement said. ''Mr. Jordan emphatically does not believe that the US military intended to kill journalists and believes these accidents to be cases of 'mistaken identity.' " A CNN spokeswoman, Christa Robinson, added that ''Eason clarified his position during the panel." Still, a statement released yesterday by a spokesman for Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, said the senator, who was in the audience for the discussion, was ''outraged by the comments."

Representative Barney Frank, who was on the panel, told The Boston Globe yesterday that attendees ''perked up" after Jordan made remarks that ''sounded like accusing the military of deliberate targeting." Frank said Jordan then backed off a bit, saying he wasn't indicating that such targeting represented US military policy. The discussion moderator, David Gergen, director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, said yesterday that Jordan seemed ''deeply concerned about the dangers to his own team" in Iraq.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization based in New York, says nine journalists and at least two media support workers have been killed by fire from US forces in Iraq, according to the organization's Middle East program coordinator, Joel Campagna. Campagna said that the group has not concluded that any deaths resulted from deliberate targeting of journalists but that some cases raised issues of ''fire discipline and indiscriminate fire."

[TomClash]

9. kick