[Media-watch] FW: Solomon / They Shoot Journalists, Don't They? / Mar 25

[David Miller]

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From: ZNet Commentaries <sysop at zmag.org>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 17:51:33 -0800
To: david.miller at stir.ac.uk
Subject: Solomon / They Shoot Journalists, Don't They?  / Mar 25



Today's commentary:
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-03/22solomon.cfm

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ZNet Commentary
They Shoot Journalists, Don't They? March 25, 2004
By Norman Solomon 

To encourage restraint in war coverage, governments don't need to shoot
journalists -- though sometimes that's helpful.

Thirteen journalists were killed while covering the war and occupation in
Iraq last year, says a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The deaths were a subset of 36 on-the-job fatalities related to journalistic
work across the globe in 2003.

CPJ's annual worldwide survey "Attacks on the Press," released on March 11,
indicates that some of those deaths in Iraq were not just random events in a
hazardous war zone.

Journalists who were "embedded" with the American military tended to be
safer. But as a practical matter, the tradeoffs shortchanged news readers,
listeners and viewers. "The close quarters shared by journalists and troops
inevitably blunted reporters' critical edge," CPJ reports.

"There were also limits on what types of stories reporters could cover,
since the ground rules barred journalists from leaving their unit."

Los Angeles Times reporter David Zucchino was embedded with the 101st
Airborne. While he remained near American soldiers, he recalls, that "access
could be suffocating and blinding."

Zucchino offers a blunt assessment: "Often I was too close, or confined, to
comprehend the war's broad sweep. I could not interview survivors of Iraqi
civilians killed by U.S. soldiers or speak to Iraqi fighters trying to kill
Americans. I was not present when Americans died at the hands of fellow
soldiers in what the military calls 'frat,' for fratricide. I had no idea
what ordinary Iraqis were experiencing. I was ignorant of Iraqi government
decisions and U.S. command strategy."

Meanwhile, journalists who were not imbedded with the invading military
"faced a multitude of hazards and restrictions, limiting the reporting from
non-U.S. military perspectives," the CPJ report says. In some cases, those
journalists "faced outright harassment from U.S. forces."

On April 8, during a pair of assaults, the U.S. military killed three
journalists and wounded several more. In mid-August, American forces killed
an award-winning cameraman. CPJ's report includes summaries of those events,
and -- if you read between the lines -- they shed a lot of light on the
Pentagon's lethally cavalier attitude.

* "In the first attack, a U.S. warplane struck an electricity generator
outside the Baghdad bureau of the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera,
killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. The attack occurred in an area of heavy
fighting, although Al-Jazeera noted that it had provided the Pentagon with
the coordinates of its offices weeks before the incident. The nearby office
of Abu Dhabi TV also came under U.S. fire at the time. In October, a U.S.
military spokesman acknowledged to CPJ that no investigation into the
incident was ever launched."

* "In the second incident later that day, a U.S. tank fired a shell at the
Palestine Hotel, which housed most foreign correspondents in Baghdad,
killing cameramen Taras Protsyuk of Reuters and Jose Couso of Spanish
television channel Telecinco. U.S. troops claimed that they were responding
to hostile fire emanating from the hotel. A CPJ investigative report
published in May concluded that the shelling of the hotel, while not
deliberate, was avoidable since U.S. commanders knew that journalists were
in the hotel but failed to relay this information to soldiers on the
ground." 

* "On August 17, soldiers shot and killed veteran Reuters cameraman and
former CPJ International Press Freedom Award recipient Mazen Dana while he
filmed a U.S. tank convoy outside Abu Ghraib Prison near Baghdad. U.S.

soldiers said they mistook his camera for a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG)
launcher. Dana had secured permission from U.S. forces to film in the area,
and, according to eyewitnesses, there was no fighting in the area when the
journalist was shot.

"On September 22, the U.S. military announced that it had concluded its
investigation into Dana's killing, and a Centcom spokesman told CPJ that
while the journalist's death was 'regrettable,' the soldiers 'acted within
the rules of engagement.' No further details were provided, and the results
of the investigation have not been made public. Observers have frequently
pointed out that although a soldier might mistake a camera for an RPG at a
long distance, a camera would be clearly visible from the estimated 55 yards
at which Dana was hit."

Overall, CPJ reports, "the conduct of U.S. troops has exacerbated the
tenuous security situation for journalists in Iraq." The occupation has
brought a pattern of efforts by the U.S. command to interfere with
independent news-gathering.

Al-Jazeera correspondents have been arrested many times, but American
journalists have hardly been exempt from harassment. In Fallujah, when
guerrillas shot down a U.S. Army helicopter in early November, "U.S. troops
confiscated the camera of Knight Ridder photographer David Gilkey, of the
Detroit Free Press, and erased all of his photographs," CPJ reports.

In November, a letter to Pentagon press officer Larry DiRita -- signed by
representatives of 30 news organizations from the United States and other
countries -- complained that they had "documented numerous examples of U.S.
troops physically harassing journalists and, in some cases, confiscating or
ruining equipment, digital camera discs, and videotapes."

Commanders of occupying troops often see journalists as impediments to
effective military activities. In the case of U.S. forces in Iraq, it's no
secret -- and it should be no surprise -- that the Pentagon has adopted some
of the Israeli military's occupation techniques. The similarities go beyond
the deaths of two journalists in occupied Palestinian territories last year.

Nazih Darwazeh, a cameraman with Associated Press Television News, was shot
in the back of his head on the morning of April 19 while filming a stranded
Israeli tank at the corner of an alley in Nablus. Two journalists who were
eyewitnesses said the shot came from an Israeli soldier under the tank.

In early May, the British freelance film director and cameraman James
Miller, working on an HBO documentary in the Gaza Strip, was also shot and
killed. Relatives, friends and colleagues commissioned an in-depth
professional investigation, which found that Miller and his crew "were
consciously and deliberately targeted by the IDF soldiers."

Darwazeh and Miller were shot while wearing jackets that clearly identified
them as "Press" or "TV."

Israel Defense Forces are notorious for targeting journalists in the
occupied territories. There's a pattern of shooting at journalists -- with
the IDF hierarchy refusing to hold anyone accountable for the results.

"Over the years," the latest CPJ report explains, "the army has failed to
conduct thorough investigations into cases where journalists have been
wounded or killed by IDF gunfire, let alone punish those responsible for the
attacks. The same can be said for troops who physically attack or otherwise
mistreat journalists in the field."

For the authorities in charge of an occupation, the positive deterrent
effects of such policies are self-evident when journalists know that their
lives will be in danger if they try to document instances of brutality on
the part of occupiers.

It's not necessary to shoot too many journalists. If the goal is to
discourage overly intrepid coverage on the ground, some occasional killing
can be a real disincentive.


Norman Solomon is co-author, with foreign correspondent Reese Erlich, of
"Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You."