[Media-watch] Editor of Iraqi newspaper quits, complains of US control - AP - 5/3/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/124/world/Editor_in_chief_of_U_S_funded_P.shtml

Editor-in-chief of US funded Iraqi newspaper quits, complaining of American
control.
By Lee Keath, Associated Press
5/3/2004 14:47
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) The head of a U.S.-funded Iraqi newspaper quit and said
Monday he was taking almost his entire staff with him because of American
interference in the publication.

On a front-page editorial of the Al-Sabah newspaper, editor-in-chief Ismail
Zayer said he and his staff were ''celebrating the end of a nightmare we
have suffered from for months ... We want independence. They (the Americans)
refuse.''

Al-Sabah was set up by U.S. officials with funding from the Pentagon soon
after the fall of Saddam Hussein last year. Since its first issue in July,
many Iraqis have considered it the mouthpiece of the U.S.-led coalition,
along with the U.S.-funded television station Al-Iraqiya.

Zayer said almost the entire staff left the paper along with him and that
they were launching a new paper called Al-Sabah Al-Jedid (''The New
Morning''), which would begin publishing Tuesday.

Zayer had sought to break Al-Sabah away from the Iraqi Media Network, which
groups the paper, Al-Iraqiya and a number of radio station and is run by
Harris Inc., a Florida-based communications company that won a $96 million
Pentagon contract in January to develop the media.

''We informed (Zayer) that the paper would remain part of the IMN,'' said
Tom Hausman of Harris' corporate communications. ''He made the decision to
resign.''

Hausman said Al-Sabah would continue publishing on Tuesday with a new staff.

''We had a project to create a free media in Iraq,'' Zayer said of the
founding of Al-Sabah. ''They are trying to control us. We are being
suffocated.''

Zayer accused Harris of interfering in the paper's workings, including
trying to stop some of its advertising and speaking to reporters about
articles.

Among the ads that he said Harris tried to prevent was advertisement from a
new political organization called ''the Iraqi Republican Group.'' The ad ran
in Monday's issue the last put together by Zayer's staff.

The ad complained of the ''griefs of occupation'' and called on Iraqi elite
to rally ''to preserve our nation from destruction.''

Zayer said he was told by Harris that the ad was ''too political.''