Iraq

Army Runs J-School

by Laura Miller — March 16, 2004 - 11:00pm

The U.S. Army is training Iraqis, many of them translators, to be journalists. In workshops taught by military public affairs officers, students learn "things like news gathering, writing fair and balanced stories, interviewing techniques, ethics, the Associated Press Style Guide, and the role of the press in a free society," according to the U.S. Army website "Soldier Stories." "[The students] met for six hours a day, six days a week for about five weeks.

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Soldier Stories, March 17, 2004

World Opinion, One Year Later

by Sheldon Rampton — March 15, 2004 - 11:00pm

"A year after the war in Iraq, discontent with America and its policies has intensified rather than diminished," concludes a new international survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. "Opinion of the United States in France and Germany is at least as negative now as at the war's conclusion, and British views are decidedly more critical. Perceptions of American unilateralism remain widespread in European and Muslim nations, and the war in Iraq has undermined America's credibility abroad.

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Pew Research Center, March 16, 2004

INC Fed Media False Stories

by Laura Miller — March 15, 2004 - 11:00pm

"The former Iraqi exile group that gave the Bush administration exaggerated and fabricated intelligence on Iraq also fed much of the same information to newspapers, news agencies and magazines in the United States, Britain and Australia," Knight Ridder reports.
"A June 26, 2002, letter from the Iraqi National Congress to the Senate Appropriations Committee listed 108 articles based on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress's Information Collection Program, a U.S.-funded effort to col

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San Jose Mercury News, March 16, 2004

Occupation Is Sell

by Diane Farsetta — March 13, 2004 - 11:00pm

The White House is marking "this Friday's first anniversary of the invasion of Iraq with a week-long media blitz arguing that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was essential to combating global terrorism and making the United States safer." Another goal is to set "realistic expectations" for the rebuilding of Iraq.

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The Washington Post, March 14, 2004

Ringing the Bell for Democracy

by Laura Miller — March 12, 2004 - 11:00pm

The Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq has selected British PR firm Bell Pottinger Communications to promote the establishment of democracy, according to PR trade publication the Holmes Report.

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The Holmes Report, March 13, 2004

Some Spies Saw Through the Lies & Blew the Whistle

by John Stauber — March 9, 2004 - 11:00pm

"When David Kay, the CIA's former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, announced earlier this year that his team had found no stockpiled weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he touched off an explosion of blame, finger-pointing, denial, and hasty 'clarifications' about the extent and accuracy of the intelligence that the Bush Administration used to buttress its decision to invade Iraq. Kay's startling conclusion, though, came as no surprise to many analysts in the U.S. intelligence community -- particularly the members of a self-described 'movement' of some 35 retired and resigned high-level U.S.

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Mother Jones, March 10, 2004

Another WMD Post-mortem

by Sheldon Rampton — March 8, 2004 - 11:00pm

The Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland has published a new study on "Media Coverage of Weapons of Mass Destruction," and the picture isn't pretty. "Most media outlets represented WMD as a monolithic menace, failing to adequately distinguish between weapons programs and actual weapons or to address the real differences among chemical, biological, nuclear, and radiological weapons," the report states.

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Editor and Publisher, March 9, 2004

Halliburton Subcontractor Talks Turkey

by Laura Miller — March 8, 2004 - 11:00pm

Iraq

"Halliburton, which according to its just-released 10-K report has earned $85 million on $3.6 billion in Iraqi work last year, has not yet paid the subcontractor that prepared the Thanksgiving Day photo-op of President George Bush serving the troops dinner in Baghdad International Airport," O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports.
NBC News reports Event Source, which serves 100,000 meals a day to soldiers in Iraq, says Halliburton owes it $87 million.

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O'Dwyer's PR, March 9, 2004

Blair's 45-minute Gap

by Sheldon Rampton — February 28, 2004 - 11:00pm

Britons continue to debate the Blair government's now-discredited claim that Iraq was 45 minutes away from launching chemical or biological weapons. Glenn Frankel and Rajiv Chandrasekaran British review in detail the history of the 45-minute claim and Blair's failure to "disclose that the claim had come secondhand from a single, uncorroborated source, and that some of the government's own experts believed it was questionable."

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Washington Post, February 29, 2004

The Campaigns Behind the Campaigns

by Diane Farsetta — February 25, 2004 - 11:00pm

In a sign of "close tactical coordination with the White House" and "at a time when Sen John Kerry has surged ahead of Bush in the presidential popularity polls," Republican Senators planned a surprise debate on Iraq today. Majority Leader Bill Frist and Jon Kyl are leading the estimated six-hour rebuttal of Democratic criticisms.

Main Source:

The Hill, February 26, 2004