Tuesday, January 18, 2005
On the matter of buying press coverage
First, the Washington press corps became exorcised about the news that a conservative columnist was secretly paid by the Bush Administration to promote its education policy. Next came the news that one or more liberal bloggers who just happened to support Howard Dean's candidacy for U.S. President were actually funded, in part, by the Dean campaign. Cries of "unethical journalism!" abounded. Well, excuse me, but how about the "journalists" in the Arab world who were either on Saddam's or Arafat's payroll? Why hasn't the media seen fit to pursue those secret arrangements and admit that perhaps those payments twisted the coverage of those two thugs by Western media?
Isn't the answer obvious? The Western media knew that Saddam was corrupt to the core, and presumed that the Arab media were. While I confess no expertise or even experience in the Arab world, Westerners have the perception -- whether or not accurate -- that corruption and bribe-taking is far more common in Arab countries than in Western democracies. The failure of Western reporters to express outrage over corruption in Arab journalism strongly suggests that they share that perception. The Western press didn't cover corruption in the Arab press because it was not newsworthy.
3 Comments:
By 
Pile On®, at
Tue Jan 18, 10:59:00 AM:
It was not just Arab journalists, CNN had an agreement with Saddam that allowed them to keep an office in Bagdhad, provided their coverage was selective and not to negative.
Their breathless coverage of his sham elections was nauseating.
Later when the truth came out they rationalized the agreement saying they were fearful that harm would come to their employees. I guess it never occured to them to close the office and make an attempt to tell the truth.
By TigerHawk, at
Tue Jan 18, 11:20:00 AM:
I'm not sure that I'm with you on CNN. I suppose that if CNN regularly disclosed that it had agreed to certain limitations in order to have a bureau in Baghdad, that would have been fine. Disclosing that you are under censorship and continuing to report is probably better than withdrawing completely. I can't remember whether they made that disclosure with any prominance before the war. Pile, did they?
By Pile On®, at
Tue Jan 18, 11:54:00 AM:
No there was no disclosure, and I disagree that some coverage and access to a Bagdhad office is worth the cost, when the cost is the truth. The world saw a benign picture of Iraq courtesy of CNN. They admitted after the fact some of the stories they had to cover up to maintain access to Iraqi government officials. They became propoganda tools.
If you are interested, here is a little walk down memory lane.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0C16FD3C5F0C728DDDAD0894DB404482
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=6219_Outrage_of_the_Day
