[A-List] UK news media: propaganda problems

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Row over Blunkett's attack on journalists
Home secretary reopens wounds over war coverage

CATHERINE MacLEOD and MICHAEL SETTLE
The Herald, 4 April 2003

DAVID Blunkett re-ignited the tensions between the government and the media
over war coverage yesterday as he questioned the independence of Iraqi-based
journalists, only hours before Iraqi authorities banned two al-Jazeera
journalists from working there.

Mr Blunkett's remarks, made during a speech in New York, infuriated
reporters in Baghdad and irritated Whitehall colleagues, who believed he
could have exercised more tact.

He was left in an embarrassing position when, only hours later, al-Jazeera,
the Arabic news channel, announced it was suspending its reports from Iraq
because Saddam Hussein's regime had banned two of its reporters. Government
insiders pointed out that it was "ironic" that the BBC was still in Iraq,
while al-Jazeera had been thrown out.

Ibrahim Helal, al-Jazeera's editor-in-chief, said it had been given no
reason for the ban, which he described as sudden and unjustified.

Mr Blunkett complained that some UK media outlets had been reporting from
Baghdad "as though they (Iraq and the UK) were moral equivalents."

It was an echo of earlier criticism made by John Reid, the Labour chairman,
who criticised UK media in the run-up to the war for not making clear that
reporters in Iraq were severely restricted, Mr Blunkett said: "For the first
time ever in our history, we not only have thousands - literally thousands -
of journalists travelling with the troops, but we have broadcast media
behind what I would describe as enemy lines, reporting blow-by-blow what is
happening. We have it reported certainly in our own media in the UK on
occasions as though they were moral equivalents."

The Daily Mail's Ross Benson, stationed in Baghdad, condemned the home
secretary. Speaking on the BBC, he said: "For Blunkett to suggest in some
way that I was a stooge of Saddam is deeply offensive.

"I think it is the responsibility of all journalists - and the journalists
here are very seasoned professionals - to see what we can, and then to sort
the wheat from the chaff and draw the most sensible conclusions we can."

There is widespread concern in government circles about the media coverage.
In the Commons yesterday, MPs complained about its objectivity, and earlier
this week, Alastair Campbell, Downing Street's director of strategy and
communications, aired the government's concerns in an interview on
Australian radio, albeit with more finesse than Mr Blunkett.

Mr Campbell, admitting they were struggling to win the propaganda war
against Saddam Hussein, said Britain and America faced a "huge uphill
battle" since dictatorships were able to tell lies without being challenged.

In the Commons, Christopher Chope, the Tory MP for Christchurch, attacked
the BBC for giving "credence" to false claims over civilian casualties,
declaring it was an insult to licence fee payers who were being "forced to
subsidise Saddam's propaganda machine".

He said: "If CNN and al-Jazeera are withdrawing their reporters from Iraq,
isn't it time for the BBC to do likewise?"

The government's position was bolstered last night by Reporters Sans
Frontieres, the media watchdog, which accused the Iraqi government of
censoring all reports leaving Iraq. It said the treatment of journalists was
"scandalous, contemptuous and hostile".