[Swprograms] BBC exec blasts U.S. war coverage

[Joe Buch <joseph.buch@xxxxxxx>]

>From Variety, the showbiz newspaper:

BBC exec blasts U.S. war coverage

Tue Oct 26, 6:22 PM ET  

Pamela McClintock, STAFF 

NEW YORK -- BBC World Service and Global News director Richard Sambrook on Tuesday took the U.S. news nets to task on their own turf for "wrapping themselves in the flag" and not asking the tough questions about the Bush administration's reasons for going to war in Iraq (news - web sites). 

Sambrook, speaking at Columbia U.'s Graduate School of Journalism, warned that such perceived partisanship of the news media may be playing a part in exposing journalists covering Iraq and other trouble spots around the globe to danger. 

"Journalists are now at a greater risk than they have ever been before. Where once their neutrality was widely recognized and respected, today they are targeted and sought out, seen as high-profile representatives of their countries or cultures," Sambrook said. 

Sambrook announced the formation of an international committee he will chair to investigate ways to improve safety conditions for reporters on the ground in Iraq and elsewhere. Panel will be administered by the Intl. News Safety Institute, whose membership includes most of the major U.S. TV news nets. 

With Iraq considered to be the most dangerous place for journalists in recent memory, all the U.S. network and cable news divisions continue to take unusual steps to protect their personnel in Baghdad, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on professional security forces, many of them former British commandos. 

News nets -- generally unwilling to cooperate with each other -- hold a weekly phone conference call to share security info. They also are considering convening another pool to report on the war-torn city of Fallujah. 

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 35 journos have been killed since the war began in Iraq, including one American. So far, no high-profile U.S. correspondent has been killed. 

Already this year, 22 journalists have been abducted, six of them American. 

By all accounts, U.S. TV correspondents in Iraq are severely restricted in their movements because of the danger of attack or kidnapping. Correspondents have again begun embedding with U.S. military forces on particular stories. 

"It's extremely dangerous, and the primary frustration is that it's very difficult to report," said ABC News senior VP for news Paul Slavin. 

"We are restricted by our own security people or by the U.S. military or by our own good sense," Slavin said. "I really don't want to pull out of Baghdad, but if safety gets to be such an issue, we will do so." 

Sambrook is all too aware of the media's coverage of the ramp-up to war -- he was the BBC's director of news at the time of a Beeb report claiming Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites)'s government had "sexed up" an Iraq intelligence dossier knowing the information was false. That led to the worst crisis in the pubcaster's history. 

The report claimed Blair's government had embellished a dossier alleging that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes. 


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Joe Buch
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