"there is no question at this point that major media figures
are targeting the men and women of the United States military
in Iraq, repeatedly and with no evidence"
Newspaper union leader: U.S. military targets journalists
Chicago Sun Times
BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB
May 24, 2005
A public statement by Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley is reviving questions about the intentional targeting of journalists in Iraq by the U.S. armed forces.
At a May 13 meeting in St. Louis, Foley said: "Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or politically. They are also being targeted for real in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq."
The Newspaper Guild that Foley heads represents 35,000 media workers in the United States and Canada. The Guild is the largest journalists union in North America.
Candice Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Guild's parent union, the Communications Workers of America, said the comments, made at the National Conference for Media Reform, should be taken in context.
"Foley's remarks were a small part of a much larger discussion about the problems of conglomerate media ownership," Johnson said.
She pointed out that they are consistent with the Guild's affiliate program with the International Federation of Journalists to demand an investigation of the high number of U.S. and foreign journalists who have been Iraq casualties.
A letter was sent to President Bush on April 8 laying out the International Federation of Journalists' and Newspaper Guild's concerns. The White House confirmed that it had received it.
In the letter, signed by Foley, she wrote: "A prompt and convincing response to the questions raised over these deaths will end worldwide speculation that the U.S. targets journalists and the media." But Foley's later St. Louis statement ended speculation before a response from the White House was received. According to Foley, journalists are "being targeted for real."
In an interview with Editor & Publisher magazine, Foley offered a clarification: "I was careful of not saying troops, I said U.S. military."
Richard J. Roth, an old friend of Foley's, is senior associate dean at Northwestern University's journalism school, where Foley is on the board of advisers. Roth said that her statement is "a real puzzler."
"It's beyond my ken that citizen soldiers, my brothers and others in uniform, would target journalists, men and women armed with little more than a pencil. Could it be true? Well, I suppose it could be, but it doesn't square with the rest of what I read."
A similar issue surfaced in February when CNN executive Eason Jordan made unsubstantiated charges that the U.S. military was targeting journalists.
At the Communications Workers of America, Candice Johnson said she could not provide any evidence for Foley's revival of the Eason Jordan charges. Linda Foley refused requests for an interview.
Retired Air Force General Thomas McInerney, a Fox News military consultant, was "frankly astonished."
"It may be legitimate to investigate whether there may or may not have been an incident in which U.S. troops have targeted journalists, but there is no question at this point that major media figures are targeting the men and women of the United States military in Iraq, repeatedly and with no evidence," he said.
Thomas Lipscomb is a senior fellow at the Annenberg Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California.
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