Nets Avoid How "Italian Journalist" Works
for Communist Paper
Though Giuliana Sgrena is hurling accusations that her car did not ignore commands to stop and was fired upon at a checkpoint because she was targeted by U.S. troops in Iraq, with rare exception the networks have not considered relevant to her credibility how she's a vociferous critic of U.S. policy in Iraq and works for a communist newspaper in Rome. Stories over the weekend and on Monday about the wounding of her and the killing of the Italian agent, Nicola Calipari, who rescued her from her kidnappers, repeatedly described her just as an "Italian journalist," "Italian reporter" or "former hostage." NBC's Keith Miller made a rare exception Sunday night when he identified her newspaper, Il Manifesto, as "communist." On Monday night, Dan Rather led with how "U.S. troops opened fire on a car carrying an Italian reporter" and "the reporter insists she was deliberately targeted." Kimberly Dozier soon relayed how "many Iraqi officials have complained American soldiers too often fire first and check what they hit later."
ABC's Peter Jennings, on Monday's World News Tonight, narrated footage of the funeral for the agent taking the "Italian journalist" to airport and referred to how "the journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, was wounded." Martha Raddatz proceeded to outline Sgrena's "sensational charges against the U.S." of how she was shot on purpose, as well as the military's contrary sequence of events.
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams began with the case as he described how inside the car fired upon "was an Italian journalist who had just been released." After noting how the agents is being treated as a hero in Italy, he related the charge that the U.S. "targeted the journalist intentionally." Jim Miklaszewski ran through the conflicting scenarios about what happened. He cited how "Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was also wounded in the shooting."
In the morning on Monday, though Keith Miller's Sunday night story had noted how Sgrena's newspaper was a communist one, the version of Miller's piece run on Today, the MRC's Geoff Dickens noticed, did not. Co-host Lester Holt announced: "Those U.S. troops opened fire Friday night on a car carrying an Italian journalist. She had just been freed from captivity. She was wounded and an Italian intelligence operator was killed." Couric set up Miller's story by referring to how "over the weekend the former hostage said she couldn't rule out that U.S. troops may have deliberately targeted her."
Over on ABC's Good Morning America, Martin Seemungal's 8am news update story from Rome made no mention of Sgrena's communist preferences and neither did some brief items on CBS's Early Show, the MRC's Brian Boyd noted.
The major newspapers, which usually guide network news priorities, identified Sgrena's newspaper as communist, if several paragraphs into their stories. "Italian Journalist Shot in Iraq Rejects U.S. Account," read the headline over the Sunday New York Times story from Rome by Jason Horowitz. His fourth paragraph began: "Ms. Sgrena, a 56-year-old reporter for the communist daily Il Manifesto was hit with shrapnel in the shoulder in the shooting Friday night at a checkpoint in western Baghdad...." See: www.nytimes.com
In a Sunday Washington Post dispatch from Rome, "Italian Calls U.S. Gunfire Unjustified," Daniel Williams identified Sgrena's paper in his third paragraph: "'We weren't going very fast, given the circumstances. It was not a checkpoint, but a patrol that started firing right after lighting up a spotlight. The firing was not justified by the movement of our automobile,' Sgrena, a reporter for the Communist newspaper Il Manifesto, told Italian investigators, according to an account related by an official who interviewed her at a military hospital." See: www.washingtonpost.com
CNN's Alessio Vinci's reporting for CNN has consistently mentioned Sgrena's affiliation with the communist newspaper Il Manifesto, the MRC's Ken Shepherd reported. For instance, he began his CNN Sunday Night story from Rome: "Giuliana Sgrena called her account 'La Mia Verita,' in English, 'My Truth.' It is her initial description of what happened in Baghdad on Friday published in the Sunday edition of Il Manifesto, the Communist newspaper for which she filed dozens of reports before being kidnapped in early February, most of her articles highly critical of the U.S. military invasion of Iraq."
Otherwise, the networks on Saturday night began their avoidance of Sgrena's politics. Check out how the three broadcast networks opened their March 5 newscasts:
-- ABC's World News Tonight/Saturday: "Good evening. I'm Bob Woodruff. In Italy today, a journalist has begun to tell the most harrowing story of her life. Giuliana Sgrena had been freed by her captors in Iraq and on the way to the Baghdad Airport when U.S. troops opened fire on her car. The man who secured her release was killed in what Sgrena described today as a rain of bullets. The Italian people and their leaders say they deserve an explanation. ABC's Mike Lee has the story from Rome."
-- CBS Evening News. Anchor Thalia Assuras: "Good evening, everyone. We begin tonight with the bittersweet return home of an Italian journalist who had been held captive in Iraq for more than a month. Bittersweet, because her freedom was accompanied by tragedy. Late tonight, the body of the Italian Secret Service agent who helped negotiate her release arrived in Italy. He was killed yesterday after U.S. forces fired on her rescue convoy. The incident has also strained U.S.-Italian relations. Here's Allen Pizzey."
Pizzey avoided labeling her newspaper: "The editor of her newspaper, Il Manifesto, which opposes the war in Iraq, said it was a 'consequence of a situation completely out of control.'"
-- NBC Nightly News. Anchor John Seigenthaler: "Good evening, everyone. Italy is mourning the death of one of its top intelligence agents tonight. The agent was shot and killed, apparently by U.S. troops in Iraq as he helped rescue an Italian journalist who had been held hostage for a month and was also wounded by U.S. forces. The body of Nicola Calipari was returned to Rome tonight just one day after a drama unfolded on the dangerous road to the Baghdad Airport. And the Italian journalist he saved is now telling her story. We begin our coverage tonight with NBC's Keith Miller in Rome."
The next night, Sunday, ABC held itself to a brief item read by anchor Terry Moran.
Sunday CBS Evening News anchor John Roberts set up a story: "A state funeral will be held tomorrow for the Italian intelligence agent who was shot and killed by U.S. forces on the Baghdad Airport Road on Friday. Allen Pizzey reports from Rome that in the shootings' aftermath, the questions and the outrage are mounting fast."
Pizzey reported how Calipari "is being turned into an icon for everything the majority of Italians say is wrong about the war in Iraq."
Danielle Poggioli, Italian mourner: "This is horrible because the war is horrible and stupid."
Pizzey: "The anti-war, anti-American sentiment was further fueled by the personal account of the shooting by the woman journalist he saved. Under the headline, 'My Truth,' Giuliana Sgrena disputed the American version that the car taking her to Baghdad Airport was speeding and ignored warnings to stop at a U.S. road block. In a telephone interview, Sgrena also claimed the American military had been told she and her rescuers were on their way."
Giuliana Sgrena, audio: "So rapidly a tank started to shoot to us without any sign or any light, it was not a checkpoint."
Pizzey: "Calipari died when he was hit by a single bullet in the temple when he threw himself across Sgrena to protect her. Conspiracy theories of every kind abound -- that it was an ambush, that a ransom was paid for Sgrena's release. As a leading Italian newspaper put it, the only certainty now is the absence of facts, adding that the truth will only be known when it will neither hurt nor help anyone. The one thing everyone here is sure of is that Nicola Calipari died not as the victim of what the U.S. military called a 'tragic error,' but as a hero, a status that will be underscored by a state funeral tomorrow. Allen Pizzey, CBS News, Rome."
Over on Sunday's NBC Nightly News, Keith Miller reported how "on Friday night, after winning freedom for journalist Giuliana Sgrena, he [Calipari] reportedly shielded her when American troops opened fire as their car sped toward Baghdad Airport. Today, Sgrena, speaking from her hospital bed by telephone, said the shooting may have been deliberate."
Giuliana Sgrena, by phone: "So rapidly a tank started to shoot to us without any sign or any light. It was not a checkpoint. It's not normal to act like this because we were not terrorist."
Miller noted the newspaper's communist orientation: "On Italian TV, she said, 'I can't exclude that I was the real target of the shooting.' And writing in her newspaper, the communist Il Manifesto, she remembered the warning from her captors 'to be careful because the Americans don't want you to return.' But a military analyst says the Italians may have ignored the prevailing battlefield conditions..."
Monday's CBS Evening News, the MRC's Brad Wilmouth observed, delivered the most sympathetic take on Sgrena's allegations, without any look at her agenda or ideology.
Dan Rather led his last Monday newscast: "Good evening. President Bush's coalition of the willing in Iraq is under severe strain tonight because of the Friday night shooting on the road to Baghdad's airport. There is increasingly sharp disagreement over exactly what happened and why in the dark of night. U.S. troops opened fire on a car carrying an Italian reporter who had just been freed by kidnappers. She was wounded. An Italian intelligence agent riding with her was killed. The reporter insists she was deliberately targeted. U.S. officials say definitely not. CBS's Kimberly Dozier has the latest on the investigation which has the potential for far-reaching effects on the long-range U.S. mission in Iraq."
Kimberly Dozier began: "The only thing undisputed in this story is that Baghdad's Airport Road is one of the most dangerous thoroughfares in the world. Giuliana Sgrena had just been released by militants. The Italian intelligence team who picked her up drove her in a civilian car straight to Baghdad's airport in full darkness. Sgrena says there was relief and laughter. The next thing she heard was gunfire and her bodyguard Nicola Calipari breathing his last breath."
Giuliana Sgrena, audio: "A tank started to shoot to us without any sign or any light. The agent that was just sitting beside me, he covered me. When I realized that my liberator I can say, Nicola, was dead, it was terrible."
Dozier, over animation of incident: "The Italian policeman who was driving said American soldiers ordered him out of the car, forced him to kneel with injured hands in the air, and took his cell phone. He says American officials at the airport were aware of their mission. The U.S. soldiers at the checkpoint remember it differently. They say a car sped at them out of the night, ignoring their warnings of flashing lights and shots in the air. But military officials tell CBS News that the soldiers at the checkpoint had no prior word the Italians were coming. Thinking they were under attack, the Americans fired into the car's engine block. A preliminary investigation showed the soldiers only had three seconds to decide. U.S. rules of engagement permit troops to use deadly force if they feel threatened.
"But many Iraqi officials have complained American soldiers too often fire first and check what they hit later. [over blurry images of incident] One such tragedy was caught on film near Mosul. A U.S. patrol signaled a car to stop. The driver kept coming, and the soldiers opened fire. When they reached the car, they found they'd killed a father and a mother. In the back were six children terrified and alone.
"Juliana Sgrena believes her car was deliberately targeted at the checkpoint by American soldiers furious that the Italian government had negotiated with terrorists. U.S. commanders say it was a tragedy caused by confusion and a split-second decision by soldiers who thought they were under attack. Kimberly Dozier, CBS News, Baghdad."
CBS then went to a full story from Allen Pizzey on the funeral for Calipari which "drew thousands who honored him as a hero."
The home page of the communist newspaper: www.ilmanifesto.it
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