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Politics : Stop the War! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (3719)	3/27/2003 9:51:00 AM
From: thames_sider	Respond to of 21614

Iraqi get news from multiple sources, but seem to be trusting ours less as time goes on... :( news.bbc.co.uk Since the war began, the official media have limited details to Iraqi citizens. It has aired morale-boosting speeches by Saddam Hussein, news of fresh victories by Iraqi troops, footage of prisoners of war, and given details of rewards for downed coalition aircraft and captured soldiers. But there have been no pictures of Western troop movements and none of the vivid footage of the relentless bombing of the capital, which has been the daily diet of the few with access to international stations. Only about handful of Iraqis - some 4,000 mostly military personnel and political elite - can either afford or are allowed access to the state-run subscription service to international channels. Ordinary Iraqis are banned from owning satellite dishes. About 14 channels, handpicked by the regime, are available via the subscription service. These include international news outfits, such as CNN, al-Jazeera and BBC World and the new Abu Dhabi TV. In recent days, this service, too, has been interrupted. Radio usage across the country is widespread, with many Iraqis turning to outside broadcasts. There have been reports that the government tried to jam these broadcasts in the early days of the war. According to BBC Monitoring, based in south-east England, there are no audience figures for who listens to what in Iraq, but anecdotal evidence suggests that popular international stations include the BBC World Service and BBC Arabic Service, the French station Radio Monte Carlo - which UK Prime Minister Tony Blair chose as the medium to send a message to the Iraqi people - and a relatively new American station, Radio Sawa. Radio Sawa is a government-funded radio station in Arabic. It is seen by the US administration as the principle means of communicating with the 250 million people across the Arab world. ... BBC Monitoring's Peter Feuilherade says it is important not to over-emphasise the impact of such stations. While people may tune in out of curiosity, he says, they tend to drift back to their favourite stations. But, according to one British Iraqi with family in Baghdad, the old favourites may be turning into new enemies. Mohammed Aref, a media consultant in the United Arab Emirates, says Iraqis that he is in regular contact with are beginning to turn off Western media. "There is a growing perception that the Western media is portraying a false picture of what is going on," he told BBC News Online. "There is a lot of suspicion about what is coming from the West. Iraqis feel they are the ones that are on the ground, they know what is going on. "Many Iraqis are beginning to feel victimised by the Americans and the British, and this is becoming evident in their attitude to the media. Some are beginning to see much of the broadcasting as offensive," he says. He says the Western media are perceived to be losing the battle to broadcasting outfits such as al-Jazeera. "Extended families are gathering at places where there is access to information," he says. "While they may not be able to see images on stations such as al-Jazeera and other international stations, they hear about them." He adds that the mosque is becoming an important place for the dissemination of information. "At the mosque Iraqis will definitely be discussing the scenes of bombs raining down on the capital, the scenes of injured Iraqi children and so on." But, he warns that while there is an enormous appetite for information - Iraqis are becoming increasingly discerning. "If they begin to equate the media with the enemy, they will simply switch off," he says.

To: zonder who wrote (3719)	3/27/2003 12:06:35 PM
From: E. T.	Respond to of 21614

"Sorry to say this but the news from Iraq, as told in Arab media, in this war have so far been far more correct than those in US media ...." I just can't believe that the Iraqi media would report on any public insurrection, army defections and the rounding up of male kurds over the age of 14. Whereas in the west, while some media is a bit on the rah rah side, tells both sides of the story.

To: zonder who wrote (3719)	3/27/2003 12:59:53 PM
From: E. T.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 21614

I do read some of the Arab media that's in English. And, I guess I'm missing it, but I can't find any reporting of young kurds being rounded up, Iraqi military firing on their own citizens, no comment on a British accusation that Iraq has executed some war prisoners nor any comment on Iraqi regular soldiers who claim their families are under threat by their own government. Also, I find no commentary on Iraq's military using a hospital from which to fire on invading forces. Doesn't that kind of action imperil the citizenry? Yet the Arab media has nothing to say on that topic. Perhaps biases are on both sides, but I'd say the West's media comes closer to the truth than the arab media. But of course, I'm only reading the english copy, maybe the Arab version is more objective, lol.