West Asia - North Africa

So much for the government's whingeing about "biased" media coverage of the Iraq war. New research suggests Tony Blair et al might have got off lightly: academics who have analysed coverage of the war have found that many media reports filed during the conflict favoured coalition forces - with more than 80% of all stories taking the government line on the moral case for war. "Our findings fail to...

Two Iraqi TV channels have been shut down in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's death sentence, accused of inciting violence among viewers. Press freedom group The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was "concerned" by the decision to close the two Sunni-owned satellite channels. Security forces raided al-Zawraa TV in Baghdad and Saleheddin TV in Tikrit on grounds they were inciting violence...

BAGHDAD, Iraq: An Iraqi journalist who was kidnapped last month was found dead nearly two weeks after his abduction, a Paris-based media advocacy group said in a statement released Thursday. Reporters Without Borders "condemned the murder of Iraqi freelance journalist" Abdul-Majid Ismail Khalil who was kidnapped on Oct. 18 in Baghdad's eastern Jamila neighborhood. Khalil, who worked for several...

The murders of three more media workers has brought the number of journalists and media assistants killed since the start of the war in March 2003 to 154, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has reported. IFJ and other press freedom organisations have condemned the new wave of violence and the fact that authorities have not so far conducted investigations that could put an end to the...

Associated Press Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll today called on other news organizations, especially those that use AP services, to increase their attention on imprisoned AP photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held by U.S. military officials in Iraq for more than six months without being charged. Saying Hussein “works on behalf of every news organization that receives news from the...

The Pentagon's new effort to influence media coverage of the war in Iraq is an example of how governments react when a war is not going too well. They begin to think it is not the war that is the problem, but the presentation of it. The media, being the messengers, get the blame, not the message itself. The plan, detailed in a memo seen by the Associated Press news agency, is for a rapid response...

New York, October 30, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Sunday’s murder in central Baghdad of a presenter and a driver for the Iraqi state television channel Atyaf. Unidentified gunmen killed Naqshin Hamma Rashid, 30, and her driver Anis Qassem as the two were driving to work near Haifa Street in the morning, according to CPJ sources. Rashid, a Kurd who was also known by...

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is brushing off a request for more information and a decision on an Associated Press photographer held for six months in Iraq without formal charges. In a letter to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, does not provide details about why Iraqi photographer Bilal Hussein remains at a U.S. run prison camp. The letter repeats the military...

(RSF/IFEX) - With a total of 48 journalists and media assistants killed in cold blood since the start of January, 2006 is already the deadliest year for the Iraqi press since the start of the war in March 2003, Reporters Without Borders said, condemning targeted violence against media. "Journalists are being attacked more often than Iraqi politicians, who work in the Green Zone where the...

The Pentagon has brushed off a request from a journalist organization seeking more information and a decision on Bilal Hussein, an Associated Press photographer held for six months in Iraq without formal charges. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, in a letter to the Committee to Protect Journalists, did not provide details about why Iraqi photographer Bilal Hussein continues to be held without...