New Threats to Media Freedom: How We Fight Back8 Dec 2007CONFERENCE Saturday 26 January 2008: Called by the National Union of Journalists with the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom. Mounting political and commercial pressures are affecting the freedom to report as never before. Hear leading journalists, broadcasters and union campaigners on why an unfettered media is central to democracy, and how we can mobilise to [...]
AP photographer still detained in Iraq8 Dec 2007Last month over 1,850 professional photographers and journalists from over 90 countries sent a petition to the US Government demanding the immediate release of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, detained by US Forces in Iraq on April 12, 2006, and held in prison ever since without charges. Hussein was part of AP’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo [...]
Nick Davies: How ?flat earth? news is killing journalism7 Dec 2007Speech at the conference “The First Casualty? War, Truth and the Media Today”, London School of Economics, November 17, 2007. Nick Davies is an award-winning investigative reporter who writes regularly for the Guardian. I’m not an expert on Iran or Iraq. I think I’m here partly because I’ve been a hack, a reporter, not just a [...]
Book review: Unembedded in Iraq7 Dec 2007Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, by Dahr Jamail, Haymarket Books, 2007 This book brilliantly captures the horrors of being caught up in conflict. Scorning the compromising position of an embedded journalist, Dahr Jamail travelled Iraq to report on a subject often neglected by the mainstream media: daily life [...]
Peter Wilby: We need alternative narratives7 Dec 2007Speech at the conference “The First Casualty? War, Truth and the Media Today”, London School of Economics, November 17, 2007. Peter Wilby has a column in the Media Guardian and is a former editor of the Independent on Sunday and the New Statesman. I want to talk about the systemic failures of journalism that led to [...]
The media and the anti-war movement24 Nov 2007Report of a workshop at the conference “The First Casualty?” War, Truth and the Media Today”, London School of Economics, Nov 17, with Peter Wilby (The Guardian) and Jane Shallice (Officer, Stop the War Coalition): Jane Shallice opened the workshop, describing some of the particular challenges the Stop the War Coalition faces in opposing the ?War [...]
What you said about Saturday?s conference20 Nov 2007Here are some of the comments we received: A winner. Congratulations. Great conference. I only wished I could have divided myself, several times, to have been able to attend more than one workshop. The whole afternoon was excellent. Thought provoking, informative, enjoyable and you had a really good turn out. With at least two thirds from [...]
THE FIRST CASUALTY? War, Truth and the Media Today30 Oct 2007Half-day conference London School of Economics Saturday November 17 2pm-6.30pm Hosted by Media Workers Against the War Contributors: Andrew Gilligan, Peter Wilby, Victoria Brittan, Sean Langan, Michelle Stanistreet, Catherine Mayer, Sami Ramadani, Phillip Knightley, Moazzam Begg, Lyndsey German, Amir Amirani, Piers Robinson and others Tickets: 10 / 7 ? buy securely online: http://mwaw.net/conference Major [...]
Video: British mercenaries? Iraq killing spree27 Oct 2007In case you thought it was only US mercenaries who go around shooting Iraqi civilians, here is the infamous “trophy video” taken by British mercenaries employed by Aegis, showing them shooting up cars that get too close ? to an Elvis Presley sound track. Aegis in September won the largest single security contract yet in Iraq, [...]
Then and now: White House on Iran and Iraq27 Oct 2007AFP posted this interesting material to the wires last week (Oct 25), comparing what the White House is saying about Iran today with what it said about Iraq before the invasion (emphasis added): WASHINGTON, Oct 25, 2007 (AFP) – While the US administration insists it is pursuing diplomacy in its disputes with Iran, critics of President [...]
Media ?bored to tears by Iraq?27 Oct 2007Vicki Wood, columnist for the Mail and Telegraph, let slip the commentariat’s attitude to the Iraq war in the Telegraph (Oct 26), when she wrote that three years ago “the world was not yet bored to tears by the unending mess in Iraq”. This is a real problem for the anti-war movement ? the notion among [...]
Why the Mirror?s editor was sacked27 Oct 2007Was Piers Morgan rightly sacked three years ago? After all, didn’t he publish faked photos of British troops urinating on Iraqi prisoners? In fact, Piers’ decision to publish the photos was totally justified. The photos represented what actually took place, even though they were faked. Stuart MacKenzie, a private in the Territorial Army who served with the [...]
Attack on BBC?s ?dangerous mindset? is childsplay7 Oct 2007This blog has argued consistently that the recent onslaught from the right on the BBC, launched by its report on “impartiality” in June, was a continuation of Blair’s assault on the media over coverage of the war on terror, which is rarely actually mentioned by name. Now the Financial Times has published an article by [...]
Video: What the Iraqi resistance looks like7 Oct 2007Sami Ramadani mentioned this clip at an MWAW meeting in September on the Iraqi resistance. It shows a convoy of trucks driven by US contractors which loses its way in the small town of Balad, 70km north of Baghdad, in September 2005. It is attacked, first by youths throwing stones, and then by small arms [...]
Slideshow: These are who they want to bomb7 Oct 2007Just in case we needed reminding, here’s a brilliant audio-picture sequence from Iran, showing who will be the real victims of any western military attack on Iran. And here are some recent headlines that demonstrate the reality of this threat: Britain ‘on board’ for US strikes on Iran Sunday Telegraph. October 7 Secret US air force team to perfect [...]
THE FIRST CASUALTY? War, Truth and the Media Today3 Oct 2007Half-day conference London School of Economics Saturday November 17 2pm-6.30pm Hosted by Media Workers Against the War Contributors: Andrew Gilligan, Peter Wilby, Victoria Brittan, Sean Langan, Michelle Stanistreet, Catherine Mayer, Sami Ramadani, Phillip Knightley, Moazzam Begg, Lyndsey German, Amir Amirani, Piers Robinson and others Tickets: 10 / 7 ? buy securely online: http://mwaw.net/conference Major [...]
My tour of duty as a British propagandist19 Sep 2007The UK government seeks to boost pro-British sentiment in the Middle East through news management at a government-funded TV news agency. Bruce Whitehead told the Journalist about his experience of working there: I was in Riyadh reporting for British Satellite News, a government-funded news agency. We were covering an official visit by Bill Rammell, the minister [...]
Media alert: 1.2 million Iraqis dead16 Sep 2007You wouldn’t know it from the British media, but last week a highly respected survey organisation reported that up to 1.2 million Iraqis have died violently because of the conflict, making the 2006 Lancet research that reported 650,000 dead look conservative by comparison. The survey, by Opinion Research Business (ORB), asked a representative sample of 1,461 [...]
At a glance: what the ?surge? means12 Sep 2007Ten-point guide to what the increase of US troops in Iraq has meant in practice: 70% of Iraqis believe security is now worse than before the surge. There has been no reduction in civilian deaths. Food rations have been cut by 35%. There are fewer doctors and nurses. There has been a sharp rise in Iraqis fleeing Iraq. The US is [...]
Sami Al-Haj: ?I am afraid I will be the next to die?11 Sep 2007Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj has been on hunger strike at Guantnamo Bay for more than 230 days. Clive Stafford Smith tells his story in the Press Gazette. The week began with a letter from a Guantnamo Bay officer suggesting that I might have smuggled some Speedo swimming trunks and ?Under Armour briefs? to my client, [...]
Iraq?s crisis worse than Darfur10 Sep 2007Four years after a US-led invasion that was sold to the public partly on humanitarian grounds, Iraqis are suffering from a man-made catastrophe comparable in scope to the tragedy in Darfur, the Financial Times reports. The plight facing Iraqis ?is as significant (as Darfur),? says Margarette Wahlstrom, deputy head of the UN?s aid coordination arm Ocha. Comparisons [...]
Murdoch?s neo-con agenda for Islam10 Sep 2007Right on cue, the Murdoch press comes up with a classic “Muslim preachers of hate” scare on the eve of 9/11. Friday’s Times splashed with “Hardline takeover of British mosques“, plus three full pages inside, while the Sun ran with “Hate sect runs 600 mosques“. The timing was clearly also meant to reinforce a connection [...]
9/11 journalism: how it is done10 Sep 2007“Leicester to be first city where whites are minority”, revealed the Independent’s north of England correspondent Ian Herbert on September 11. But why carry the story on this particular day? The Mail, after all, had the same story from the same sources on August 31, and the Telegraph on the very next day, as did the Mirror. In [...]
BBC ?paralysed by post-Hutton traumatic stress?7 Sep 2007At last, someone has joined the dots. The Independent’s Matthew Norman (Sept 7) eloquently links the BBC’s “collective loss of nerve” over Planet Relief, Blue Peter and the Queen to the Hutton inquiry into Iraq war coverage. He writes: Sitting in a High Court conference room one cold January day in 2004, little did we foresee [...]
Precision strike or reckless bombing?5 Sep 2007NATO forces say an air strike in Helmand targeted Taliban leaders, but locals say the bombs killed hundreds of innocent civilians, The Institute of War and Peace Reporting reports. It was 3 pm on a Thursday afternoon in the small town of Bughni, located in the Baghran district of Helmand province. Hundreds of people has gathered [...]
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