The AP Has to Explain Itself to Some Members Who Accuse It of Having a “Bunker Mentality” In Iraq and Failing to Report the “Good News” As Reuters Loses Yet Another Journalist to “Friendly Fire”

Philip M. Stone September 1, 2005

The headline on a recent news release from the International News Safety Institute (INSI) should send a shudder through working journalists everywhere: “US forces second biggest cause of journalist deaths in Iraq”.

According to INSI, while insurgents, unidentified gunmen and bombers are the lead cause of journalists’ deaths in Iraq, US forces are responsible for the deaths of 13 journalists, including most recently a Reuters Television soundman three days ago. In that action US forces detained for three days for questioning a wounded cameraman.

No one says those killings are on purpose, but with the numbers growing questions are seriously being asked whether the US troops are taking necessary precautions for, or really care about the safety of those journalists not embedded.

At the same time the Associated Press (AP) is being attacked by some of its US members for failing to report enough “positive” or “good” news about what is happening in Iraq, and the AP actually had to resort to publishing a Q and A to explain its Iraq coverage. It also promised to provide wrap-ups from time to time of the positive developments occurring through the country.

Now the AP is owned by its US members, so as an organization it has little choice but to try and respond to members’ complaints, but in truth the accusations of not reporting enough “positive” news, and maintaining a “bunker mentality” in the most dangerous place in the world is an insult to one of the world’s finest journalistic organizations.

Reuters has now lost four journalists to so-called “friendly fire” in Iraq, another is wounded, and yet another is currently being held for questioning by US forces, without access to Reuters management or legal representation.

Cameraman Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani has been held since Aug.8 in Abuu Ghraib prison and officials decided this week to hold him for another six months while they investigate further. He will not have access to lawyers or anyone else for the first 60 days of that extended detention. Officials allegedly are suspicious of some of the images found on his camera.  Cameraman Haider Kadhem, who was wounded in Sunday’s attack, was held for three days before being released. US forces said there had been “inconsistencies” in his statements after he was pulled from the car.

Reuters global managing editor David Schlesinger has called for an immediate impartial investigation of Sunday’s incidents, and for a full explanation on why al-Mashhadani’s detention has been prolonged,  but he knows from prior experience not to expect too much.

Schlesinger’s fight with the Pentagon dates back to when US forces were taking Baghdad in April 2003. Even though the military had been told that the international media was using the Palestine Hotel, including housing the Reuters bureau, a US tank fired from across the river for a direct hit. A Reuters’ cameraman and one from Spain’s Telecinco were killed, and three reporters were injured. The military investigated and said it did nothing wrong. Since then Reuters has lost two more photographers, and now a television soundman to US fire.

One difference, apparently, between AP and Reuters coverage of Iraq is that Reuters does send people outside the “safe” Green Zone in Baghdad for coverage independent of US military protection. Those journalists are not embedded with US troops  -- the Pentagon makes the point that no embedded journalist has been killed. It also says it cannot guarantee the safety of any journalist who is not embedded.

The AP says in its published Q & A it sends people out to the Green Zone where most of Baghdad’s political entities exist and which is very heavily patrolled by US forces, but outside of there it says its people are embedded with US forces.

Answering the question, “Is there any first-hand reporting about what the US military is doing?” the AP responded in its Q&A, “The AP has a reporter and a photographer devoted full time to being embedded with the US military – traveling with different units to watch a wide variety of operations.”

Later it says it “always includes both sides of the story. It never publishes any allegation against the US military unless it first tries to obtain the military’s side of the story.”

And also, “The AP never works with, cooperates with or protects insurgents. The AP does not pay money for material (except salaries to its own staff) and thus guards carefully against inadvertently providing any financial resources to insurgents.”

That it has to publicly explain all this publicly to its membership is truly remarkable!

The Reuters soundman, Waleed Khaled, was killed Sunday as he drove with his cameraman to a Baghdad district. They were responding to reports of gunfire between gunmen and police. Iraqi police said US soldiers shot Khaled several times in the head and chest, and Kadhem was wounded in the back.

INSI says that most of the television news footage from Iraq comes from local camera crews. “Iraq is simply too dangerous for foreign journalists often to emerge from high-guarded compounds in the capital.”

Those local employees are often in a no-man’s land. Insurgents target them as working for the “enemy”. Americans believe some might be insurgency agents, unwitting or otherwise, and the journalists can’t identify their cars as “Press” since that could actually draw insurgency fire.

So without the identification, and operating in very tense areas where a soldier fears every next second may be his/her last, to say these “locals” take their lives in their hands every time they venture out would be an understatement, as proved Sunday.

Statistics from two organizations released this week about journalists’ deaths in Iraq differ, but both make very dismal reading. According to INSI, 81 news media personnel have died since the war began in March 2003, more than half of those casualties caused by the insurgents.  In addition to 57 Iraqis, four US journalists, three British, two each from Argentina, Australia, Japan, and Spain, and one each from Algeria, Germany, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Poland, and Ukraine have died.

Reporters without Borders (RSF) put the figure at 66 journalists and assistants killed since March, 2003, noting this is more than the 63 journalists killed during the entire Vietnam war from 1955 to 1975.

RSF says Iraq is the most dangerous place in the world for journalists. In addition to those killed, 22 were kidnapped, all but one having been eventually released. Two other journalists are still missing.

The American media – indeed the global media – should, in reality, be very thankful for the tremendous services provided by the AP, Reuters and the other international news organizations that pursue the finest attributes of international news gathering for client fees that are a mere pittance when set against a publication’s or broadcaster’s total news gathering costs.

The APs members are right that there are good stories to tell about Iraq – schools reopened, hospitals built and even a good piece of news from Reuters itself -- the Reuters Foundation has helped establish and fund the training for Iraq’s first independent and commercially viable news agency. But for all that, as the AP says, there ere can be no question “the violence in Iraq is central to the country’s future.”

So while AP members, seemingly antsy by all the “bad news” coming out of Iraq ask their cooperative, “Where is the good news”, Reuters must surely be asking itself a far more crushing life and death question -- given current conditions in Iraq, is any particular event really worth putting a journalist’s freedom or life – Iraqi or foreign -- in harm’s way.