Now that the war in Iraq has started, they've expanded their horizons somewhat:
Fox News cops a serve:Fragments of that passionate report have been broadcast in the West but this photograph was everywhere. It was taken by Itsuo Inouye for Associated Press and ran front page on The Advertiser, The Courier Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Succour for the enemy
… US marines offer a canteen of water to an Iraqi soldier who surrendered yesterday just an hour after the coalition armoured convoy rolled into Iraq.
- Sydney Morning Herald, 22-23 March 2003
A moving sight – but not a new image.
A Bulgarian solider giving a drink to a wounded Turk (1913)
- Century
This collection of Twentieth Century photography included this image as…
a common propaganda image
- Century
CNN cops a serveWith the nation at war and on high alert for terror. Stay brave, stay aware and stay with Fox. For Cavuto coming right now. Hello Neil.
‘Thank you Shepherd very much. Well, Shep, don’t look now but the Shi’tes have hit the fan.’
- Fox News, 26 March 2003
- Watch video »
Human beings as faeces on the Fox News Channel.
And Fox again, in the most clear evidence yet that it really is the worst tabloid trash news you will ever have the displeasure to watch:Ollie [North] is only one of hundreds of correspondents embedded and moving forward with the Yanks and Brits.
This giant wave of steel that grows every hour is ever pushing northward, ever pushing towards the Iraqi capital with The total goal is obviously to intimidate the Iraqis and pressure them and if that doesn’t work then they can smash the Iraqi regime so powerful is this force which is building out here in the desert. It is bold it is audacious it is fast and it is travelling far.
- Walter Rodgers, CNN, Friday 21 March 2003
Embedding gives journalists great access. So this man from the BBC was on hand for the night bombardment and with Johnny on the spot the next morning for the dawn assault.
But embedding has its risks – risks to reporting. CNN’s Martin Savidge is so embedded he seems to have joined the marines.
It was simply too much for this force to take on by itself so they had to call in air strikes and artillery to try to clear away. Now we’ll try to push in on the main objective.
- Martin Savidge, CNN, Friday 21 March 2003
Fox News versus Al JazeeraSay what you like about Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Network – its strange intimacy with God and the US Administration – but it takes real flair to put this on national television.
‘One of the questions that people keep asking me about you and the guys you’re out there with – I don’t know how you want to answer this question but – using the facilities when there aren’t any facilities: how are you going to the bathroom buddy?’
- Fox News, 29 March 2003
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So he called the soldier over.
‘You want to demonstrate for us how you sit on that shovel? You want me to do it. There you go. Isn’t that something?’
- Fox News, 29 March 2003
Not that Fox neglects the sharp end of the business. They love bombs on Fox.
‘Should they have used more? Should they, you know, use the MOAB, the Mother of All Bombs and a few Daisy Cutters. You know, lets not just stop at a couple of Cruise Missiles.’
‘Only 40, huh?’
‘I want to see them use that MOAB. We all want to see them use that MOAB. We all want to see that MOAB go into Bagdhad.’
- Fox News, 25 March 2003
Free of charge to the US taxpayer, Fox delivers threats to the enemies of the Bush administration.
Al Jazeera returns fireThey went berserk when Al Jazeera showed that Iraqi footage of dead and captured Americans.
‘But Eddie here’s a thing: what about Al Jazeera? Why would you air something over and over again, every half hour, every 45 minutes and after begging - just saying “Listen, use your head”- they said OK we’ll show it every hour. How does that help any news organisation to air captive people and other people who have been brutally murdered and obviously executed?
I'll tell you why Al Jazeera's running it, 'cause they're not on our side.
- Fox News, 24 March 2003
Iraq’s attempt to expel and silence the network’s journalists last week confirmed that Al Jazeera is not – as Americans often like to claim – a mouthpiece for Saddam but an independent network set up seven years ago by the ruling family in Qatar.
Daring. Factual. Al Jazeera: exclusive and distinct.
- Al Jazeera Promo
That may be overselling it. True, it’s Osama bin Laden’s platform of choice but in many ways it’s not so different at all. The style is international cable news.
Back to the newsroom with our colleague Tareq El Zarouui to continue coverage of the war on Iraq. Tareq
Thank you Mohammed. Welcome dear viewer.The Arab foreign ministers meeting commenced their preliminary discussions before their official meeting on Monday.
- Al Jazeera, 24 March 2003
There’s the same news bar running across the bottom of the screen – though of course it runs the other way. And there’s the same heavy concentration on what matters most worldwide – money.
The value of the dollar has settled after fluctuations against major currencies in the past few days as reaction to news of captured US soldiers. It dropped against the Japanese Yen and the Euro as a result of the war, particularly as the war seems to be prolonged because of unexpected Iraqi resistance.
- Al Jazeera, 24 March 2003
Al Jazeera reporters are embedded with Coalitionn troops but they stick to their own point of view.
The helicopters arrive with mail for the marines, with letters and presents from family and friends. This may drive some of them to ask, 'What am I doing here?'. Waiting and waiting and waiting. They say that patience is a weapon of war but the American soldiers in Iraq who receive mail from family and friends may feel they miss their home. But what about the Iraqis who are subjected to bombardment every day?
- Al Jazeera, 30 March 2003
Al Jazeera correspondents have been expelled from both the New York and NASDAQ stock exchanges.
'…in light of Al Jazeera’s recent conduct during the war.'
- LA Times web site, 26 March 2003
That conduct includes showing the footage of American POWs but Al Jazeera has also been casting a sceptical journalist’s eye over Western network reports from the front. When the other networks reported the whole of Iraq’s 51st division had surrendered without a fight, Al Jazeera went out and interviewed a 51st Commander who was still with his men in the field.
But I would like to assure you that the commander and the 51st division are in Basra and are fighting for Basra.
- Al Jazeera, 23 March 2003
When the bulk of the media was reporting an uprising in Basra, Al Jazeera had a journalist on the ground in the city who reported there was no evidence to back British claims of a rebellion.
But I can tell you that the streets are very quiet and there is no sign of confusion or violence inside Basra.
- Al Jazeera, 26 March 2003
But the main impact of Al Jazeera on the world’s understanding of the war has been to film and screen civilian casualties in unflinching detail.
Reporter: These pictures taken one hour after the massacre show that they were all civilians – women, men and children shopping after midday prayers at Kazimiya which is considered one of the major Shiite places of worship in Iraq.
Woman: My God. My God My God.
Reporter: Many of the injured were taken to a nearby hospital.
- Al Jazeera, 29 March 2003
Fox downplayed that carnage in Baghdad but when an Iraqi missile landed near an almost deserted shopping mall in Kuwait city, the network went into hyperdrive.
‘This happened about 1.30 to 1.45am local time and only two injuries. Sean and Alan -’
‘Adam just a quick question if I can my friend – great reporting tonight – we have no doubt, obviously, this is from the Iraqis. Now I wanted to ask – and now obviously they’re attacking malls where there are civilian populations – I hope the French take note...
- Fox News, 29 March 2003
No one, thank god, was killed and hardly anything was damaged but Fox made it sound like a king hit.
This is where at any other time of the day hundreds of people might have been walking. Thankfully it was the early hours of the morning, but take a look at the front of the shopping mall there. That’s the kind of damage it did.
- Fox News, 29 March 2003
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera took it’s viewers to see the carnage Fox wasn’t keen to show.
Al Jazeera travelled from the village to the town hospital. This family of eight was injured. This physical and psychological injury perhaps explained the absence of expression on the father’s face.
This woman who lived in Baghdad moved with her husband to escape the American and British bombardment in this very remote village. They said it would be a clean war. They said they would not target infrastructure. They said they were not the enemy of the Iraqi people. They said, they said, they said.
Faiza Alizzy Al Jazeera. This is the village of Manar, in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad.
- Al Jazeera, 29 March 2003
