.
Reuters asked the question "Iraq - Is the media telling the real story?" at a debate in New York last night and the resounding answer was "no". But the panel, including journalists from the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal and al-Hayat as well as a US Army communication chief and a blogger, had different views about what has gone wrong.
US media coverage was polarised between 'good news' and 'bad news' at the detriment of a complete picture of what was happening within the country, said Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, who returned to the US in December after 16 months in Iraq as chief spokesman for the US military.
Lt Col Boylan said he found there was less coverage of Iraq in the US media on his return than he expected.
"I was of the opinion that there wasn't enough good news coming out of Iraq when I first got there," he said. "I came to realize it really isn't the issue of good news versus bad news, because that's very opinion-based. It's that the complete story is not being told."
Roger Cohen, a columnist for the International Herald Tribune recently returned from Iraq said: "If you write a 'good news' story from Iraq you are immediately identified as an apologist for the administration ... and if you write something critical then you're in the other camp."
Cohen said both traditional US media and blogs fell into the trap of toeing either a pro or anti-war line.
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi photojournalist who works for the Guardian, said it was wrong to say journalists were ignoring good news, an issue the US administration has complained about.
"It's a civil war, people are getting killed every single day, every hour ... everywhere in Iraq. It's a civil war and we're still shying away from the word civil war," said Abdul-Ahad.
He added that a Pentagon program that paid Iraqi news organizations to publish positive stories had made life even more difficult for Iraqi journalists.
"How do you expect decent Iraqi journalists to go into the streets and write a positive story? Everyone would be pointing at them saying you've been paid by the Americans," he said.
Zaki Chehab, political editor of London-based Arab newspaper Al Hayat, made the point that gathering news is extremely difficult in Iraq due to the security situation. It is now unsafe for Arab or Iraqi journalists to travel outside Baghdad, he said and were increasingly working undercover.
And Reuters Baghdad bureau chief Alastair Macdonald agreed, saying the agency's 70 Iraqi staff in 18 cities around the country were finding it increasingly difficult to work because of sectarian tensions, to the extent that journalists had been forced to leave towns after receiving death threats.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 67 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in early 2003.
Harvard-run blog network Global Voices covered the event live with London-based Iraqi blogger Salam Adil commenting: "The media as a whole has not done its job as a pillar of democracy - and its failure will be felt for years to come.
Guardian
US media coverage was polarised between 'good news' and 'bad news' at the detriment of a complete picture of what was happening within the country, said Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, who returned to the US in December after 16 months in Iraq as chief spokesman for the US military.
Lt Col Boylan said he found there was less coverage of Iraq in the US media on his return than he expected.
"I was of the opinion that there wasn't enough good news coming out of Iraq when I first got there," he said. "I came to realize it really isn't the issue of good news versus bad news, because that's very opinion-based. It's that the complete story is not being told."
Roger Cohen, a columnist for the International Herald Tribune recently returned from Iraq said: "If you write a 'good news' story from Iraq you are immediately identified as an apologist for the administration ... and if you write something critical then you're in the other camp."
Cohen said both traditional US media and blogs fell into the trap of toeing either a pro or anti-war line.
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi photojournalist who works for the Guardian, said it was wrong to say journalists were ignoring good news, an issue the US administration has complained about.
"It's a civil war, people are getting killed every single day, every hour ... everywhere in Iraq. It's a civil war and we're still shying away from the word civil war," said Abdul-Ahad.
He added that a Pentagon program that paid Iraqi news organizations to publish positive stories had made life even more difficult for Iraqi journalists.
"How do you expect decent Iraqi journalists to go into the streets and write a positive story? Everyone would be pointing at them saying you've been paid by the Americans," he said.
Zaki Chehab, political editor of London-based Arab newspaper Al Hayat, made the point that gathering news is extremely difficult in Iraq due to the security situation. It is now unsafe for Arab or Iraqi journalists to travel outside Baghdad, he said and were increasingly working undercover.
And Reuters Baghdad bureau chief Alastair Macdonald agreed, saying the agency's 70 Iraqi staff in 18 cities around the country were finding it increasingly difficult to work because of sectarian tensions, to the extent that journalists had been forced to leave towns after receiving death threats.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 67 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in early 2003.
Harvard-run blog network Global Voices covered the event live with London-based Iraqi blogger Salam Adil commenting: "The media as a whole has not done its job as a pillar of democracy - and its failure will be felt for years to come.
Guardian
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