The Fog of War

Rory O'Connor, writing originally in MediaChannel.org, notes the disturbing links between the U.S. military-industrial complex and the country's post-Saddam media organizations. His focus is on the dodgy circumstances surrounding the U.S. contract to run the Iraqi Media Network. "Supposedly modeled on the BBC, the Iraqi Media Network includes a radio network, the Al-Iraqiya television network, which includes the news channel Al-Hurra, and the Al-Sabah newspaper." (Radio Sawa is a separate, youth-oriented public diplomacy/propaganda outlet funded directly by the US - although oddly enough it was recently criticized by U.S. government-appointed boards for not managing its propaganda effectively enough). Anyway, back to the Iraqi Media Network, which seems to have an uncomfortably high number of links to U.S. defense contractors and Republican party donors. This is all completely to be expected from the U.S. in Iraq. The people in charge there just seem incapable of understanding that if they allow Iraqi media to become closely associated with crony corporate interests (sort of like they are in the States), these media will have zero credibility, and people will just stick to Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Credibility takes a long, long time to build up - I don't think the US is even interested in trying.