And what news it is. Iraq’s fledgling press has taken swift advantage of its new liberties, but most of the newspapers can at best be described as works in progress. There are very few trained journalists in the country, unsurprisingly, so most of the information produced is unreliable, inflammatory or just plain wrong. Facts are few, while opinions and conspiracy theories abound. Among the latest: Jews are planning to buy up property in Baghdad as a precursor to turning Iraq into a new West Bank. Along with this comes the “reliable” report that Iraqi oil is being pumped into Israel. Ahmed Fawzi, the recently departed spokesman for the U.N. Mission in Baghdad, described most publications as ranging between “political propaganda and mediocre journalism.”
Many of the newspapers are associated with political or religious groups. Others blatantly incite violence against U.S. troops. The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which struggles to monitor the chorus of voices, two weeks ago shut down a paper called Al-Mustakila (The Independent). The paper had printed an article calling for “death to all spies and those who cooperate with the United States; killing them is religious duty.” Even those few papers that are professional are filled with a daily barrage of criticism of the Coalition’s so far failed attempts to restore security, utilities and government to Iraq.
Experts say the cacophony is entirely predictable. Iraq had a vibrant and feisty newspaper industry until the monarchy was toppled in 1958. When Saddam took power 21 years later, he quickly, and literally, killed off the remaining independent press. After 1986, death was the official penalty for criticizing the government. According to the International Alliance for Justice, a French human-rights group, upwards of 500 Iraqi journalists, writers and intellectuals were executed or imprisoned, never to be heard from again. Rebuilding the business will take time, especially in the political hothouse that is the Middle East.
There are a few publications, however, that signal the return of an objective press. Al Zaman, or The Times, is generally considered to be the paper of record in postwar Iraq. Founded in London in 1997, Al Zaman is run by Saad Al-Bazaaz, the former editor in chief of the Saddam-era daily Al Jumhuriyah, who defected in 1992. Bazaaz brought in some Western-trained staff from London, and teamed them up with many of his former colleagues from Jumhuriyah. With a circulation of 75,000, Al Zaman covers Baghdad crime stories, the slow restoration of utilities and political news with a generally critical, but usually balanced, tone.
As for the rest of the press, educated Iraqis are mostly unimpressed. “This is rubbish–rumors and conspiracies,” says Mustafa al-Khadimy, an Iraqi documentary producer and commentator for the respected London-based newspaper Al Hayat, as he combed through a pile of recent newspapers in Baghdad. According to him, most of the papers seem to regard unsubstantiated gossip heard on the street as legitimate news. One paper claimed that U.S. soldiers were raping Iraqi women and spreading AIDS. In the June 28 edition of Al Saah (The Hour), an editorial by Sunni cleric Ahmed al-Kubeysi praised “the martyrs” in Fallujah and Ramadi for their attacks on U.S. forces. The same edition recounts an American raid on a large Sunni mosque in Baghdad. When al-Khadimy investigated, he said he was told Americans had never been near the mosque. “These sorts of lies are scary,” he said. “There are plenty of things you can criticize the Americans for, but a lot of the press are turning the people against the Coalition.”
The Americans claim they have adopted a get-tough policy against reckless media behavior. L. Paul Bremer, head of the Provisional Authority, has issued an order prohibiting the press from publishing material that “incites violence against any individual or group,” including Coalition personnel. But it hasn’t been consistently enforced. Since mid-July, for example, Sada Al Sadr (Echo of Sadr), published by the organization of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, has been printing weekly lists of Baath Party “tyrants who are wanted by the Iraqi people.” So far, 328 people have been named, most of them middle- or low-ranking Baathists, in what many see as a hit list. The June 23 edition asked the rhetorical question “will these tyrants get their punishment from the hands of the oppressed people of Iraq?” While the U.S. Army has media-monitoring teams, officials say that, at the moment, they have only one Arabic-speaking American trying to keep track of the media circus.
The United States has itself joined the media fray, with mixed results. U.S.-funded Al Sabah (The Dawn) is regarded by most Iraqis as a somewhat bland but reliable source of information on Coalition activities. It is edited by Ismail Zayer, a former journalist for Al Hayat. The Iraqi Media Network (IMN), the U.S.-sponsored successor to Iraqi Radio and Television, gets poorer marks. It has struggled to win credibility. The IMN’s radio programs have been fairly well received, but most Iraqis are deeply disappointed by the amateurish and tedious presentation of the nightly TV news. Unable to use any of the experienced but compromised senior reporters and managers from the previous regime, the IMN has been forced to hire young, inexperienced personnel with no journalistic background. IMN officials admit they have found reporters intentionally faking interviews as well as producing stories that turned out to be based on patently false rumors. “Our news program is crap,” says one IMN official. “It is completely unprofessional.” The Iraqi managers and U.S. officials blame the defense contractor overseeing the project–SAIC, which admits that none of its managers running the national network has any media experience whatsoever.
While they may not be very reliable, Iraq’s new media will help shape the future of the country. The fractiousness of the press reflects the divisions and confusion in Iraqis’ political thinking–all papers are agitating for a greater role for Iraqis in ruling the country, but none of them can agree on who should be in charge. The Coalition says it is planning to sponsor an independent media commission that might attempt to rein in the more irresponsible tendencies of the newly free and rambunctious press. The concept worked well in U.N.-administered Kosovo, but many Iraqis wonder whether it can succeed in rough-and-tumble Baghdad.
