War / Peace

The Defense Department has apologized for obstacles to covering war, reports the New York Times. For the past two month, the Pentagon has come under criticism from news organizations for its restrictions on journalists covering the fighting in Afghanistan. "We owe you an apology," Victoria Clarke, the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, wrote Thursday in a letter to the Washington bureau chiefs of major news organizations. "The last several days have revealed severe shortcomings in our preparedness to support news organizations in their efforts to cover U.S.

Peter Himler, who handles media relations for PR giant Burson-Marsteller, congratulated NY-based PR practitioners for acting "responsibly and sensitively in the face of these unprecedented and extraordinary events." O'Dwyer's PR Daily writes, "Himler said journalists turned to PR pros to get answers to questions, such as: Where do victims and their families go to seek assistance? Will insurance companies cover one's losses? How does one find out if his or her flight was canceled? Where can one seek professional grief counseling? What do I tell my kids?

"The ubiquity of the Internet means that for the first time in communications history all sides in a conflict can project their views to the outside world. It is probably no exaggeration to say that every force in every conflict in the world has a Web site. Partisan propaganda dominates online pages related to conflicts," writes On-line Journalism Review contributor Andrew Stroehlein in an article examining websites that focus on various conflicts in Asia and Europe. Large Western media outlet are no exception to biased reporting, writes Stoehlein.

Western media accounts have generally offered sketchy details about last week's bloody prison riot in in Qala-i-Jhangi, a fort on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. In most reports, the riot is described as an unprovoked uprising by suicidally fanatical Taliban soldiers.