Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia banned broadcast media from his speech on March 19 at an appearance where he received an award for supporting free speech. "That was one of the criteria that he had for acceptance," said James Foster, executive director of Cleveland's City Club, which gave Scalia its "Citadel of Free Speech Award."
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
"The Bush administration has frequently compared the level and scope of international support for its military operations in Iraq to the coalition that fought the first Persian Gulf War," reports Glenn Kessler. "But the statements are exaggerations, according to independent experts and a review of figures from both conflicts." The so-called "coalition of the willing is almost entirely a U.S.-British campaign, with virtually no military contribution from other countries except Australia.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
"Bush administration officials once referred to Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite network based here, as 'All Osama All the Time' for its regular showings of Al Qaeda video tapes and frequent appearances by anti-American commentators," write Jane Perlez and Jim Rutenberg. Last week, however, several U.S. officials accepted an invitation to a barbecue in at the home of Al-Jazeera's news director.
Submitted by Laura Miller on
"Once the war starts, the [Bush] administration plans to fill every information void in the 24-hour worldwide news cycle, leaving little to chance or interpretation," writes the Washington Post's Karen DeYoung.
Submitted by Laura Miller on
"The 'powerful odor of mendacity' (to borrow Tennessee Williams' phrase) hung over George Bush's primetime virtual declaration of war Monday night," TomPaine.com commentator Doug Ireland writes. "When Bush proclaimed that 'The Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most
Submitted by John Stauber on
With the help of various PR and advertising gurus the Bush administration has waged an expensive Brand America campaign to change global perception of the world's only superpower. Many critics have pointed out that "America's image is not a product that can be pushed
Submitted by John Stauber on
As PR Watch reported last year, the Bush administration has always intended to attack Iraq no matter what the results of UN inspections. The US's expensive post-911 propaganda and PR campaign to win foreign friends and change minds about US policy has predictably failed given Bush's bullying insistence on going to war. The Washington Post notes that "Six months after President Bush first appeared before the United Nations
and urged a confrontation with Iraq, the United States appears to have lost
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The United States and France were the source in the 1980s for "all the foreign germ samples ... used to create the biological weapons that are still believed to be in Iraq's arsenal, according to American officials and foreign diplomats who have reviewed Iraq's latest weapons declaration to the United Nations. ... The bioweapons declaration was obtained by Gary B.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
So confident is the U.S. military about a swift victory in Iraq that plans are already afoot to fly a CNN correspondent and a BBC reporter to the southern Iraqi city of Basra the moment it falls. "I'm not doing this so that the CNN correspondent gets another $100,000 in their salary," he said. "I'm doing it because the regime watches CNN. I want them to see what is happening." The plan is part of a psychological warfare campaign that the British officer called "white pys-ops." "Yes, we are using them," he said.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Defense Department officials are warning reporters to clear out of Baghdad, saying this war will be far more intense than the 1991 gulf war. "If your template is Desert Storm, you've got to imagine something much, much different," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Pentagon says it is warning journalists in the interest of their safety, but some critics see the heads-up as an attempt to control the news, with the goal of minimizing politically damaging images of suffering Iraqi civilians.
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