Page 206 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

196 Chapter 8

Kindy equates the disinterest in stories questioning U.S. humanitarianism
with more than just a preference for sensationalistic coverage (such as the Ira-
nian earthquake). In an interview with one alternative American newspaper,
Kindy stated that his organization faced censorship routinely when submitting
controversial stories that were critical of the U.S. to Western news outfits:

It was as if there was a filter role in the mainstream media. I got the impression
that this was the type of information that they felt shouldn't be coming out. It
wasn't really clear who was doing the filtering though. For example, we went
to the ofices of the New York Times, the BBC, and Raters in Baghdad. We
were consistently left with the impression that this was the kind of news that
just wouldn't end up getting through to Western viewers. We would give them
stories that were much hotter than the ones they were printing at the time, and
we would be left with the impression of, "oh, that's nice. We'll be in touch," al-
though we wouldn't hear back from
Media coverage of U.S. human rights abuses in Iraq has become incredibly
important in light of the Abu Ghraib scandal and other reports of human rights
violations. While the mainstream media was heralded for breaking the Abu
Ghraib story-which was a major embarrassment for the Bush administration-
critics from outside the mainstream press were quick to point out flaws in the
handling of the scandal. Sherry Ricchiardi of the American Journalism Review
explained: "the media were awfully slow to unearth a scandal that ultimately
caused international embarrassment for the United States and cast a shadow over
the war in ~ra~."~'
Attacks on delayed reporting of U.S. human rights violations were based on
the fact that groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had
consistently complained about U.S. treatment of detainees at prisons in Afghani-
stan and at Guantanamo Bay well before serious attention was devoted to Abu
Ghraib. Knowledge of American mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib was
certainly known at least five months prior to the breaking of the Abu Ghraib
story. The Associated Press, for example, ran a story in late 2003 regarding alle-
gations of torture. Even though U.S. Command in Baghdad stated in mid-
January of 2004 that, "an investigation has been initiated into reported incidents
of detainee abuse at a Coalition forces detention facility,"79 it was not until 3
months later that CBS and the New Yorker ran stories about the Abu Ghraib
scandal. Although the story did finally break by April of 2004, it had a difficult
time surfacing in light of pressures from the U.S. military. 60 Minutes 11, the
CBS news program that originally ran the story and many of the disturbing im-
ages that came along with it, held off on airing the program for two weeks be-
cause of a request by General Richard Myers. It was not until the New Yorker
magazine announced that it would run the story that CBS decided to run with the
piece.
Despite the decision of major newspapers throughout the country to feature
cover stories on the Abu Ghraib scandal, few actually showed on the unedited
pictures of naked piled Iraqi bodies, hooded prisoners placed in stress positions,
and prisoners dragged by dog collars, among other photos that became so con-