Media coverage of the Iraq War
[2] On-screen during all live war coverage by Fox News was a waving flag animation in the upper left corner and the headline "Operation Iraqi Freedom" along the bottom.
[3] Anti-war celebrities appearing frequently on news networks included actors Janeane Garofalo,[4] Tim Robbins, Mike Farrell, Rob Reiner, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon and director Michael Moore.
[5] In a widely publicized story, the country music band Dixie Chicks ignited boycotts and record burnings in the US for their negative remarks about President Bush in a concert in London.
[6] MSNBC also brought the American flag back on screen and regularly ran a tribute called "America's Bravest" which showed photographs sent by family members of troops deployed in Iraq.
[11] In September 2002, Donahue's show averaged 365,000 viewers, compared to rival Connie Chung's 686,000 on CNN and Bill O'Reilly's 2 million on Fox News, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Peter Arnett, an NBC and National Geographic correspondent, was fired for giving an interview with Iraqi officials in which he questioned the United States' role and saying the "first war plan had failed.
[15] Geraldo Rivera left Iraq after drawing a crude map in the sand during a live broadcast on Fox News, which raised concerns at the Pentagon that he was possibly revealing vital troop movements on air.
"[22] During the invasion, critics argued that the mainstream media unduly focused on optimistic events, such as the toppling of a Saddam Hussein statue in Firdos Square, which was staged with the help of the US military forces, thus downplaying more negative news developments.
This trend has forced journalists to depend even more heavily on US military sources, which has led some critics to call into question the impartiality of their reports on events such as the Iraqi elections.
[25] A post-2008 election poll by FactCheck.org found that 48% of Americans believe Hussein played a role in the 9/11 attacks; the group concluded that "voters, once deceived, tend to stay that way despite all evidence.
In the United States Democracy Now, hosted by Amy Goodman has been critical of the reasons for the 2003 invasion and the alleged crimes committed by the US authorities in Iraq.
The crew of HMS Ark Royal, Britain's flagship, demanded that the BBC be turned off on the ship because of what they saw as a clear anti-Coalition or "pro-Iraq" bias.
Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, oversaw as many as a dozen newspapers, sat on several important editorial boards, and ran the most popular television station, Youth TV.
In November 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported on a secret Pentagon program to pay Iraqi media outlets to publish articles favorable of the US invasion and occupation.
This initiative relied on US-based subcontractors such as the Lincoln Group to write and place stories with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism" and "More Money Goes to Iraq's Development."
Robert Entman, professor of communication at the George Washington University and critic of mainstream media for decades, indicated it was a very wise tactic from the Pentagon.
Entman also mentioned the high number of retired generals making comments on TV, pointing out these could not be considered independent experts as they were still paid by the government.
[citation needed] The Ministry of Defense (MoD) explained "maintaining morale as well as information dominance will rank as important as physical protection".
The destruction of the statue was shown live on cable news networks as it happened and made the front pages of newspapers and covers of magazines all over the world - symbolizing the fall of the Saddam government.
On October 25, 2005 the Department of Defense announced the 2,000th US death from the war as Staff Sergeant George T. Alexander Jr., who was killed when a roadside bomb detonated near his M2 Bradley in the city of Samarra.
[63] In response, Senators including Dick Durbin made statements opposing the war, and activists held six hundred anti-war protests and candlelight vigils across the United States.
Dustin R. Donica was killed in Baghdad, near the office of Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni Arab politician and leader of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front.
Soon after taking office in January 2009, President Barack Obama asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to review the ban on media coverage of coffins.
[68] On April 8, 2003, US aircraft bombed the Baghdad bureau of Qatar satellite TV station Al Jazeera killing a journalist and wounding another despite the US being informed of the office's precise coordinates prior to the incident.
[71] On 2 April 2003, in a speech given in New York City, British Home Secretary David Blunkett commented on what he believed to be sympathetic and corrupt reporting of Iraq by Arab news sources.
The UK government refuses to publish the memo and two civil servants have been charged with violating Britain's Official Secrets Act for allegedly disclosing the document.
On the same day as the destruction of the Baghdad bureau of Al Jazeera, a US tank fired a HEAT round at what the US military later said was a suspected Iraqi forward artillery observer.
Due to what the US states was a communications error, the tank fired at the Palestine Hotel, where approximately 100 international reporters in Baghdad were based, instead of the correct building, killing two journalists, Taras Protsyuk of Reuters and Jose Couso of the Spanish network Telecinco[75] and wounding three other correspondents.
ITN reporter Terry Lloyd, who originally broke the news that Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons, was killed by US forces near Basra on March 22, 2003.
"[85] Journalist Peter Arnett was fired by MSNBC and National Geographic after he declared in an interview with the Iraqi information ministry that he believed the US strategy of "shock and awe" had failed.
