• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Background Q&A: Iraq's Press: A Status Report

Council on Foreign Relations

Author: Lionel Beehner, Staff Writer
May 2, 2006

Introduction

The recent saga of journalist Jill Carroll's eighty-two-day captivity has renewed focus on the perils of the press in Iraq. Both local and foreign journalists face daily harassment, death threats, kidnappings, and other dangers. Sixty-seven journalists have been killed in Iraq since the war began, making the conflict the most dangerous for reporters since World War II. Because of the lack of security, foreign media outlets must rely on local stringers, making news gathering more burdensome and putting local stringers at greater risk. Dangers aside, press freedoms have expanded enormously since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime, experts say, as the number of news outlets has expanded exponentially. Hundreds of newspapers—some independent, some merely mouthpieces for powerful political groups—are now circulating. Iraqis also enjoy a wide array of options for television and radio news. And blogs, while still the preserve of a digital elite, are slowly growing in importance.

What are the biggest dangers facing journalists in Iraq?

Death and kidnapping remain concerns for journalists, both local and foreign, in Iraq. Of the sixty-seven journalists killed in Iraq since March 2003, forty-eight have been native Iraqis. About half of them were murdered; the other half caught in crossfire. One of the most widely televised deaths was that of Atwar Bahjat, a thirty-year-old reporter with Al-Arabiya, killed by insurgents while covering the February 2006 bombing of a shrine in Samarra. The breakdown between those journalists killed while working for local versus foreign news agencies is about half and half. At least twenty-three media assistants, such as drivers and translators, have also been killed since the war began. Hostage-taking is on the rise, too; thirty-eight journalists have been kidnapped since the war began (five of whom were executed), more than in any other conflict, according to Reporters without Borders.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.