As criticism of the war and its aftermath intensifies, Amanpour joins a chorus of journalists and pundits who charge that the media largely toed the Bush administrationline in covering the war and, by doing so, failed to aggressively question the motives behind the invasion.

On last week's Topic A With Tina Brown on CNBC, Brown, the former Talk magazine editor, asked comedian Al Franken, former Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke and Amanpour if "we in the media, as much as in the administration, drank the Kool-Aid when it came to the war."

Said Amanpour: "I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did."

Brown then asked Amanpour if there was any story during the war that she couldn't report.

"It's not a question of couldn't do it, it's a question of tone," Amanpour said. "It's a question of being rigorous. It's really a question of really asking the questions. All of the entire body politic in my view, whether it's the administration, the intelligence, the journalists, whoever, did not ask enough questions, for instance, about weapons of mass destruction. I mean, it looks like this was disinformation at the highest levels."

Clarke called the disinformation charge "categorically untrue" and added, "In my experience, a little over two years at the Pentagon, I never saw them (the media) holding back. I saw them reporting the good, the bad and the in between."

Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti said of Amanpour's comments: "Given the choice, it's better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a SPOKESWOMAN FOR AL-QAEDA".

CNN had no comment.

[reposter's commentary- Irena's little 'Ann Coulter-wannabe' crack at anyone who dissents from the Bush adninistration reeks of the same stench the media tried to sling at Peter Arnett. Why let her get away with it?] Contact Irena at:

Irena Briganti, Senior Director
Corporate Communications Public Relations
Phone: 212-301-3608
Fax: 212-819-0816
E-Mail: briganti@foxnews.com

For "emergencies," you can page Irena, the footsoldier at 877-645-4203.

Faux News has nothing at all to do with journalism.

Better a journalist reporting the truth than a whore for anyone else.

You've GOT to be kidding me.

He had his head so far up Saddam's butt, there was no way to tell where Saddam stopped and Arnett started.

If Arnett is your standard for journalism, no wonder you have such wrong ideas about the war.

And everything else, for that matter.

hey honey
why do you have to be such a dick?

good argument strategy

what a fucking moron

now take your Viagra and come to
bed with me.

...have anything to add to the discussion, or are you just going to be a prick?

Yeah...that's what I thought.

What a joke.....


As someone involved in the CNN's presence in Iraq she had full knowledge that they were keeping facts from the public in order to keep their presence in Iraq....And now, 6 months after the war she starts to whine?

...I'm posting from an Air Force base in South Carolina.

I get paid by the government to spam the Indymedia websites with my asinine drivel.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN's Amazonian foreign correspondent, is complaining of "self-censorship" in her network's war coverage. Back in April, of course, former CNN executive Eason Jordan acknowledged that CNN had indeed engaged in self-censorship, suppressing the truth about Saddam Hussein's regime for fear of losing "access."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/mediamix/2003-09-14-media-mix_x.htm

http://www.puk.org/web/htm/news/nws/news030412b.html

But that's not what Amanpour is talking about. She thinks the network was insufficiently pro-Saddam. Asked by TV hostess Tina Brown if, in Brown's words, "we in the media, as much as in the administration, drank the Kool-Aid when it came to the war," Amanpour replied as follows:

"I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did."

In response, Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti tells USA Today: "Given the choice, it's better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda."

Meanwhile, the New York Times' John Burns, who did some of the best reporting from Baghdad, blasts the media for complicity with Saddam's regime. Editor & Publisher excerpts Burns's new book, "Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq, an Oral History":

"There were correspondents who thought it appropriate to seek the approbation of the people who governed their lives. This was the ministry of information, and particularly the director of the ministry. By taking him out for long candlelit dinners, plying him with sweet cakes, plying him with mobile phones at $600 each for members of his family, and giving bribes of thousands of dollars. Senior members of the information ministry took hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes from these television correspondents who then behaved as if they were in Belgium. They never mentioned the function of minders. Never mentioned terror.

In one case, a correspondent actually went to the Internet Center at the Al-Rashid Hotel and printed out copies of his and other people's stories--mine included--specifically in order to be able to show the difference between himself and the others. He wanted to show what a good boy he was compared to this enemy of the state. He was with a major American newspaper."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1979014

C'mon, John--which paper?