so biz that extends a payment value of the insel trade incentives presentation high production sas implements graphics. all of this is a way to sort of focus people's attention by using techniques that are sensitive to come out during this war we had. military entertainment.

imagine your life into the big cities. the friendly. crystal clear water. organic food. living in harmony with nature. sounds impossible. some people have already chosen. a place under the sun. more news today violence is once again fled up the front and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. shining corporations are on the day. look.

this is r t the main stories we're covering. all stir the protests and go to europe with populations in the bars rising unemployment meanwhile americans facing a similar problem seems to be taking trips less seriously. the family of victor boot the russian. may be forced into confessing and taking this just to be to skirt the injury to a point or to extradition to the states press charges of border and money laundering could stall the process would drop into. and go all the moscow's learn skills of turning around to trash the bargain one million tonnes of

voice is produced by me in the capital to a small business owner called. the nextel special report exploring how the world's mass media is getting entertainment by these head of the real stories. in a world that changes by the. c.n.n. headline news people in the future with updates on america's new united states is beginning to show its military muscle in a media environment where the average sun bite is what eight or nine seconds what can you say and that amount of time you can say saddam hussein is like hitler and you're ready for prime time everyone knows what you mean but if you have something else to say something a little outside the box say u.s.

officials are guilty of war crimes. well that actually fits into the soundbite that no one knows what you're talking about they think you're crazy they haven't heard that before you need to explain yourself what are war crimes what are the geneva conventions one of the nuremberg principles that takes more than eight seconds and you don't have time for that then they say it's not a political ad it just don't fit in to the mainstream for freedom and freedom of communication were birth twins in the future united states they grew up together and neither has faded very well in the other's absence democracy cannot exist without an informed public and these mega media companies are not informing. the. public.

it's a war of ideas and and the people who control. the wood in this twenty first century would be the people who control the ideas bush could not have done it alone if he had a megaphone on the steps of the white house yes some people would have believed there were weapons of mass destruction but he had something much more powerful the pentagon had something much more powerful more powerful than any more powerful than any meso the pentagon deployed the us media. the media to brace for war actually in this segment it's the media go into training for war for the past several months all four major branches of the us military have offered bootcamps of a sort for american journalists to prepare them for what might lie ahead in iran is moving ahead with plans to allow more than five hundred news reporters and photographers to accompany u.s.

troops as they prepare to invade iraq by the end of the week. more than two hundred news organizations have to notify the pentagon whether they will accept invitations to quote and then with u.s. troops the pentagon has all but it mended its new attitude towards the press as part of an aggressive strategy to deploy the media as part of a p.r. campaign according to the weekly standard the military wants positive stories about the grit and resolve of its troops. deep in the desert. securities chest the difference between independent journalism and embedded journalism is for starters embedded journalism if you're going to do that you have to go sign paperwork essentially says i will follow all orders of my superior officer so

even from the very start you allow yourself to be indoctrinated into this unit become one with these people so any idea of journalism is would sign your name to to do the programming that's out the window and that might break . the weaponry but free. market. matter. how wide or. what their way that burning the billions we have like the stockholm syndrome when your life becomes dependent upon these people how can you possibly not be heavily heavily influenced by that in your writing and then of course we have the very very real censorship that is extremely intense in iraq now so any journalism produced by an embedded journalist even if it is attempting to show both sides of the story it's going to be censored a newspaper for example catches tremendous heat for simply showing flag draped

coffin. finn's and then of course the government takes it a step further that we don't even want to call them coffins we'll call them transfer to us so completely disassociating the reality of war with what's actually happening i really wouldn't have been much trouble with the embedding approach if there was also i'm betting of equal proportions not from where the missiles are fired but from where they land the motion of the bed in a dramatic attack on freedom of the press now there were none imbedded who were with me to touch it i go out and actually speak with iraqi people and when i enter whatever i have had interaction with soldiers it's not while i'm in bed it so i can report what they say no one's going to censor it there were times when i was the only american uninvited reporter their best case scenario now is far as american independence maximum there's like two or three of us there at one time and usually

one and sometimes not. many journalists for a few see get in bed with the army and went to a doctor's independent reporters they bring us the stories from the ground in iraq and show us the brutal reality of war in doing so they risk their lives the u.s. strikes also killed a journalist from the arab t.v. network al arabiya the network broadcast harrowing food each of its current spondon mas' an. reporting from the scene when he was hit by shrapnel doubles over and his blood splatters son the camera lens as he screams i'm a journalist i'm dying i'm dying moments later he was pronounced dead he was twenty six years old it's been very dangerous for reporters in iraq in

a fourteen month period alone during the occupation. more reporters were killed in iraq than during the entire vietnam war most of them are independents it's called shooting the messenger you have people on imbedded who risked their lives to go to iraq people like. april eighth two thousand and three reporter for al-jazeera had just come over from jordan and the u.s. military strafed the area he immediately died his wife ensured at the funeral said he breeds hate who is engaged in terrorism now. al jazeera had given the coordinates of the office several times to the pentagon maybe that was their first mistake later the same day the u.s. tank shot at the palestine hotel where around one hundred international journalists were staying the attack killed jose couso

a camera man for the spanish tell us think and told us just a veteran reuters cameraman. around the room number. thirty. i have a friend a colleague who was at the palestine when it was shot when the reuters office was shot by the taig which the u.s. military claimed that. the take had drawn fire i've personally seen these tapes they showed the tape for several minutes before fire there was no gunfire anywhere everyone knows that the palestine is the journalist hotel that whole compound is for journalists the real message through actions from the pentagon is that we will make your life more hazardous and it's not just you know independent journalists and people on the left who have made this charge we've had many mainstream organizations like the committee to protect journalists expressing concerns sending letters having meetings with pentagon officials and the real question is why is the

pen. god intimidating harassing and shooting journalists here in this country there is hardly better pete dozens of journalists have died many of them an embedded international a top journalists talk about the concern of targeting of the out embedded they torie clarke who is the spokesperson for the pentagon who came from the big p.r. firm helen melton extremely effective who held the betting process as a spectacular success said about the killings that day baghdad is an unsafe place they shouldn't be there but that's our role as journalists to go to where the silence is. to bear weight.

and all of this discussion that goes on about inspections and weapons of mass destruction and the violation of u.n. resolutions and all of this there's very little discussion of who is going to die in this war who's going to be wounded in this war how many people are going to be blinded how many children are going to lose their limbs there is no. human rigid picture of what the result of this war will be. there sorry. ali ali my son ali oh my son only his legs my son in war people die large numbers of people die but

we don't show you who dies the war is organized on american television the way under the principle of all about us it's all that americans it's all about what happens to us it's all about dangerous to us it's all about what we need and what our wants aren't anybody else doesn't matter iraqi people are not important so we don't see one hundred thousand iraqi casualties iraqi children half the population of iraq with children we never heard that we never knew that. the use of weapons that are prohibited cluster bombs depleted uranium. barely covered in the american media the images are getting out because of independent media we show them on democracy now we see them on european asian arab television networks but not in the united states very much. but i really do think that independent

media putting them out ultimately has an effect we interviewed aaron brown at c.n.n. talking about it being a matter of taste. well i think it's war that's tasteless it's not our job to sanitize it. it's our job to present it and then people make their own decision i just wanted to ask you to just to bring it into very practical terms to give an example of some tough questioning of one of the generals that you've had on the show on the issue of the killing of civilians on the issue of the use of cluster bombs the issue of the use of depleted uranium munitions just give us an example of some tough questioning that you've done of a general that's appeared on newsnight or on any of the shows that you're involved with as to. the questions of collateral damage we've talked a lot actually a buyout over selima notion of precision the precision is different than perfection . and sometimes the tank is the schoolhouse it is a journalistic question it's

a question of taste it's a very to be the very difficult decisions to make for me are the civilians in this sort of an afterthought almost every night i think every major network in america the civilian toll is an afterthought in all of this you know not something that has been a primary focus well i don't you know i did not see the footage of the of the little girl in the basra hospital with half of her head blown off and her brains whizzing out and quite frankly there's no such thing as a tasteful civilian casualty that term shouldn't even be in the realm of journalism no it's just a question of how what shot you choose to show to it about the accurate shot that shows this is what happens to people when the u.s. drops missiles i don't let the state any people say the picture in vietnam of the little vietnamese girl who is napalmed help to turn the water around is no question in my mind that picture would be shown today later no question in my mind that that picture would be shown today and yet we are seeing picture after picture and broadcasting onto accuracy now on our show i know of children like that and we are

not seeing them on c.n.n. well but be careful here about what you say you're seeing at c.n.n. and what you're not because you're not really right. we show didn't you know little there are some practical limitations when you go back to vietnam there are pictures that. help to end the war might the picture of a naked girl burning with napalm running down the street i think if we saw for one week babies dead on the ground women with their legs blown off if we watch that for one week i think people in this country would say no to war people say war is not an answer to conflict in the twenty first century i think the coverage of the tsunami proves that december twenty sixth this natural catastrophe some of the media raced over and they showed us the pictures of people suffering what people cared about as seeing orphans is seeing women and men struggling and those that

didn't make it and they poured out their hearts and their pocketbooks in this unprecedented generosity global generosity because the media focused the spotlight where it mattered and showed people suffering that's the role of the media we can do something about that. instead though the media doesn't usually do that and so people are cut off especially in the united states. don't be afraid there's nothing here. just to say. hold on hold what is wrong with you. this is an information war so many people in america believe what they believe because they simply do not have the correct information i want to focus on full loser

because it encapsulates the whole occupation i went into during a quote unquote cease fire according to the military and according to the us ambassador paul bremer and so that was one reason i felt ok of taking the risk to go in i when it was anything but a ceasefire this is what i saw in the clinic and the loser these are the terrorists in illusia when i interviewed a doctor in fallujah he said not less than sixty percent of the dead were women and children you can go see the graves for yourself a doctor working in a temporary emergency clinic during april see posed the question on democracy now which he repeated when you see a child by the years old with no head what can you say when you see a child with no brain just an open cavity what can you say. well that depends on who you are if you're the new york times you said nothing if you're paul bremer you

probably said the joint result i think it's really important that people see that this is war and this is what it looks like and this is what has been shown in the past in the us media when it was allowed to do its job chemical weapons phosphorus weapons or use cluster bombs and of course we have the families left behind. that is just dead in the picture on. yes one of them where did they take him to be taken to jam do you want to come back. but i met them yes and they are legally not coming i'm one of those who will my dad tonight can tell you do not come back and. he was a child at least your son yes he's my son and they took him from the street from the street and it's been two months and i ha. i'm one key is that i don't want my

guys and. then of course pictures like this are what were shown in reported in the mainstream media the media crackdown there is very very intense any journalist not reporting the government line on the siege of fallujah would be the tape and this is the climate this is the free speech and democratic free iraq at this point in our history given everything that's at stake given the billions we've invested the lives we've lost the wars we've fought the weapons we've sent given the fact that since vietnam in no place in the world have we spent more money sent more weapons for more wars lost more lives then the middle east. and if this is the best we can do we're creating the clash of civilizations that we fear that will if we're not careful engulfs all.

the media is supposed to be a check and balance on government we're not supposed to be cozying up to those in power and yet the media beats the drums for war. and they have to be challenged yeah they're private corporations that they are leasing our airwaves and they have a responsibility to serve a democratic society and that means providing a forum for the full spectrum of opinion that's why we need independent media we have to challenge them and we have to build our own media and for structure and that's what we're doing all over this country independent media or the force for democracy in the country. i mean you don't have a democratic society if public opinion is out of the political system not in the political arena and not reflected in the media and democracy you can hear discussion of. and in fact

a large majority of the population basically agrees with it but never hear it. no access to their voices have no participation in the decisions of how do we compete effectively with mainstream perspectives we supplement them we challenge them we question them but we're not in everybody's home we're not on a variable in their living rooms that we're not as easily accessible and that's one of the problems that the fight for access to fight for distribution each of us compared to c.b.s. is small but you connect us all up and it we reach tens of millions of people so we don't have to cower or to feel that we're impotent in fact we have a lot of power in order to create a different world it's not just a goal at the end it's doing it every hour of every day how we get there what

the process is and making sure that. everyone is included that's very very important that's what democratic media is what i know to be real is that we're in for the fight of our lives mokhtar see journalism are deeply linked in whatever chance we human beings care of to redress our grievances redo our politics and reclaim our revolutionary ideals in the process of coming to terms with what is now. we need to challenge the usual renditions of history which is silence now from the grassroots we can respond presenting the voices of the majority of people in this country and them that they're angry they're creative they're

extremely articulate and they deserve to be heard they demand to be heard they will be heard but the dangerous other alternative is that breed of people will lose control and that the first global culture in the history of humanity will actually be a kind of a corporate culture and that the real live in a kind of a planet inc scenario so look planet earth planet think. and to me this is the nightmare scenario the only way you in the media are going to help us and we need your help because you have the excess the power yet this crowd yet doesn't get the go into the white house press room yet. you're inside and you're there. because it's a privilege it's a public forum where we have. was

. out not only are we all live but we're well ok manson women out there and if more people know that then they gives new him a sense of encouraging one that they're not alone into that they can actually take our country back well my hope particularly being an independent journalist is that it would force the mainstream media to be more accountable and force them to cover some of these stories that we're covering them that they're not and have an effect much like it did in vietnam to bring the really to bring the war home to show people this is really what's happening are you sure you want to keep doing this is it really worth it.

is the right. to design. all the bone. tooth. brothers cry. their only pongs in you please. soon is still new to. destruction. prove to me. that you can. prove to me you. your ruined. who's done

for. him in the. group comes for them to use you. as a u.s. mass media removes human suffering from their presentation of this war over one hundred thousand people have died in iraq and over half of these are women and children today the violence continues and the true cost of those war remains silent . who will decide we know who will write the stories that we pass on as our history to the future will it be the corporations or will be the people. i really do think that communication. as the hope. and dependent media is the forum. for that communication.

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