One Would Think the National President of the Newspaper Guild Would Understand Eason

[Annie]

Jordan Case! Not so!

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000928927

Guild Chief Under Fire for Comments About Attacks on Journalists in Iraq

By Joe Strupp

Published: May 19, 2005 4:40 PM ET

NEW YORK Linda Foley, national president of The Newspaper Guild, drew criticism Thursday from some conservatives for comments she made last Friday about the killing of journalists in Iraq. Foley said, among other things, that she was outraged by "the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq. I think it's just a scandal."

Last month, Foley sent a letter to President Bush criticizing the U.S. investigation into the deaths of journalists in Iraq.

The backlash became so severe Thursday that staffers at Guild headquarters in Washington, D.C., stopped answering the phone because of abusive phone calls and "people screaming at us," Foley said. Instead, callers were required to leave messages on voice mail and await a return call.

"We don't want people to be subjected to that kind of abuse," Foley said, adding that the angry calls began early Thursday. "It is annoying, but it isn't deterring us from doing what we have to do."

The calls were apparently in reaction to comments Foley made during a panel discussion at the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis on May 13. There she offered a lengthy commentary on corporate ownership of media, and she refuted certain criticism of journalists. During that session, she also briefly discussed deaths of journalists covering the war.

Foley's comments, which she says have been distorted, have drawn the ire of several conservative news organizations, including NewsMax.com, The Washington Times, and Sinclair Broadcasting, charging that she accused the U.S. forces of deliberately targeting journalists.

According to a video of the session available on the conference's Web site, her only comments on this specific subject were:

"Journalists are not just being targeted verbally or politically. They are also being targeted for real in places like Iraq. And what outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more outrage about the number and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq. I think it's just a scandal."

"It's not just U.S. journalists either, by the way. They target and kill journalists from other countries, particularly Arab countries, at news services like Al Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios, with impunity. This is all part of the culture that it is OK to blame the individual journalists, and it just takes the heat off of these media conglomerates that are part of the problem."

A NewsMax.com story charged that Foley had accused U.S. soldiers of "committing atrocities without offering any evidence to back the charge up." Mark Hyman, a Sinclair commentator, called her comments "irresponsible" and "horrible allegations." Several critics immediately compared her criticism to the case of Eason Jordan, the former CNN executive who resigned after suggesting that the U.S. military may have targeted some journalists in Iraq.

Foley told E&P Thursday that her words were taken out of context by critics and said her original intent was to discuss how journalists are often scapegoated for their coverage. "This was almost an aside," she said. "But it is true that hundreds of journalists are killed around the world, and many have been killed in Iraq."

When asked if she believed U.S. troops had targeted journalists in Iraq, she said, "I was careful of not saying troops, I said U.S. military. Could I have said it differently? There are 100 different ways of saying this, but I'm not sure they would have appeased the right."

She did point out that those who bombed the Al Jazeera studios in Baghdad in 2003 had the coordinates of the television station, "because Al Jazeera had given it to them and they bombed the hell out of the station. They bombed it knowing it was the Al Jazeera station. Absent any independent inquiry that tells the world otherwise, that is what I believe."

Her comments at the conference followed the letter she sent last month to President Bush criticizing the U.S. investigation into the deaths of journalists in Iraq, including several during an attack on the Palestine Hotel in 2003.

In that attack, two journalists -- one from Spain and the other from Ukraine -- were killed. She also noted the bombing of the Al Jazeera office the same day, in which a reporter died. "Neither of these attacks has been independently investigated nor have the deaths been properly explained to the satisfaction of the victims' families, their friends and their colleagues," the letter said, in part.

 

[manu1959]

i saw the video last night on the news....she said what she is quoted as saying....virtually the us military is purposely killing journalists.

time for her to buy a kevlar vest then :2guns:

 

[archangel]

i saw the video last night on the news....she said what she is quoted as saying....virtually the us military is purposely killing journalists.

time for her to buy a kevlar vest then :2guns:

The only journalist I saw on the news being killed purposefully were having their heads removed...Courtesy of al Zarqawi!

 

[musicman]

Traitors in our midst, plain and simple. Not only do I marvel that they are able to keep any audience at all - I'm amazed that some of these people aren't brought up on charges!

 

[Annie]

They think they are going to throw these guys in the ICC. If our government does not come down, HARD on this...


http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/002951.html

News From Spain
Greyhawk

Judge Santiago Pedraz will file a request for interrogation to the United States in accordance with the request established by “Journalists Without Borders.” Pedraz intends to interrogate three American soldiers, Sergeant Thomas Gibson, Captain Philip Wolford and Lt. Colonel Philip de Camp in regards to the death of Spanish reporter José Couso. Couso was killed at the Hotel Palestine [in Baghdad] when the M-1 Abrahms tank controlled by Gibson fired upon the hotel. Wolford was the officer who authorized the shot after Gibson had notified him that there was someone watching them with binoculars from the hotel; de Camp was the officer who ordered to open fire on Hotel Palestine.

Spanish blogger Barcepundit comments here.

Boston Herald reporter Jules Crittenden and I discussed the topic last February, in the wake of Eason Jordan's accusations regarding military targeting of journalists. Here's Jules, from that interview:

I was about 100 yards or so from the Jumhuriyah Bridge, down at the intersection of Haifa and Jaffa, when Staff Sgt Shawn Gibson fired on the Palestine. All of us were highly concerned at the time about reports an Iraqi FO had eyes on our position from a tall building in the vicinity. After the big counterattack that morning was fought back, we continued to receive sporadic mortar fire and RPG fire all morning, taking and returning fire from several tall buildings. The tankers on the bridge reported that numerous RPG teams were operating up and down the opposite bank of the Tigris. Gibson saw what he thought was the spotter and fired. He was distraught when he learned his mistake.

You can read the whole thing here. Jules also notes he was misquoted in the Journalists Without Borders reports cited above as impetus for the Spanish judge's actions.

There's alot more than the interview at this post, including maps, and commentary from the reporter on what he saw from his notes, etc.

http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/002187.html

...GH: So you were there?

JC: I was about 100 yards or so from the Jumhuriyah Bridge, down at the intersection of Haifa and Jaffa, when Staff Sgt Shawn Gibson fired on the Palestine. All of us were highly concerned at the time about reports an Iraqi FO had eyes on our position from a tall building in the vicinity. After the big counterattack that morning was fought back, we continued to receive sporadic mortar fire and RPG fire all morning, taking and returning fire from several tall buildings. The tankers on the bridge reported that numerous RPG teams were operating up and down the opposite bank of the Tigris. Gibson saw what he thought was the spotter and fired. He was distraught when he learned his mistake.

GH: And following the events the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders also wrote up reports?

JC: Yes. I was quoted in the reports, selectively and/or inaccurately, and had RWB remove my remarks, which they reported inaccurately and without permission. CPJ, while casting aspersions on the soldiers based on speculation, neglected to include remarks I made on the character of Gibson and CO Capt. Phillip Wolford, whom I knew as professionals who went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. I lived with them, rode with them into a series of actions and have great respect for them. The Palestine was an accident by well-intentioned men who had been under fire, some of it intense, since dawn the day before.

All of us who went to Iraq, embedded and non-embedded press, knew we could be killed. Many of us narrowly avoided it, but others weren't so lucky. It is part of the deal. What happened at the Palestine underscores the fact that there is no safe place in a war zone. That point also is illustrated by what happened to two European reporters embedded with 2nd Brigade of the 3rd ID, who they chose not to join the assault on Baghdad on April 7 due to the danger. They stayed back at the brigade TOC, where they were killed by an Iraqi missile. So much for second guessing one's safety options.