There is a saying in Iraq of which many are proud. âEgypt writes, Lebanon prints and Iraq reads.â This is borne out in the sudden eruption of over 150 newspapers since the war ended. Papers are selling fast in Baghdad: on street corners, in shops and even in the middle of the road. Hassan Abook, 25, sells newspapers on the Al-Rubiyeh Street. He works from six in the morning to four in the afternoon. People buy from him all day. His most popular newspapers are Azzaman and Al-Sabah, although Al-Adala and Tarik Al-Shabe are also popular.
| 'Twasn't long ago that all they had was al-Thawra and Babil, which are presumably gone... |
Despite the popularity of these newspapers, many readers distrust them. âAll the newspapers that are published in Iraq are liars,â said Akeel Najim Abid, 41, a computer assistant in a Baghdad bookshop and former pilot. âI read in Al-Sabah that Bremer will pay ex-pilots a salary of three months but I don't get anything â I read in other papers that they are calling all pilots up, but when I go I found that there is nothing. Just lies,â said Abid.
| Don't believe everything you read in the papers. In Iraq, this applies doubly... |
Ishmail Zahir, editor of Al-Sabah, puts this down to lack of training and free speech under the ex-regime. âWe inherited a media which had nothing to do with ethics or conduct. Media men were always officials â journalists don't know the value of facts here. Journalists are people who preach or extremists â the people in Iraq hate newspapers. They have a joke that newspapers are just for eating food off.â
| We'd use them for wrapping fish. But go on... |
Many papers are simply sensationalist, printing headlines to grab readers attentions, without printing the story. Others print rumors, hearsay and opinion. But Sheikh Ahmed Al-Qubeisi is a hopeful example of how Iraq is willing to monitor its own press. In edition 11 of Al-Saah, the paper owned by Qubeisi, a story was printed claiming American soldiers raped two girls in Al-Kut. Col. William Thurman, PR senior advisor to CPA, described the troops as âvery, very upsetâ to hear this news. But the report was found to be false, and a full apology made. Mohammad Ahmed Rajap was then appointed as a middle man between the party and the paper in order to ensure the reporting was responsible. Sitting in Sheikh Kubeisiâs office, he describes how the problems with false stories began. âA man named Adeep Shaban came to Sheikh Qubeisi, offering his services as a specialist in journalism. He had worked for Uday but wanted to start a new newspaper. More then a month after we started printing Adeep was arrested by the army, we don't know why, perhaps because he worked with Uday. The staff then began to write irresponsibly because there was no control over them,â he said. Although Kubeisi dismissed the staff responsible, this was not the end of Al-Saah's troubles. The journalists dismissed set up a rival Al-Saah, which can only be distinguished from the original by a small endorsement by Qubeisi at the top of the front page. The second Al-Saah are actually printing in a building owned by Kubeisi at the moment. âIf there was a government, I would sue the newspaper for the rights and the money. We gave them ID 27.5 million and they took it all.â The old staff eventually came back to Rajap and asked his forgiveness. He agreed that they could return if they followed his rules.
| Slanderous statements about short-tempered men with guns can be a minus in the news business... |
Zahir believes Al-Sabah has been so successful because he made sure from the start his journalists only reported on facts.
âWhen we began our work here, I said I wanted no opinions in my paper... Three or four weeks later we found that people were buying our paper. We are now number one in journalism.â But Zahir does face another hurdle â some readers see Al-Sabah as the mouthpiece of the Coalition Provisional Authority because they are funding the paper. Zahir is adamant that the CPA have no control over the content, but he is already planning to become independent.
| That'd be an objective point against it, if that was the only paper available. When I lived in the Far East, Stars and Stripes was my usual news source. But it was also balanced by BBC Radio, Bangkok Post (which used to be an excellent newspaper, by the way), Overseas Weekly (aka Oversexed Weekly), Radio Peking, and whatever else came to hand. In Germany there were more news sources than one could shake a stick at. The danger comes in relying on a source that's usually predictive, but slips in an occasional bit that's driven by ideology. That's the real problem with Beebs, NY Times, and CNN. If they were consistently Indymedia, the world would ignore them... |
A large proportion of papers are funded by religious or political parties. The Independent Iraqi Media Assessment Report see this as dangerous, stating that a âhighly partisan media â could be destabilizing in a fragile post-conflict environment.â But Thurman sees the politicization of the media as inevitable and healthy. âYou find lots of propaganda in emerging democracies. People use the press to espouse positions, bias and unbias are technically inappropriate terms for media,â he said.
| I agree with him. The wide range of opinions balance each other out in the long run. Anyone who read Pravda or Izvestie in the Soviet era knew they had an ax to grind. You had to wade through some pretty stultifying prose to find any hard news items, and you always knew they'd been thoroughly scrubbed. But unless a news source is predictive, people don't rely on it, any more than the Russians relied on Tass. The sources that make statements that are clearly at variance with what actually happened become marginalized or read for amusement. Lots of people rely on Weekly World News, but not many actually rely on it. |
Al-Adala is funded by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The editor, Khalib Al-Musawee, said he did not think a paper could be independent and without a political backer. His main aim is to get as many Iraqis to read it as possible to read Al-Adala. âWe write independently and truthfully, and never say any bad words and want to gather all of Iraq around us,â said Musawee. But he does admit that paper has its own idea of what is âtruthful.â âMost newspapers belong to a party and tell the truth in order to reflect the thought of the party,â he said.
| One man's truth is another man's slander... |
The same is true at the Communist paper Tarik Al-Shabeh. None of their material has been denied as untruthful, however their idea of âtruthâ is a particular one. âWe are always looking for the truth. My idea as a journalist exactly compares to my idea as a Communist. In both ways I am looking for the truth,â said Noah Ibrahim, a correspondent on the paper.
| Procrustes is no doubt reading both papers and laughing his ass off, assuming he had an ass... |
In his proclamation of June 10, CPA head Paul Bremer banned the printing of incitement to violence. According to Feras Azar, Press Officer for the Supreme Council for Iraqi Liberation in Najaf, their right to free speech is being denied in the name of this proclamation. In the first issue of Sabba Al-Aaiba, the party paper, a heading appeared disputing the occupation of America in Iraq. Azar recounts how three American army officers came to their office in Najaf about a week later, to investigate whether this was a âmistakeâ or the paper had âmeant it.â âWe contacted the head of the Supreme Council, Sheikh Al-Said Al-Awadi, and asked him what we should say. He said âWe wrote it on purpose. We mean it.â The soldiers became threatening. One became very angry and said âYouâve made your bed now you'll have to lie in it,ââ said Azar. Azar said US troops raided the office on in mid June and arrested 11 staff members. He describes how they were made to lie on the ground with their hands behind their backs, while sacks were put over their heads, and were detained for three days.
| Hand me the tissues, please... |
âWe wanted to go to the toilet but they didnât take us. We werenât allowed to wash out hands before praying. I asked for some dust from the window sill to clean myself but the soldier wouldnât give me it. We had to pray with our hands tied behind our backs,â he said. Majid Hammid, another detainee, talks about the interview he had with an officer there. âHe asked me âWhy did you write jihad?â I said âIf you come here as liberators why are you afraid of jihad?â Then he made me get on my knees and put my head against the floor. He then said âDo you know what the Marines means? It means if you shoot a bullet at me I will shoot the whole of Najaf,ââ said Hammid.
| Yep. That sounds zackly like what any responsible Marine would have said... What? You doubt Majid's veracity? Tusk tusk... |
âI heard one of George Bushâs speeches on justice as the base of building society. But this is the same as under Saddam, when you couldnât say anything,â said Hammid.
| No. It just means you can't incite to violence... |
In this hotbed of political papers, Fagr Baghdad claims to be âIraq's first democratic and independent newspaper.â It is run and funded by Ali Al Nashmi, presenter of âAsk the Radioâ and âAsk the TV.â Despite the paper's unique selling point, Nashmi is determined to join the political circus. âEverything I do is for one goal. For politics. Media is a bridge to say something to your country,â he said. âPeople don't ask for Fagr Baghdad, they ask for Ali Nashmi. They want to read someone they like â they love me,â said Nashmi.
| "Yeah. I'm somebody, by Gawd!" |
This suprises Abook, the newspaper seller. âI never, never, sell it,â he said. |