Helen Thomas: "Only dictators ban television news"

Seattle Post-Intelligence ^ | 11-30-03 | Helen Thomas

[Oldeconomybuyer]

WASHINGTON -- The raid by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi officials on an Arab television network bureau in Baghdad and the ban on its broadcasts hardly fits my idea of how to spread democracy in the Middle East.

Isn't that the first thing dictators do -- shut down broadcast outlets and newspapers? For those in power, tolerating a free press is difficult, even in a democracy. As a foreign occupier in Iraq, we are proving it is intolerable.

The terrible irony here is that we pride ourselves on offering a model to the rest of the world on how to design -- and live by -- our constitutional freedoms. Journalists around the globe have been taught to emulate our approach to newsgathering, hopefully in an atmosphere free of government restraints.

At the same time, we're snuffing out news outlets we don't like.

On Monday, the U.S.-appointed Iraqi government raided the Baghdad bureau of the Al-Arabiya TV network. The network's crime was to broadcast an audiotape from Saddam Hussein complaining about Iraqis who were cooperating with the U.S. occupation force and calling for resistance. The tape had been sent to Al-Arabiya's headquarters in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.

The network, which has interviewed Secretary of State Colin Powell in the past, is one of the largest TV outlets in the Arab world.

Any tape portraying Saddam's views on life fits the definition of news, if for no other reason than it is evidence that he is still alive and able to secretly communicate from wherever he was hiding.

Al-Arabiya and its competitor, the al-Jazeera Satellite Channel, have a wide following throughout the Middle East. Al-Jazeera caused Washington much discomfort in the lead-up to the war by broadcasting statements from Saddam. The White House strongly offered "advice" to U.S. TV outlets to shun those tapes but the American networks generally ignored the unhelpful hints.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has accused both Arab stations of being hostile by covering news of the guerrilla attacks on U.S. forces.

Al-Jazeera's Baghdad bureau was hit by a U.S. missile on April 8, killing a reporter-cameraman. The network also has complained of an attack on its marked vehicle April 7.

On Nov. 13, 2001, during the U.S. war on Afghanistan a U.S. missile went "awry," according to the Pentagon, and destroyed the al-Jazeera bureau in Kabul.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the move against Al-Arabiya, noting that "statements from Saddam Hussein and the former Iraqi regime are inherently newsworthy and news organizations have a right to cover them."

Rumsfeld grouses that the two stations were violently against the American coalition. He hopes to counter their influence when a U.S.-controlled TV satellite channel begins broadcasts next month.

Then will the Iraqis and the Arab world be guaranteed the truth?

In a brilliant speech earlier this month before the National Conference on Media Reform, broadcaster and former newspaper editor Bill Moyers warned that American media conglomerates may find common cause "with an imperial state."

But Moyers said "the greatest moments in the history of the press came not when journalists made common cause with the state but when they stood fearlessly independent of it."

Against that statement of values, the recent performance by U.S. journalists does not measure well.

White House and Pentagon reporters initially pulled their punches in reporting on the Iraqi war. Some media outlets admittedly did not want to rock the boat by showing grisly photos or videotape that could be disturbing to Americans.

As a result, many Americans tuned in on foreign news channels to get the full picture of the war.

Even now, with the administration's pro-war arguments reduced to a pile of confetti, many news outlets have failed to demand accountability from the Bush administration for what appears to be systematic dishonesty in trying to justify the U.S. attack.

This failure and the U.S.-led suppression of newsgathering in Iraq show that the historic American model for a free and independent press needs courageous bolstering.

Helen Thomas writes for Hearst Newspapers. Her e-mail address: hthomas@hearstdc.com

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Senile hag.

[zarf]

What I wouldn't give for the opportunity to pull a chair out from under this woman.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Helen is just trumpeting the socialists cause:

US moves to silence Iraq's most popular TV news channel
World Socialist - Nov 27, 2003
By Mike Head. In another indication of the “freedom” and “democracy”
that Washington is bringing to the people of Iraq, the ...

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Face like a thumbprint; body like a potato; and all the cranial capacity of a ball bearing.

Helen: Planned Parenthood just called. Your parents changed their minds.

[Lancey Howard]

"The network's crime was to broadcast an audiotape from Saddam Hussein complaining about Iraqis who were cooperating with the U.S. occupation force and calling for resistance."

Yeah, that means they were advertising for people to ambush and murder our soldiers. Helen Thomas has gone from ugly old scumbag to traitorous..... ugly old scumbag.

[endthematrix]

"Any tape portraying Saddam's views on life fits the definition of news..."

It could also be construed as enemy propaganda that has incited wave after wave of terror activity.

"Al-Arabiya and its competitor, the al-Jazeera Satellite Channel, have a wide following throughout the Middle East."

Can you say Islamic Fundamentalist?

I take it she is not one of those bad reporters who would wear an (gasp) American flag pin.

[clee1]

And the funny thing is - if Helen were living in the middle east, she would be forced into chador (burkas) and would be beaten every time she opened her gaping cake-hole.

Hmmmmmm... sounds like a good idea to me! :)

[gakrak]

Helen always was and always will be a dedicated communist.
She has been dead for years, she just doesn't know enough to roll over.

[Aeronaut]

[teldon30]

gaping cake hole....say that 5 times fast ;)

[Cdnexpat]

Do Ms. Thomas' comments apply to President Clinton's and General Clark's targeting of Serb television during the war in the Balkans or are they reserved for Republicans.

[SevenDaysInMay]

Our media elites are delusional. What part of the Sharia do they think contains our First Amendment's Fourth Estate perks?

Which American soldier would not fire on Rathers hunkered down with ambushing units positioned to annihilate our troops? ...perhaps scooping "old school" rivals with interviews of dying Americans caught both in crossfires and on video.

Will we have any officers remaining who would fire next to a blindfolded reporter to avoid a death trap for his men, certainly to be reported "live" later that night? Just what is the difference between a reporter who will accompany enemy units tasked to ambush our troops and a jihady with his own camera?

Ludditiot islamists are sophisticated enougn to utilize broadcast musters, coordinating attack live broadcasts, and trophy footage recruiting more mass murderers commanded to kill for islam as clearly printed in islam's holy scriptures. Useful idiots in D.C. help our enemies; shall we revisit treason, sedition, and stupid arrogance?

Helen Thomas and collegues are just more infedels, but despite being brilliant jurnalists, they don't know it.

It is time to wake up and smell the coffee, and some napalm.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

...the greatest moments in the history of the press came not when journalists made common cause with the state but when they stood fearlessly independent of it...

Exactly.

So how do you explain your conduct during the Clinton Administration, Helen?

[Quix]

Lord, I'd still love to see her collapse in a drooling, frothing mass of protoplasm on Clinton/Commie Netherworld Network. Would you please arrange some dramatic fall of the public stage for her--at least for her MOUTH, FINGERS?

[LadyDoc]

one reason that satellite dishes are forbidden in Iran and were forbidden in Iraq under Saddam is that you can't ban stuff...
If they want to get anti american news, all they have to do it get it on a satellite dish...or listen to the BBC on shortwave radio.

[xzins]

Helen thinks that Arab TV is free press. I'd suggest she go to the sponsoring country and try out some of her "freedoms."

Arab TV is no different from the Soviet Pravda. Arab TV is thoroughly controlled, and it is thoroughly propaganda.

In fact, I could make a case for the alphabet broadcasts in America no longer being the free press. They are owned and operated by partisan interest groups. To the extent that a fair press simply reports facts and leaves the analysis of those facts to the audience, then what we see is not a "pure" free press.

[unbiasedtruth]

When a news organization ceases to be objective and unbiased in its reporting of the news, it becomes a propaganda machine. That is what both Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya have become, or actually, have always been. It pure propaganda presented as news. But Helen Thomas can't see that because her employer operates under the same premise.

ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN/AP and many others are nothing more than a mouthpiece for the democrat/socialist party.

[putupjob]

It has been very alarming that Arab media has been coordinating coverage with Islamo fascists terrorists all in an attempt to embarrass the US forces and to amplify the minimal success of the terrorists into major victories.

I get the feeling that old hag thomas is upset that there won't be as many staged media events in favor of the islamo fascists. Don't forget, she's on their side.

[Diogenesis]

Helen Thomas reveals herself as a terrorist supporter (AGAIN)
so it is no wonder the New York Times and proterrorist press simply ADORES her.

[sgtbono2002]

Helen thought Joseph Goebels was a Journalist.