Posted on 03/01/2004 4:50:17 PM PST by Indy Pendance
KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait -- The U.S. military will launch its own news service in Iraq and Afghanistan to send military video, text and photos directly to the Internet or news organizations.
The $6.3 million project, which is expected to begin operating in April, is one of the largest military public affairs projects in recent memory, and is intended to allow small media firms in the United States and elsewhere to bypass what the Pentagon views as an increasingly combative press corps.
U.S. officials have complained that Iraq-based media focus on catastrophic events such as car bombs and soldiers' deaths, while giving short shrift to U.S. rebuilding efforts.
The American public "currently gets a pretty slanted picture," said Army Capt. Randall Baucom, a spokesman for the Kuwait-based U.S.-led Coalition Land Forces Command. "We want them to get an opportunity to see the facts as they exist, instead of getting information from people who aren't on the scene."
The project, called Digital Video and Imagery Distribution System, or DVIDS, will also give the Pentagon more control of the coverage when calamities do happen.
The military's reporters will transmit their stories and video to servers at 3rd Army headquarters in Atlanta, and allow access to them over a password-protected Internet site, Baucom said.
Accredited news organizations will be allowed to register for free access, he said.
But media analysts argued that the military has a vested interest in making sure its viewpoint is heard.
"This is the kind of news that people get in countries where the government controls the media. Why would anybody here want to buy into it?" Mac McKerral, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, told The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, in Baghdad yesterday, some Iraqi leaders said the deadline for completing the country's temporary constitution might not be met following a clash over the role of Islamic clerics in family law.
Mahmood Othman, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, said several Shiite members of the council stormed out of the chambers yesterday after the repeal of a proposal that would have given Islamic clerics a role in adjudicating family disputes.
The debate over the temporary constitution has been strained by a number of issues, especially the role of Islam in governing the country.
The confrontation over the imposition of Islamic religious principles in family matters has been brewing since December, when the Governing Council, led by the representative of a conservative Shiite party, allowed each major religious group to apply its own traditions to family affairs.
Under many interpretations of Islamic law, a woman's rights to divorce and inheritance are strictly limited. Some interpretations of Islamic law also allow polygamy, as well as permit men to marry girls.
Many Iraqi women expressed concern at the legislation, and U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer did not sign it, preventing it from taking effect.
Some of the women on the Governing Council, however, vowed to repeal the legislation, in part to send a message to a future sovereign Iraqi government.
Yesterday, the council, led by Dr. Raja Habib Khuzai, a female Shiite member of the council, voted to repeal the law. With that, according to council members, five male Shiite members of the council stormed out of the room.
"I am very proud of what we did today," said Khuzai, a physician from Diwaniya in southern Iraq. "Under this law, everyone had to go to the clerics. Women would have had very few rights."
Me, for one.
Listen to this stupid jackass. The public is going to have the 'objective, non-biased corporate media' running right beside this military service. Nobody's going to be lacking information upon which to make an informed decision.
They're just mad because now the military will be able to counter some of the negative slant they like to put on events.
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