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Hey Reuters: Shove it!
Posted by Raven on September 28th, 2005
I guess we’re supposed to read this and weep big tears of injustice. I would be upset if I thought for two minutes that this news agency, Reuters, as anything more than a propaganda machine hell bent on reporting falsehoods, rumors and outright lies. Any agency that calls terrorists “freedom fighters” has an agenda that is not in America’s best interest.
The conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq, including increasing detention and accidental shootings of journalists, is preventing full coverage of the war reaching the American public, Reuters said on Wednesday.
In a letter to Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Reuters said U.S. forces were limiting the ability of independent journalists to operate.
The letter from Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger called on Warner to raise widespread media concerns about the conduct of U.S. troops with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee on Thursday.
Can you see Rummy now? reading this??
Here’s an idea…Reuters, when you people start reporting the truth as it really is and not as you want it to be, then maybe our troops will get out of your way. When you change your editorial policy about NOT using the term TERRORISTS (and stop calling them freedom fighters!) then maybe I’ll take your freakin complaints here seriously.
Schlesinger referred to “a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by U.S. forces in Iraq.”
He urged Warner to demand that Rumsfeld resolve these issues “in a way that best balances the legitimate security interests of the U.S. forces in Iraq and the equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law.”
OK I want DETAILS. Who was killed, detained, illegally abused (is there such a thing as legal abuse???) I want to see this long parade. And I want facts not fiction.
At least 66 journalists and media workers, most of them Iraqis, have been killed in the Iraq conflict since March 2003.
U.S. forces acknowledge killing three Reuters journalists, most recently soundman Waleed Khaled who was shot by American soldiers on August 28 while on assignment in Baghdad. But the military say the soldiers were justified in opening fire.
Reuters believes a fourth journalist working for the agency, who died in Ramadi last year, was killed by a U.S. sniper.
“The worsening situation for professional journalists in Iraq directly limits journalists’ abilities to do their jobs and, more importantly, creates a serious chilling effect on the media overall,” Schlesinger wrote.
“By limiting the ability of the media to fully and independently cover the events in Iraq, the U.S. forces are unduly preventing U.S. citizens from receiving information…and undermining the very freedoms the U.S. says it is seeking to foster every day that it commits U.S. lives and U.S. dollars,” the letter said.
Did anyone tell these reporters and Reuters that Iraq is a WAR ZONE?? Shit will happen and innocent people, including reporters, will be killed. I do believe this has happened in every war in the last hundred years. What a joke for Reuters to call it’s reporters professionals too.
The rest of this article just makes me want to go to Iraq and randomly shoot at certain people. It’s full of crap and not worth my time and effort. But you may want to read it to get a better idea of just how biased and bizaar this news agency really is.
September 29th, 2005 at 1:39 pm
Raven: That was one of the oddest things I have seen in the hearings. Did Rumsfeld respond when they came back in after the Roberts vote? I had to miss that part, but I can’t imagine he has that much sympathy for Reuters, although I’m sure he doesn’t want to see reporters actually killed (this would be a major headache).
September 30th, 2005 at 6:24 pm
We have designed a button anyone can put up on their website. It’s our “logo” for Al-Reuters and when you click on it, you get the address for email letters to the editors of Al-Reuters.
The nice thing about the logo design is that the background of it is composed of the Hamas logo, kind of faded out.
Please spread the word: it’s available in several sizes and backgrounds and free for the taking. Heck, we don’t even want credit. It will be enough to know Al Reuters is being told to cut it out.
Here is the post with the link — just click on properties on the Al-R image.
September 30th, 2005 at 6:26 pm
oops– the link didn’t come out. Another try:
Bloody Finger of Al Reuters