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From
The Media Guardian
http://media.guardian.co.uk
Iraqi TV was coalition's
'stuff of dreams'
Ciar Byrne
July 9, 2003
A former adviser to efforts
by the US and Britain to set up a post-war media network in Iraq has lifted the
lid on the high degree of political control exerted over broadcasts by coalition
authorities.
Stephen Claypole revealed
that the Iraqi Media Network was originally intended to be run by Bob Reilly,
a former director of the Voice of America radio station, giving it what he describes
as "a degree of independence".
Although the station is
US government-owned, it was considered relatively impartial.
However, amid Washington
concerns that Jay Garner, the director of the post-war reconstruction effort in
Iraq known as the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, was "not
relating" to the Iraqi people, the Iraqi Media Network was kept firmly under US
government control.
"It was the stuff of dreams
for the White House and No 10 - direct control over the content of the evening
news," Claypole wrote in the latest issue of Television, the journal of the Royal
Television Society.
Veteran news boss Claypole,
who was the founder of the TV news agency APTN and chairman of broadcast advisory
company DMA-Media said all attempts to be independent was lost.
While IMN attempted to
give the impression that it was conveying the views of ordinary Iraqis, it was
heavily weighted in favour of the official US line, Claypole claimed.
'We have got to have vox
pops,' became the mantra, so that the Iraqi people can see themselves talking
in an atmosphere of liberty.
"When the vox pops came
back to the temporary studios with anti-American opinions, they were shelved for
a day or two to be intercut with official ORHA responses."
Into this "dodgy mix",
wrote Claypole, came a woman called Hero Talabani, the "exotic and cosmopolitan
wife of the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan".
Mrs Talabani, according
to Claypole, managed to convince Margaret Tutwiler - the American ambassador to
Morocco who had been drafted in to assist in the roll-out of the new civilian
administration - "that she was the arbiter of public taste".
"After one morning meeting
with the IMNtv team, it was decided to take a taped package to Mrs T's house for
her to comment on the editorial content. The Iraqi exiles who formed the majority
of IMNtv's staff threatened to strike," Claypole revealed.
As if tight government
controls and the influence of exotic characters were not enough, IMN was also
hampered by squalid surroundings and lack of communications equipment following
attacks on Iraqi TV and radio stations during the war.
ORHA was located in a
rambling palace, called the "Four Saddams", that had no running water or electricity,
was covered in sand and infested by "mosquitoes, sand fleas and large black rats".
To make matters worse,
those working for ORHA were not allowed to go anywhere unless accompanied by soldiers
and special forces.
"No thought was given
to why the military had precision bombed most of the TV and radio stations and
transmission systems in Iraq," wrote Claypole.
"On the ground, the only
means of communication was Thuraya satellite phones that worked so poorly they
were known as 'Thuraya Heaps'."
In the immediate aftermath
of the war in Iraq, the Americans broadcast Towards Freedom Television from a
Hercules transport plane flying above the country, showing Fox News, NBC, ABC
and CBS dubbed into Arabic but otherwise unedited.
CNN declined to participate
in the transmission because it did not feel it was appropriate for an "independent
global news organisation" to participate in an American government transmission.
The inaugural broadcast
on Towards Freedom TV featured Tony Blair and George Bush delivering messages
in a bid to reassure the Iraqi people that the US and Britain wanted "the government
of Iraq and the future of your country" to belong to Iraqis.
Britain also made its
own hour-long contribution to the channel, produced by independent TV company
World Television at a cost of £10,000 to the MoD.
As only around 10% of
Iraqis have access to television, according to a US military spokesman, the American
and British authorities have also set up radio stations and newspapers in the
aftermath of the war.
ENDS
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