DOHA: There are some signs that the insurgency is becoming more open to the efforts of Arab cameramen and producers, said a journalist reporting from Iraq. Should it happen, he called for the west to be ready to get the best of it.
At the same time, western media organisations must redouble their efforts to work with Arab journalists, the reporter wrote in an Indian newspaper.
Alex Thomson lamented about the one-side war fought in Fallujah and the one sided reporting of the media.
He mentioned in his article, which was published in the Hindu, about the inceasingly one-sided media coverage coming from Iraq, barringa few exceptions like Al Jazeera.
"Al Jazeera is all but shut out of Iraq by the pro-US "government." Attempts at swingeing censorship are being made. "Tell it our way, or leave the country" appears to be the new "freedom." So even Al Jazeera would be hard-placed to pick up the resistance embed, should it one day be offered" writes Thomson.
Since 9/11 we have seen the evolution of the embed, the transition from traditional war hacks who got lucky and tacked themselves on to a particular unit for the duration, to a strictly controlled invitation-by-ticket-only. Go embedded or face the - often lethal - consequences.
© The Peninsula 2004
