Only a decade ago, the boldness and refreshing courage of the American media was one of the most admired American values, along with respect of individual freedom, rule of law, and the separation of church and state. In much of the world, this is no longer true.

The examples of how the American media, both print and broadcast, wasted their credibility around the world are many. Consider these few, crucial stumbles and practices.

The CBS news programme, 60 minutes II, which first aired the shameful pictures of American men and women in uniform torturing naked Iraqi prisoners, actually sat on the footage for two weeks before broadcasting the programme, as it negotiated with the Pentagon!

CBS news executives yielded to a request from the chairman of the United States Army Chiefs of Staff, Richard B. Myers, to delay the programme or cancel it altogether. A decade ago, this would have been unthinkable.

Accepting the very principle of pressure by an arm of the US government was abhorrent.

The highly respected CBS anchorman and managing editor, Walter Cronkite, a pillar of integrity who is still an icon of the American media, would have ended that conversation before it even began. You do not negotiate to hide a war crime. That is a golden rule of American freedom of the press. There is more.

'Embedded' reporters

A free press should not rely on "embedded" reporters living, moving and eating with troops they are attached to. That is tantamount to being in bed with the people you are supposed to cover, in this case the US army. There is a famous saying in American journalism: If you sleep with the elephants, do not cover the circus.

The whole concept of embedding reporters surfaced in the Gulf War of 1990-1991. Many of us who worked then for reputable news organisations refused to accept such invitations, preferring to move on the sides of the isle and get the truth from both Americans and Iraqis. This was the case in my old paper, The New York Times, for which I covered that war. How else can you be objective?

Journalism is a sacred trust. It is the same as the Hippocratic Oath that physicians take to save lives, not cause death. In our case, as journalists, the oath, the promise, indeed the obligation is the give the truth - the whole truth - to the reader "without Fear or Favour".

Fox News, the famed American all-the-news-all-the-time television station, has become the ultimate insult to objectivity in American journalism. It obscenely violates the most basic principles of even-handed coverage, by showing an American flag fluttering atop its screen.

What's the message here? News is not the same as McDonald's hamburgers. It is not a commercial American brand. It is universal truth. It's not a recipe. It is simply what is happening.

After CBS 60 minutes aired its programme on a Tuesday, the large American print media was silent for two full days at least. Things exploded only when the much maligned Arab satellites borrowed these horrible pictures and put them on their screens, causing the Arab world to go up in flames of rage. That hesitation, that period of waiting to see how to go, in itself, cost American media a huge chunk of credibility.

There are many other episodes in this American media free fall. We all remember the time, a couple of years ago, when the White House National Security Advisor "summoned" - yes, summoned - the four heads of the biggest News Networks: Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and Disney Corp (which owns ABC News) to receive instructions. The worst part of this insult was that they actually responded by going and meeting in the White House.

Compare this to the famed Pentagon Papers obtained by The New York Times and The Washington Post in the sixties, revealing the failure of the American military and the many atrocities committed during the Vietnam War. And to the Watergate scandal which was fiercely pursued by The Washington Post in the seventies, until it forced President Richard Nixon to resign.

Blunt and short answer

With the Pentagon papers, the then US President, Lyndon B. Johnson, called the owners of the two papers, the Grahams of the Post and the Sulzbergers of the Times to ask they not publish these top secret documents. He received a blunt and short answer: No.

The publication brought an end to the Vietnam War and forced Johnson to pull out of running for a second term. That is how the American press used to be. The list of mishaps is long. Just last week, the Disney Company blocked its Miramax division from distributing a new documentary by Michael Moore that harshly criticises Bush. Is this Disney's version of a free press?

Hardly a day passes by without somebody in Bush's government accusing Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya of anti-American bias.

But in the Arab and Muslim worlds well over 150 million viewers watch these two channels instead of CNN, MSNBC, Disney or Fox. Is that not the answer , that those folks have lost faith America's truthfulness.

Youssef M. Ibrahim , a former Middle East correspondent for the New York Times and Energy Editor of the Wall Street Journal, is Managing Director of the Dubai-based Strategic Energy Investment Group. He can be contacted at ymibrahim@gulfnews.com

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