CBS Refuses to Broadcast Iraq Footage

By Rory O'Connor and David Olson, MediaChannel.org. Posted January 26, 2007.

Sometimes it's hard to swim in the mainstream.

There has been much heated debate over the past few years over media coverage of the Iraq War. The Bush administration has repeatedly attacked the 'liberal bias' of the mainstream news industry, claiming that it doesn't report enough of the "good news" from Iraq and focuses instead on the sensational and violent.

Those critical of the war and the occupation say just the opposite; that the mainstream news media has ignored much of the "bad news" coming out of Iraq, leaving Americans with an impression of the war based more on a desire to follow the official White House narrative than facts on the ground. MediaChannel has long been in the latter camp, sponsoring (for example) last year's "Show Us the War" project, which published video pieces showing an Iraq overrun with violence and chaos -- and an administration that seemed more intent on faith and "spin" than reality. We at MediaChannel believe that an informed citizenry is necessary to keep our democracy viable, and we have been strong advocates of the call for all news outlets -- mainstream or independent -- to produce and distribute accurate stories on the situation in Iraq.

Which brings us to Lara Logan.

One would assume that Ms. Logan, as CBS chief foreign correspondent, has a fair amount of influence as to what stories she gets to cover, and that most of her important stories, once produced and delivered, will be broadcast. But when a story comes out of the mean streets of Baghdad that doesn't fit the officially sanctioned narrative of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers working arm in arm to help protect thankful Iraqi citizens, even chief foreign correspondents sometimes need to ask for help in getting it seen. Imagine our surprise recently when -- over the digital transom -- we received a copy of an email from a frustrated Lara Logan (see below).

In it, Logan asks for help in getting attention to what she calls "a story that is largely being ignored even though this is taking place every single day in Baghdad, two blocks from where our office is located."

The segment in question -- "Battle for Haifa Street" -- is a piece of first-rate journalism but one that appears only on the CBS News website -- and has never been broadcast. It is a gritty, realistic look at life on the very mean streets of Baghdad and includes interviews with civilians who complain that the U.S. military presence is only making their lives worse and the situation more deadly.

"They told us they would bring democracy, they promised life would be better than it was under Saddam," one told Logan. "But they brought us nothing but death and killing. They brought mass destruction to Baghdad."

Several bodies are shown in the two-minute segment, "some with obvious signs of torture," as Logan points out. She also notes that her crew had to flee for their lives when they we were warned of an impending attack. While fleeing, another civilian was killed before their eyes.

Logan's email, with the one-word subject line of "help," was sent to friends and colleagues imploring them to lobby CBS to highlight that people are interested in seeing the piece. In it, Logan argues that the story is "not too gruesome to air, but rather too important to ignore … It should be seen. And people should know about this."

We agree. And we'd like to help Ms. Logan and CBS get the piece seen, although that task would be made immeasurably easier if CBS News chief Sean McManus simply made the decision to broadcast it.

See more stories tagged with: cbs, media, iraq

Filmmaker and journalist Rory O'Connor writes the Media Is A Plural blog.

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