Journalists’ fears of Baghdad have spawned strange circumstances and stories. A journalist working at an international radio station signs off his reports with his location, meaning Baghdad, of course. However, he actually lives in Amman and spends half his salary to pay an unknown person living in Baghdad to collect stories and e-mail them to him.

By Niqash.

The real problem, for an Iraqi journalist working inside Iraq today, is the fact that very little has resulted in terms of security for those journalists who still remain, even after the relatively large number of journalists who have fallen in the past four years. It is painful that the brutal losses suffered by the Iraqi press are not just about some comrades losing their careers, but also about the imminent collapse of the already fragile media in the new Iraq after the fall of Saddam’s regime. Media openness and freedom of expression, in addition to the establishment of electoral democracy and the expansion of social space to civil societies that would motivate opinion-making mechanisms, increasing the amount of participation and placing rules upon the administration of differences; media thrives on such values and participates in their creation, but they are certainly doomed to attrition by the hegemony of armed violence as a means of expression, currently the most influential tool in Iraq today, more powerful than any words that are said.

Some journalists have left for careers in the provinces, and some have come from remote provinces to work in media institutions in Baghdad for the same reasons: Escape from serious death threats.

The fear of death is a specter that accompanies any journalist currently working in Iraq, whether or not this is an actual fear. It may seem strange to some that a number of television presenters currently live in Kurdistan with their families, since it is the safest region in Iraq, commuting at least twice a week by air between Baghdad, Irbil and Sulaymaniyah, spending considerable amounts of their salaries, and suffering the harassment of constant travel, in order to spare themselves and their families the dangers of living in Baghdad.

Journalists’ fears of Baghdad have spawned strange circumstances and stories. A journalist working at an international radio station signs off his reports with his location, meaning Baghdad, of course. However, he actually lives in Amman and spends half his salary to pay an unknown person living in Baghdad to collect stories and e-mail them to him. The story repeats itself with a BBC correspondent from Basra. After extremists murdered his son, he fled to Kuwait, and for a long while continued to prepare reports on Basra via tapes recorded by someone in the city that would be chauffeured to Kuwait, in exchange for a sum that was, in truth, only a morsel of what this BBC correspondent made.

Death, which appears not to have become impetus for improving the work environment for journalists will soon turn to an impetus for expelling all good reporters and journalists from the city, those who risk their lives in order to expose the truth and transmit precise and daring facts to the public. This is an environment that paves the way for, and brings forth, another kind of journalist, who doesn’t really care for truth as much as job security and receiving a salary. This will enable the commodification of journalism, the opposite of true journalistic work: Unqualified or untalented individuals will provide the raw materials for other journalists who live at a distance, and are unable to verify such information.

In addition to all these challenges, there are certain issues specific to media in Iraq. It is common knowledge that a large percentage of those currently working in the media entered the field after the fall of Saddam’s regime. Many newspaper bosses in Baghdad complain of the lack of qualified employees. Naturally, this is to be expected: there is no comparison between the narrowness of working in journalism under the previous regime, and the media openness and vast numbers of newspapers, radio, television and satellite stations today. This openness will certainly increase demands for journalists, and they cannot be made overnight. Overcoming this era is conditional upon the accumulation of experiences over time, and development workshops and courses that journalists should participate in periodically, which will further qualify them for journalistic work. This needs time.

It is, however, noticeable that, of the large numbers of newspapers thrown into kiosks and bookshops in Baghdad every morning, the numbers of independent newspapers are dwindling; these are the newspapers that do their work professionally, rather than act as ideological and political mouthpieces.

Upon the fall of the previous regime, it was expected that Iraq would become an arena for media work, giving young people unlimited opportunities; and it appeared that this was actually coming true for a while. However, the security situation has meant that a handful of foreign agencies are the only ones able to work - and even then, indirectly - on the Iraqi street. Of the great number of newspapers and print media that first came out in Iraq, only those papers linked to stable funding sources, such as party newspapers and state-sponsored newspapers, have survived. This is pushing independent media backwards, particularly with the knowledge that journalism does not really make much profit.

Over 90% of journalists in Iraq are distributed across media institutions connected, or partly connected, to political parties; or, they work in the Iraqi Media Network, sponsored by the government, which includes a number of television stations and daily newspapers with various weekly supplements, a magazine, and some radio stations. The IMN employs a large number of Iraqi journalists; those who work in other media organizations will jump at the opportunity to work in the IMN if given a chance.

A small percentage of writers and reporters write independently, but they rely upon other sources of income. They mainly consider the material they publish as a participation in the cultural sphere, and not as profit-makers. The money made from articles depends on the newspaper.

It is not a secret in the media that a number of writers envy the daring writing that Iraqis living in exile produce. They publish in Arab newspapers that enter Baghdad, such as Al-Sharq al-Awsat, or in some Iraqi newspapers. They can write without fearing for their lives, since they live outside Iraq. Those who live in Baghdad or the provinces think that a lot more can be said, that will illuminate the situation in Iraq, but they refrain from going into this, fearing serious problems. They think that the current Iraqi situation does not allow them to address them.

– Ahmad al-Sa’adawi

http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/08/09/they-know-more-than-they-tell-reporters-in-iraq/

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