War Journalism Gets More Difficult

(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

The Guardian reports today that "Iraqi police removed photographers from the site of bomb blasts that killed at least seven people in central Baghdad yesterday in the first use of a controversial new policy restricting media access."

According to the Associated Press, the new policy is "aimed at preventing journalists from inadvertently tampering with evidence needed for investigations, protecting the privacy and human rights of those wounded and keeping insurgents and militias from keeping track of their success rate."

What this new approach neglects is that information can be a double-edged sword. The very same footage that insurgents use as propaganda can inform less radical Iraqi citizens of the extreme and unsettling measures being used against Americans and, in many cases, their own countrymen. Additionally, contrary to the concerns about insurgents keeping score, video and photography can be important in keeping them from inflating their own statistics – with this new ban freeing them to create false "success" stories. (The privacy rights and tampering concerns are more legitimate, but they could be mostly resolved if Iraqi police adopted procedures similar to those used by American police.)

Press freedoms aren't feeling growing pains only in Iraq. Today's story comes on the heels of last week's Washington Post article about Afghanistan journalism, which reported:

A group of legislators led by a former Islamic militia leader is trying to enact a harsher media law that would outlaw any news coverage that disturbs the public or has an "un-Islamic" theme. It would also give the Ministry of Information and Culture full control of state-run broadcast media. Despite widespread criticism by foreign agencies here, some form of the new law is expected to pass.