The Differences in Arab and Western Reporting Story aired: Friday, April 11, 2003
Iraqis are now hearing from President Bush a hopeful vision of how events will unfold, not surprisingly. Though what may surprise people is where the message is being beamed: right into Iraqis' homes, coffee bars, anywhere there's a TV, now that the U.S. Defense Department is running Iraqi State Television.
The United States now controls much of Iraq - and more and more of the information inside Iraq.
"Towards Freedom" is the name of the new TV station. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer says "the end goal is for everything militarily to leave Iraq, and for Iraq to be run entirely by Iraqi people with a free Iraqi press."
The U.S. is also planning to publish a newspaper in Iraq called "The Times." And what times they are for the people of Iraq.
In our editorial roundtable today, we're asking in what's still a war zone and a country fractured with factions: how does the U.S. run a new newspaper. And here's a question on the point of freedom: would an anti-American letter to the editor be printed?
