Iraq media in 'business of death'

By Hugh Sykes
BBC News, Baghdad

There are reports of an escalation in attacks on Iraqi media in recent weeks

Nearly 300 people have died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion simply because they worked for the media.

Of that total, 135 were news gatherers - reporters, photographers, camera operators or field producers.

And while foreign journalists have been killed here, the overwhelming majority of the dead were Iraqi.

The editor of the Baghdad daily paper al Sabaah, Falah al-Mashal, told me: "Journalism all over the world is known as the business of trouble. In Iraq, it is the business of death."

At al-Sabaah, 22 people have been killed because they worked there.

The editorial offices and the printing house are surrounded by a concrete anti-blast wall. There is a checkpoint at the main entrance.

But two car bombs managed to get in. In one of the explosions, two people died when part of a wall fell on them.

Journalists in Iraq don't work in this business just to make a living - they want to reveal the truth and that's why we are targeted Falah al-Mashal, editor of al-Sabaah

In the English translation department, Murtala Salah was sitting at his desk a few steps away from a room which collapsed when one of the car bombs exploded.

"It is our fate," he told me.

I wondered why he carried on working in such a dangerous atmosphere.

"Journalists have only their pens. We tell the truth. This is dangerous for terrorists - because it turns them into criminals in the eyes of the people."

'Objectivity training'

Falah al-Mashal added: "Journalists in Iraq don't work in this business just to make a living. They want to reveal the truth, and that's why we are targeted."

His paper al-Sabaah - it means The Morning - is owned by the government. But he insists it is independent, and would never support a particular party. "Independence is essential," he emphasised.

But many newspapers and TV stations here are partisan - owned by political parties or religious groups. The London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) are opening a Baghdad branch later this year. They will offer courses on reporting in hostile environments and objectivity training.

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting is setting up in Baghdad

The IWPR's Iraq director, Hiwa Osman, says you have to read six or seven Iraqi papers to get a complete picture.

"We urgently need to train journalists here to give the full picture - away from political, religious or sectarian bias," he said, as decorators applied new paint to the lecture hall and the training studio.

He believes a lot of the killing here has been inspired by propaganda in the papers and on television.

'Nine lives'

A Baghdad reporter, Salaam Jihad, told me he had received "many threats, many things have happened to me, I have been chased by militants".

He laughed nervously after adding: "My friends say I am a cat with nine lives. I think I have lost five. So I have four left."

The Iraqi Media Protection Group reports an escalation in attacks on the media in the past few weeks.

Three journalists and a driver working for al-Sharqiya TV were kidnapped and shot dead in Mosul.

There have been bomb attacks on three newspaper offices in Baghdad. One journalist died.

And a bomb exploded outside the headquarters of the national journalists' union in Baghdad - severely injuring its president, Muaid al-Laimi.

In February this year, his predecessor at the union, Shihab al-Tamimi, was shot and fatally wounded. He died four days after being taken to hospital.