Farrell writes that “when the news turns bad, the police and other security forces do their best to make sure there is no one around to record it.” (AP)
Farrell writes that “when the news turns bad, the police and other security forces do their best to make sure there is no one around to record it.” (AP)
Features & Analysis

A distorted picture from Iraq

By on

The Iraqi government is keeping photographers away from scenes of suicide attacks, according to a piece published today by Stephen Farrell on The New York Times’ “At War” blog. CPJ has objected to government regulations promulgated in May 2007 barring photographers from the scene of such bombings for an hour after they take place.

As Farrell writes, the government is using threats and sometimes violence to enforce the ban. The result is that we are not seeing the full reality from Iraq, and journalists are unable to do their jobs.

The entry is here.

Joel Simon was the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists from 2006 to 2021. He has written widely on media issues, contributing to Slate, Columbia Journalism Review, The New York Review of Books, World Policy Journal, Asahi Shimbun, and The Times of India. He has led numerous international missions to advance press freedom. His book, The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Media Freedom, was published in November 2014. Follow him on Twitter @Joelcpj. His public GPG encryption key can be found here.

More On:
Features & Analysis
Iraq
Middle East & North Africa
More On:
Censored
Stephen Farrell