Columnist Cites Double Standard in Iraq Coverage

By: E&P Staff Creators Syndicate media columnist Norman Solomon today addressed a journalistic double standard when it comes to covering death in Iraq.

In a blog entry on HuffingtonPost.com, Solomon noted that John Burns of The New York Times had described as "barbaric" the murder of two U.S. soldiers.

"Evidently they were victims of atrocities, and no one should doubt in the slightest that the words of horror used by Burns ... were totally appropriate," wrote Solomon. "The problem is that Burns and his mass-media colleagues don't talk that way when the cruelties are inflicted by the U.S. military -- as if dropping bombs on civilians from thousands of feet in the air is a civilized way to terrorize and kill."

Solomon added: "Based on the available evidence from Abu Ghraib to Afghanistan to Guantanamo, anyone who claims that U.S. foreign policy does not include torture is disingenuous or deluded."

The columnist also said: "When journalists maintain a flagrant double standard in their language -- allowing themselves appropriate moral outrage when Americans suffer but tiptoeing around what is suffered by victims of the U.S. military -- the media window on the world is tinted a dark red-white-and-blue, and the overall result is more flackery than journalism. ... Reporters for The New York Times and other big U.S. media outlets would not dream of publicly describing what American firepower does to Iraqi civilians as 'barbaric.'"

And Solomon concluded: "Without maintaining a single and consistent moral standard in their work, journalists -- no matter how brave, skilled, or hard-working -- end up prostituting their talents in the service of a war machine."