- LONDON (Reuters) - Iraq is
winning battles in the propaganda war with a modest media strategy, despite
a multi-million dollar U.S. campaign featuring painstakingly choreographed
briefings and Hollywood-style sets.
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- Undeterred by America's elaborate media plan, Iraq is
making its mark on the airwaves with its decidedly basic approach, media
pundits say.
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- From a crude Baghdad set, Iraqi ministers each day knock
down Western media reports and list their latest claims of conquest, sometimes
wielding chrome-plated Kalashnikovs.
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- Unlike America and its allies, theirs is a simple message
delivered directly: "We will defeat the infidel invaders."
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- Despite poorly-lit surroundings and a sea of microphones
often crowding the view, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
has become something of a global television star.
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- Tightly controlled briefings are twinned on state television
with footage of bombed buildings, bloodied Iraqis and slain U.S. and British
troops, aimed at portraying U.S.-led forces as invaders. Iraqis have little
access to other media.
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- Despite their intricate blueprint, America and Britain
have so far struggled to compete against such images, particularly in the
Arab World where fledgling Arab channels such as al-Jazeera are beaming
the often gruesome footage into millions of homes.
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- Indeed, a key failing of the U.S.-led military campaign
has been its inability to knock out Iraq's state television network in
Baghdad bombings, political analysts and academics say.
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- "It's certainly possible that America and Britain
underestimated the level of skill of the Iraqi media campaign," said
Nick Couldry, a lecturer in media and communications at the London School
of Economics.
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- UPHILL BATTLE
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- America and its allies have hinged their media campaign
on "embedding" reporters with forces on battlefields across Iraq,
a strategy aimed at vindicating their decision to go to war.
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- The result has been a torrent of action-hero style images
beamed back from the front lines, which have delighted armchair warriors
in the United States and Britain.
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- But critics argue they fail to give the big picture.
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- Despite carefully planned briefings at glamorous facilities
such as a multi-million dollar press center in Qatar designed by a Hollywood
art director, the United States and Britain are criticized for failing
to fill in the holes in a complex war.
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- Both America and Britain are also struggling to keep
up with the pace of 24-hour television news, often falling into the trap
of making claims that subsequently have to be retracted.
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- Britain this week conceded it faced a "huge uphill
battle" in the Arab world.
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- "Dictatorships are at a huge in-built advantage
when it comes to...this battle for public opinion," Britain's government
director of communications and strategy Alistair Campbell told the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation in an interview.
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- "Democracies...cannot tell lies in the way that
dictatorships tell lies all the time, both about themselves and about us,
and I think that gives them...an advantage in the way this thing is prosecuted,"
he said.
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- UPPER HAND
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- As the dream of a quick, clean war and cheering Iraqis
evaporated last week, America and its allies have been furiously tweaking
their media strategy.
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- But how can they hope to gain the upper hand?
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- "Some people have suggested they should be more
straight talking. But it's very difficult to preserve the impression of
straight talking when you're in a war where certain information has to
be kept secret," Couldry said.
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- However, Britain's own master of spin is publicly skeptical
about the power of television.
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- "They (the public) are not being swayed necessarily
by the media, they are following it through the media and making up their
own minds," Campbell said in the ABC interview.
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