October 6th, 2008 by Sarah

After the Washington Post reported that the Defense Department “will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to ‘engage and inspire’ the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government,” Marc Lynch at Abu Aardvark warns that this strategy is deeply flawed.  When U.S. involvement is inevitably exposed, not only are the specific messages discredited, “but also every other pro-U.S. message which will quite reasonably then be dismissed as ‘paid for by the United States.’”  Lynch also argues that it compromises “the long-term objective of building free, credible and independent media as the foundation of a democratic system.”

Posted in Arab media, Iraq, Journalism, US foreign policy |