THE WISDOM FUND: News & Views
The Independent
February 25, 2003

How the News Will Be Censored in this War

A new CNN system of 'script approval' suggests the Pentagon will have nothing to worry about

by Robert Fisk

Already, the American press is expressing its approval of the coverage of American forces which the US military intends to allow its reporters in the next Gulf war. The boys from CNN, CBS, ABC and The New York Times will be "embedded" among the US marines and infantry. The degree of censorship hasn't quite been worked out. But it doesn't matter how much the Pentagon cuts from the reporters' dispatches. A new CNN system of "script approval"--the iniquitous instruction to reporters that they have to send all their copy to anonymous officials in Atlanta to ensure it is suitably sanitised-- suggests that the Pentagon and the Department of State have nothing to worry about. Nor do the Israelis.

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Recommended reading: Chris Hedges, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

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