Media Coverage of The Iraq War - Non-U.S. Media Coverage

Non-U.S. Media Coverage

Non-U.S. coverage sometimes differed strongly in tone and content from U.S. media coverage.

In some countries television journalists' behavior differed significantly during the conflict compared to Gulf War conflicts. Jean-Marie Charon said most journalists were more cautious, often using the conditional form and rigorously citing sources.

The crew of the HMS Ark Royal, Britain's flagship naval vessel, demanded that the BBC be turned off on the ship because of what they saw as a clear anti-Coalition or "pro-Iraq" bias. One BBC correspondent had been embedded on the ship, but the crew said they had no complaints of his reporting specifically. The sailors on board the ship claimed that the BBC gave more credit to Iraqi reports than information coming from British or Allied sources, often questioning and refusing to believe reports coming from Coalition sources while reporting Iraqi claims of civilian casualties without independent verification. The ship's news feed was replaced with Sky News. Ironically, it later emerged from a study conducted by Professor Justin Lewis of the School of Journalism at Cardiff University that the BBC was the most pro-war of British networks, a finding confirmed in a separate study by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Arab media outfit Al Jazeera broadcast many scenes of civilian casualties, usually referring to them as "martyrs", press conferences with Iraqi officials claiming to be winning the war, and of American and British POWs which U.S. media refused to run. Most Arab networks also downplayed the scenes of Iraqi citizens cheering coalition forces entering their towns. Arab networks consistently referred to U.S. and British forces as "invading forces," while Western media referred to them as "coalition forces."

The war in Iraq saw Abu Dhabi TV mature into a credible Al-Jazeera rival. However, the war did not benefit Al-Arabiya, the newest of Arabic news networks. Created by the audio-visual group saoudien MBC to compete with Al-Jazeera (whose tone often displeases Arab leaders), Al-Arabiya was launched on February 19, 2003.