Sunday, September 16, 2012

Editorial: The lazy American media

While the US media was using last week to play favorites in the presidential race, BBC was practicing actual journalism, reporting on things that really matter.

That included Natalia Antelava, Peter Murtaugh, Bill McKenna and Daniel Nasaw major investigative report for the BBC on the continued persecution of LGBTs in Iraq. BBC's  continued assault which makes it very different from the CBS Evening News, ABC World News and NBC Nightly News which can't be bothered with the story.  In addition, the BBC also filed the following reports:


And the reporting on this crisis didn't start last week.  The BBC has seriously covered this issue for some time.


 bbc

[Screen snap above, Ali al-Dagbah, Nouri's spokesperson, being interviewed by Natalia Antelava about the persecution of Iraq's LGBT community.]

And even after the BBC coverage this week, the American networks didn't suddenly gain interest in the topic.  They made no effort to broadcast any of the reporting.



Natalia Antelava:  The situation in Iraq he says is only getting worse and without the support of international organizations, they can't find the way out of the country. They appear regularly without a warning. Each  neighborhood gets its own hit list with  names and addresses of local residents who are believed to be gay.  Each time, it drives the already hidden gay community here further underground and further into panic.  Each time, one of the gays told me, it signals the beginning of a new witch hunt.  Radical milita groups are believed to be behind this hit list.  Although officially they've been disbanded, militias still pose the greatest threat to homosexuals. But those we spoke to say that they're just as fearful of countless police and military checkpoints that are supposed to be making Baghdad safe.  This checkpoint is manned by the Interior Ministry troops.  But in Iraq, one's uniform never tells you the full story.   In this country, you can be a police man by day, a militia man by night.  These blurred lines and mixed allegiances have made it easy for the government to blame militia groups for the killings of gays. But we've discovered evidence that directly links the police with attacks on gays in Iraq. Qais is gay and a former police man. He told me he had been ordered to go after homosexuals.  He couldn't refuse and so he quit his job.
Qais: In 2006, 2007 and 2008, we were busy fighting terrorsm.  We didn't pay attention to gays.  On top of it, the Iraqi government had to respect the rule of law when the Americans and the British were here.  But now?  They have a lot of free time and the police are going after gays.
Natalia Antelava:  Have you ever been called to arrest gays or kill gays or go after gays in any way?
Qais:  Yes, twice.  We had to arrest this guy.  He was having an argument with someone.  Once they arrested him, they accused him of being gay. We were told to send him to another town where he was wanted for being gay.  We sent him to that town and he disappeared.  His family came to ask about him and we sent them to another town where they could not find him. Then they got a death certificate from the police but they never got the body.
Natalia Antelava:  With so much secrecy, fear and loathing, it's difficult to establish the exact level of the government's involvement in the persecution. But 17 gay men interviewed for this investigation said they believed they were being singled out and hunted by the state.  All see the police as a major threat.  All have recently had friends or boyfriends killed.  All said arrests were still happening.  Until recently, Ghaith worked a a police station.  One day, he came to work to find his boyfriend in a pre-trial detention cell.


The BBC could broadcast that but not the American networks.



You may remember when ABC pulled their staff out of Iraq -- December 2008 -- they insisted that they would use the BBC, that BBC reports would round out their Iraq coverage.  Yet when the BBC provided an investigative report from Iraq, ABC played dumb.




The persecution of Iraq's LGBT community is a real story, it's a tragic story.

Yet last week, the American media was more concerned with attempting to convince Americans that Barack had a strong foreign policy.


Oh.


Suddenly the American media silence on the tragedies in Iraq makes sense.