Tipping the balance West

international | arts and media | other press Saturday September 22, 2007 14:16 by David Manning & Miriam Cotton - MediaBite mcotton at mediabite dot org

RTE's attitude towards Iraqi eyewitnesses

In any other circumstance an eyewitness would be regarded by journalists as a reliable source of information.

But when the eyewitness is an Iraqi whose street has just been bombed and attacked by US forces that person becomes an 'angry resident' whose evidence is of little worth - especially when compared to the evidence of the people responsible for the bombing. Time and again RTE relies unquestioningly on US military sources without making the least effort to verify what they are told. Time and again they ignore the possibility of checking the Iraqi perspective. In our latest Media Shot an exchange between David Manning and RTE's senior journalist, Ray Donoghue, is revealing.

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