Give journalists their information!

Working as a journalist in Iraq is not at all simple. Getting information from government officials is often difficult. To shoot pictures or video outside is often stopped by police or army.

Government departments and ministries hardly have spokespersons, or PR sections that understand the needs of the media. For this reason, many reports in the Iraqi media have an anonymous source. Nobody in the government is allowed to talk to media but the highest responsibles, and they often do not want to.That civilians have a right to information, and that the press is the in between in this sense, is either not known or seen as undesirable. So journalists get their information from anonymous sources in the government.

This makes the journalistic rule that one source is no source a hard one to abide by. The search for a second dependable source is a hard one, if the authorities do not want to comment or speak on the record.

The Culture and Media Committee in the Iraqi Parliament understands the problem, and has demanded that government ministries must be more transparent and provide information to the media, instead of promoting the activities of officials. The committee has sent official letters to all the media offices in the ministries, in which 'the necessity of adopting new media rhetoric' by providing information that media outlets request has been stressed,  AKNews reports from the mouth of committee member Ali al-Shallah.

Currently, about twelve Iraqi ministries do not have spokespersons. Amongst them are the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Trade, Industry, Interior and National Security. The Ministers often do only speak to media of their own party, or to foreign media. Iraqi media from other parties or independent Iraqi media thus can only use those media as their source, or resort to an anonymous source.

It is good to see the parliament committee has understood that this is in conflict with the role media should play in a democracy. Shallah said to AK News: ,,The letter emphasizes that information must not be blocked from media organizations, even if they publish news that the media officials might think would harm their [officials'] activities.''

It was saddening to see the reaction of the Foreign Ministry after AK News reported that the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir could be arrested by the international police of if he attends the Arab summit in Baghdad on March 29. The Ministry accused the agency of 'fabricating [the] issue'. The statement from the ministry read: ,,We warn the agency of the consequences of continuing in this way, which is far from the honest Secretariat of press releases."

Yet it was good to see that the culture and media committee in the Iraqi Council of Representatives reaction calling on the Foreign Ministry to appoint a spokesperson after this statement. ,,The recent statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that targeted AKnews shows that those who wrote the statement did not realize that the situation in Iraq has changed, and that any problem can be solved by the judiciary.''


Part of this problem can be solved when spokespersons are contracted and trained to work in a professional way. This does not solve the problem that anyone with a camera is seen as a danger by police and security police in Iraq. Photographers get into problems whenever they are caught working by these officials. They are demanded to remove the pictures taken, or - worse, even to hand over their memory card.


In the past weeks I have been working with security police in Erbil and Sulaymaniya to talk about this problem - which is much smaller in Kurdistan than in Baghdad. Still, photographers will be stopped by police if they want to shoot a picture of a mosque at sunset. Some policemen are convinced this is how spies get their information, and how terrorists plan their attacks. It is hard to convince them that even a journalist is innocent until proven guilty.

Media in Iraq still have a long road to go in becoming professional - and so do authorities and police. The positive thing is, that many people at the higher levels in the society realise this. Let's hope they will make sure the necessary change is made.

Don't shoot the messenger

Democracy is not easy. If we did not know it yet, we could learn it from the situation in Iraq. The Provincial Council of Kirkuk is doing that the hard way.

Members of the Kirkuk Provincial Council (KPC) do not attend the councils meetings, so the independent website KirkukNow reported recently. Various council members reported on the behaviour of their colleagues, many on the record. The complaint was that they were busy with other jobs, and for that reason were absent from the meetings. Yet the members get paid for their democratic function.

,,A KPC member who talked on the condition of anonymity said, “Over 13 members of the KPC are involved in corruption, and since some of them do not attend the KPC office, others have second jobs.”'', KirkukNow.com reported. All members implicated in the case were asked to comment, and some said they did not take a salary so nothing was amiss.

But, as KirkukNow writes: According to the Iraqi constitution, no member of parliament, or provincial council, or holders of any high posts can take the second job, especially in governmental offices.

The story was picked-up by other media in Iraq and the matter was taken seriously. How can council members make decisions for a town when they are not present at the meetings where those decisions are taken? And how can people put trust in politicians who are only on their post for the money? Or if they do not abide the rules? Questions that make sense in a country that is striving to be a democracy.

The hype lead to a nasty phonecall to the reporter. If the news was not taken off the site in 24 hours, he would be killed, so he was told. The reporter, who is almost sure that one of the council members is behind the call, reported the issue to the court and went on his way. KirkukNow.com continued covering the news. For instance in the way of the comment of the chairman of the council.

Hasan Torhan said some news sites had published unfounded and fabricated news, calling on them to investigate and verity stories before publication. “Some news sites publish baseless and fabricated news to tarnish the reputation of the KPC and its members,” saying that the KPC will respond to allegations, according to the website of the Council. “The doors of the KPC and its members are open to the media.”

Yet the information came from council members, it had not been fabricated. And it was checked by the reporter, who asked those mentioned to react. And it lead to a dead threat - because the allegations are true and someone was probably afraid of loosing status and income.Yet the council chairman did not care about anything else but washing his hands - in stead of looking at the problem and solving it. In stead he shoots the messenger of the bad news - or more correct, does not protest when others threaten to do so.


Dead threats, other threats, someone waiting for you in a quiet street, beatings - the press in Iraq is struggling on its way to playing its proper role in a society that is also struggling to find its proper road to democracy. But the struggle is not going in the right direction, as Reporters sans Frontieres showed in their recent report on the Middle East,  the 'Press Freedom Index 2011-2012, Arab uprisings and their impact on the press freedom index'.


,,After rising in the index for several years in a row, Iraq fell 22 places this year, from 130th to 152nd (almost to the position it held in 2008, when it was 158th). There were various reasons. The first was an increase in murders of journalists. Hadi Al-Mahdi’s murder on 8 September marked a clear turning point. Another reason was the fact that journalists are very often the target of violence by the security forces, whether at demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, or in Iraqi Kurdistan, a region that had for many years offered a refuge for journalists.''

Bad news for my colleagues in Iraq. And at the same time, the status of journalists in this country is declining. Young people do not choose to be journalist because they like the job and think they will do something useful in their society, they choose it solely because there is nothing better to choose for. They did not do well enough in high school to get enough points to be allowed to study something considered more worthwhile in this society, like medicine or engineering. So they become journalists.

Iraq needs people who work for the good cause. Politicians who abide the rules that put them in their position. Journalists who report because they want to inform and empower the Iraqi people to get politicians to work for them, in stead of for themselves. A difficult job in Iraq, as the KirkukNow reporter found. But also a very important one, for which future generations living in a better place surely will be thankful.