Should the EDP apologise for its coverage of Iraq?

[Ian]

Dear Sir/Madam

Another day in Iraq, another suicide bomber (‘Suicide bombers kill 60 in attacks’, 30 September).

How did we get into this nightmare?

The dissident journalist John Pilger has an interesting explanation: “Had… newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic not merely channelled and echoed the agendas and lies of Government, but instead exposed and challenged them, the Bush/Blair attack on Iraq would have been untenable.”

With this in mind, I recently took a trip to the superb Norfolk Heritage Centre at the Millennium Library, which holds extensive archives of local newspapers. The day after the publication of the Government’s ‘dodgy dossier’ on 24 September 2002, a large portion of the EDP’s front page was dedicated to an alarming map of the Middle East highlighting the range of Iraq’s ‘missiles’, clearly showing Cyprus was in danger of attack. In a double page spread inside the paper Mark Nicholls wrote the following: “The document provides clear intelligence on the existence of these weapons and the ability of Iraq to produce deadlier weapons... he does have these weapons, he is capable of deploying them though the multi-billion dollar question is, will he?”

EDP journalists, sitting in their comfortable offices, need to realise that people pay with their lives for the lazy journalism they practice.

In May 2004 the New York Times took the honourable step of publicly apologising for the way the newspaper had amplified US Government propaganda, noting “a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been.” Perhaps it is time the EDP did the same?

Yours faithfully,

Ian Sinclair