Sunday, December 30, 2012

The continued shame of the Committee to Protect Journalists


cpj



Are we still pretending the Committee to Protect Journalists gives a damn about Iraq?  That's what they offer for deaths of journalists in 2012. We called them out earlier this month and we get to call them out again.  You'll note Iraq doesn't make the list.  The 20 "deadliest countries" and Iraq's not on the list.  The Philippines saw 1 journalist murdered and it made the list.

Where should Iraq be on the list?  As we pointed out, it should be above Brazil -- but that's if you care about truth.  Clearly CPJ doesn't care about truth or journalism.  Whoring's so much more fun.

As noted, we called them out earlier this month.  I'd leave it alone (having pissed off a CPJ friend with my earlier comments) except for one thing, the Iraq Journalists Syndicate released their report today.  There were five Iraqi journalists killed in 2012.  If you don't read Arabic and if you're a groupie for CPJ -- I certainly heard from a number of them in the last weeks -- then you can refer to Aswat al-Iraq, "The Iraqi press Syndicate said on Saturday that five journalists have been killed in Iraq in 2012 by armed group raising the number of media men who have been killed since 2003 to 373."  Or possibly you'd prefer Xinhua: "Five journalists were killed in Iraq’s violence during 2012, bringing the number of the journalists killed in the country to 373 since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, an Iraqi journalists’ body said on Saturday."  So those who were bothered by 'meanness' to 'poor' CPJ?  You think maybe now you can join me in calling them out or are you just a bunch of pathetic losers?  Wait, don't answer that, you're journalists -- pathetic loser is pretty much in the job description.

How do we do that, how do we make excuses for cowardly organizations -- which beg for donations -- who refuse to do their jobs?  Who deliberately lie and obscure the truth?

Aswat al-Iraq called out Reporters Without Borders -- rightly called them out -- for ignoring Iraq.  This was a few days after we called out the Committee to Protect Journalists.  I was asked over the phone by various CPJ groupies why I didn't call out Reporters Without Borders?  Because we noted Aswat al-Iraq had.  They did it.  They did their job.  Good for Aswat al-Iraq.  We amplified what they did, there was no need for me to add to it.  But we stood alone in calling out CPJ.  And callers would say, "Well you know I can't read Arabic."  Okay.  Well now you have two reports in English noting that there were 5 jouranlists killed in Iraq.  So at what point do you intend to call out CPJ which left Iraq off the 2012 list?

According to CPJ, there were no journalists killed in Iraq.

So at what point do you stop excusing and covering for CPJ and grasp that you're on the wrong side in this argument, you need to be calling them out not whining about how 'mean' I was to 'poor' CPJ.



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