Zogby trashes U.S.
in Saudi Arabia

WASHINGTON – A prominent Arab-American leader is trashing the United States government for managing the news in the Saudi Arabian media – where criticism of the royal family is strictly forbidden.

James Zogby

TRENDING: Report: Trump is considering forming a new political party

The broadside by James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute and a frequent commentator on Arab and Muslim issues in the U.S media, appears in the current issue of Arab News, which describes itself as the first English-language daily in Saudi Arabia.

In a piece titled, "How U.S. Manipulates News to Suit Its Interests," Zogby charged the American press has deceived the public into believing Iraq was a threat and linked with international terrorism.

"In the American public's mind Sept. 11, Afghanistan and Iraq have all been morphed into a vague but clearly threatening reality – a 'reality' that has been cultivated by carefully managed news," he wrote.

Zogby claims the news coverage of the war is "managed and 'spun' and, when needed, shifted to new topics – positive stories of victories. For a while, for example, as daily attacks against U.S. forces were taking their toll, public support for the war was declining. This required management. To a degree, the effort has been successful. Americans and Iraqis continue to die, on a daily basis, but the stories of these deaths no longer generate front-page news coverage. For example, a series of attacks on U.S. forces on Christmas Day resulted in four American deaths. A review of a number of major U.S. daily newspapers found the story on page 39 in one, page 18 in another and not even appearing in another two."

U.S. troop deaths are buried in much larger press round-ups of Iraq-related news, he wrote.

"In a similar vein, Iraqi civilian deaths, resulting from actions by coalition forces, have all but disappeared from the U.S. press," he wrote, saying the Pentagon refuses to release such information to reporters.

Zogby continues: "All of this is to say that the United States public is in the dark about much of what is happening or not happening in Iraq and Afghanistan and the magnitude of the challenges facing both countries. What they know is that the United States is facing an upgraded 'Orange Alert,' 'Saddam has been caught' and the 'United States is still fighting and winning the long war against terror.'"

Despite all this manipulation, Zogby says, "the public remains deeply divided. But with accurate news so difficult to come by in this 'cloud of war' that has descended on the country, it is increasingly hard to discuss the merits, or even the reality, of this war or the foreign policy that led us into it."

Arab News is distributed in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, North Africa and Europe, according to its publishers.

Zogby was co-founder and chairman of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign and co-founder and executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.