NBC's Richard Engel Appalled That Iraqi Journalists Haven't Hyped Haditha

Tim Graham
June 18th, 2006 6:16 AM
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For his latest Media Reality Check on the rush to cover the alleged Marine massacre at Haditha, Rich Noyes discovered evidence that NBC's Baghdad-based reporter Richard Engel really does sound like he's a senior fellow at the Peter Arnett School of Advanced America-Hating Journalism. He's lecturing the Iraqi journalists for being appallingly slow on spreading the Haditha story before it's proven: Rich's summary of this quote was "Iraqis Falling Down on the Job."

Reporter Richard Engel: "Not mentioned in the [Iraqi TV news] broadcast: Haditha, where U.S. Marines allegedly murdered 24 civilians last November. It was first reported here in detail last week, and only then because the incident was denounced by the Prime Minister. Now, it’s barely on the news. Today at state-sponsored al-Iraqiya TV, we asked the news director why."

Karim Hamadi, al-Iraqiya TV: "If we played it up or sensationalized it, more Iraqis would want to attack U.S. troops, and more Iraqis would die." -- NBC Nightly News, June 5.

Richard Engel's never seemed to contemplate such a notion. Perhaps he thinks Mr. Karim Hamadi is a hopeless stooge for George W. Bush.