THE IRAQI MEDIA FROM APRIL 2003 TO APRIL 2005

Abstract

After the fall of the Iraqi regime in the 9th of April 2003, and after the disintegration of the country, political and party political chaos that had never been witnessed before, has now taken over. In the past 2 years, the American military forces had a primary role in spreading this chaos and disorder by applying a set of wrong measures and policies. This chaos that is still affecting the iraqi people was completely ignored by the USA even 2 years after the occupation, no serious steps have been taken in order to bring back order and security, on the other hand, most of the government institutions and its forces were disintegrated, along with the decision made by Paul Bremer of dismissing all the iraqi journals and the workers of the advertising institutions in the 23rd of April 2003. Iraq has been affected by an advertising disorder where varieties of political parties, organizations, political and religious movements have taken place. It has been announced that more than 70 parties and organizations have taken different political orientations and ideologies, and they have issued many journals, TV and radio stations to represent themselves, and a new era began where the media found itself better than anytime, and was able to have some freedom of speech and be freed of any constraints that were imposed in the past. But the media didn’t have full freedom after the fall of the old regime even though, and that is clear seeing how the occupying authorities put pressure on the media by chasing, threatening, and killing journalists and reporters, in the same time we see them supporting other journals using different kinds of methods even bribery.

The crimes committed by the occupying authorities in the past 2 years shows the procedure followed to restrict the freedom of speech, despite having them claimed to establish an environment for freedom and democracy of which only a small restricted portion actually existed after the old regime, this portion only served the occupying authorities and it was forbidden to be overridden, and despite the 2 years of media chaos in Iraq, new journals began to thrive, and establish its proper identity and privacy, and we see that in some issued journals that gained more readers.

The research focused on 3 main problems: First, on the reality of the iraqi media from 2003 and 2005, its classification and points of interests and the reality faced by the iraqi journalists, along with presenting the experience of the iraqi journalism in broadcasting the election campaign of the 31st of December 2005. Second, on the iraqi journalism, the permanent constitution and the guarantees that might be considered in the constitution concerning the freedom of speech and the protection of data. While the third one was based on the possibility of developing the iraqi journalism by encouraging the civil society’s organizations in the media field, along with encouraging the journalists, increasing their salaries and supporting the independent journalism, it also looked at the importance of revealing the violations of the iraqi journalist’s freedom, and the future state of the iraqi journalism.