Friday, October 24, 2008

War erodes respect of press freedoms: media group

Press photographers
Reuters – Press photographers 'embedded' with the U.S. Navy work on the flight deck of the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft …

PARIS (Reuters) – The United States and Israel, despite their democratic credentials, fall down badly in their respect for press freedoms in conflict zones, a media group said on Wednesday.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the U.S. had slipped to 119th in respect of press freedoms outside its own territory in an annual ranking of more than 160 countries, from a joint ranking at 111 in its previous annual report.

Israel, whose armed forces killed a Palestinian journalist this year for the first time since 2003, was 149th on the list for press freedoms beyond its frontiers, compared with 103rd place in RSF's 2007 rankings.

Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana was killed in April by a shell packed with darts fired from an Israeli tank in the Gaza Strip. Israel's senior military lawyer said troops could not see whether Shana had been operating a camera or a weapon but were nevertheless justified in firing.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081022/wl_nm/us_france_media_1;_ylt=AupKWtTu0hbWITjY0g_4zHSek3QF

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