Late last month, hundreds of students and community members gathered at College Ten to present Amy Goodman—host of the independent TV and radio news program Democracy Now!—with the first annual Ruben Salazar Journalism Award. In her subsequent speech, Goodman mourned Salazar’s tragic death and raised unsettling questions about continued violence against journalists around the world. Her concern centered upon the seemingly deliberate attacks against journalists in Iraq.

Goodman’s comments coincide with the recent controversy surrounding the resignation of CNN’s Chief News Executive, Eason Jordan. Jordan was forced to leave his position at CNN after 23 years because of an off-the-record comment he made at the World Economic Forum in late January. Although no official transcript of the discussion exists, Jordan reportedly remarked that he knew of at least 12 journalists targeted by U.S. forces in Iraq. When probed about the details, however, Jordan got nervous and refused to clarify whether he believed these killings to be accidental or coordinated. Facing public outrage at his statement, Jordan apologized and resigned in an “effort to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished by the controversy over conflicting accounts of [the] recent remarks.�

While right-wing bloggers everywhere celebrated CNN’s embarrassment, many disturbing questions about journalist deaths remain unanswered. Several incidents suggest that Jordan’s comments were not so outrageous after all. In April 2003, for example, there were two major attacks on buildings housing journalists in Iraq. In the first attack, Al Jazeera’s Baghdad office was fired upon by a US warplane. Correspondent Tareq Ayyoub, who was reporting from the roof of the building, was killed instantly. Later that day, a U.S. tank opened fire on the Palestine Hotel, a well-known refuge for over 100 unembedded international journalists. Two cameramen were killed and several others were wounded.

Many are finding it difficult to believe that these attacks, occurring on the same day, were accidental. Al Jazeera had provided the military with the geographic coordinates of their office to avoid being mistakenly attacked. And, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, “Pentagon officials, as well as commanders on the ground in Baghdad, knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of international journalists.� Although U.S. Central Command claims that they were acting in self-defense in response to “significant enemy fire� coming from these buildings, no supporting evidence was ever produced. In fact, these claims are flatly contradicted by eyewitness accounts.

The events surrounding other journalist killings are equally vague, but Pentagon officials have been reluctant to discuss these events and no military personnel has ever been held accountable. Reports of journalist torture at the hands of the U.S. military have also been largely ignored. For example, in early 2004, three Reuters employees were arrested for several days after filming the crash of an army helicopter. These men report being blindfolded, forced to stand for long hours, and threatened with sexual abuse.

Jeremy Scahill, columnist for The Nation, points out several common factors in these killings and incidents of torture: “The journalists, mostly Arabs, were reporting on places or incidents that the military may not have wanted the world to see—military vehicles in flames, helicopters shot down, fierce resistance against the ‘liberation’ forces, civilian deaths.� Nonembedded journalists, those who cover the war without the protection (and censorship?) of the military, are finding themselves at risk. As BBC anchorman Nik Gowing recently disclosed, “the military—particularly the American military—do not want us there. And they make it very uncomfortable for us to work. And I think that this is leading to security forces in some instances feeling it is legitimate to target us with deadly force and with impunity.�

And it makes sense, doesn’t it? With support for the occupation dwindling all the time, the last thing the U.S. wants is truthful press coverage of the mess we are making in Iraq. As Amy Goodman pointed out in her speech, the now-famous images of fleeing napalm victims in Vietnam had an immense effect on antiwar sentiment during the late sixties and early seventies. Our government and military knows the power of the press and the passionate truth-telling of journalists like Ruben Salazar. How far would they go to thwart negative publicity?