Iraq’s News Media After Saddam: Liberation, Repression, and Future Prospects

After the removal of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, Iraq’s tightly controlled state-run media underwent a transformation on two fronts: one driven by the Americans who made establishing a free press a priority; the other by an Iraqi citizenry that for three decades had been cut off from the free marketplace of ideas under a tyrannical regime. Almost overnight, Iraq’s media landscape transformed into one of the most diverse and unfettered press environments in the region. Privately owned news outlets grew from zero to more than 200 in a rush to meet demands for uncensored information. And despite formidable chaos over press freedom, Iraqi citizens suddenly had access to a varied menu of information unimaginable under Hussein. A recent CIMA report, Iraq’s News Media After Saddam: Liberation, Repression, and Future Prospects, by Sherry Ricchiardi examines the state of Iraq's media as seen through the eyes of Iraqi journalists, international media developers, and scholars. It explores what kind of media will be left in the wake of the U.S. military and donor drawdown and provides a prognosis for Iraq's nascent independent press.

Iraq’s News Media After Saddam: Liberation, Repression, and Future Prospects from CIMA on Vimeo.

Featuring:

Sherry Ricchiardi
Author, Iraq’s News Media After Saddam: Liberation, Repression, and Future Prospects

With comments by:

Shameem Rassam
Journalist

Ammar Al-Shahbander
Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Moderated by:

Laith Kubba
National Endowment for Democracy

About the author:

Sherry Ricchiardi is a contributing writer for American Journalism Review (AJR), specializing in international issues, and a professor at the Indiana University School of Journalism. Dr. Ricchiardi has trained journalists in developing countries throughout the world, including Pakistan, Yemen, and the former Soviet republics. She is on the advisory committee of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. Ricchiardi has been a Fulbright scholar at Zagreb University in Croatia and serves on the peer review committee for the Fulbright Specialist Program. Before going into media development, she spent 14 years at the Des Moines Register as an investigative reporter and Sunday magazine writer. She later became city editor for the Columbia Missourian, a newspaper produced at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, her alma mater. During the war in the Balkans, Ricchiardi’s stories from the front lines appeared in several American publications, including the Miami Herald, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and AJR. In 2003 and 2009, she won the National Press Club’s top award for press criticism.

About the panelists:

Shameem Rassam is an expert on Iraqi media. She is an Iraqi exile who anchored Iraq’s state TV news in the 1960s, then launched the first Iraqi FM radio station in 1980, which she also managed and anchored. After fleeing Iraq in 1990, Dr. Rassam served as manager and anchor of the first Arab-American Media Radio in the United States, the Arab Network of America. Dr. Rassam returned to Baghdad in 2003 after becoming the first female general director of the Iraqi Media Network (IMN), which is a U.S. funded news and entertainment network that consists of the Al Iraqiya television network, the Al-Sabah newspaper, and a radio network. Since March 2004, Rassam has served as a senior specialist and project manager with a Washington, DC- based research center. A 2006 recipient of the Ambassador for Peace Award from the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, Rassam has written extensively about the media in Iraq and the Arab world, as well as issues affecting women and youth.

Ammar Al-Shahbander is chief of party in Iraq for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and is responsible for over $20 million dollars in programming, including IWPR’s Media Development Program; Safety, Security & Legal Protections Programs; Women’s Media Initiative; Human Rights TV Magazine; Elections Watchdog Project; and Human Rights Media Links. Mr. Al- Shahbander also works on specialized training programs coordinated with the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. Previously, he worked as Iraq Foundation’s Programs coordinator, as well as served as the assistant manager of the Iraq Information Network. He has a degree in Sociology and International Relations.

About the moderator:

Laith Kubba is the senior director for the Middle East and North Africa Program at the National Endowment of Democracy. Throughout 2005, he was a senior advisor to Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al Jafari and a spokesman for the Iraqi government. From 1993 until 1998, he was the director of international relations at the Al Khoei Foundation in London. Dr. Kubba was one of the founders of the Iraqi National Congress and served on its first Executive Committee and as its spokesman in 1992. He also served on the boards of regional institutions including the Iraq Foundation and the Arab Organization for Human Rights. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Baghdad and a doctorate from the University of Wales.

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Iraq's News Media After Saddam: Liberation, Repression, and Future Prospects