VITAMEDIAS
World and America watching different wars: In fact, American audiences are seeing and reading about a different war than the rest of the world. The news coverage in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, reflects and defines the widening perception gap about the motives for this war. Surveys show that an increasing number of Americans believe this is a just war, while most of the world's Arabs and Muslims see it as a war of aggression. Media coverage does not necessarily create these leanings, say analysts, but it works to cement them.
"The difference in coverage between the US and the rest of the world helped contribute to the situation that we're in now,'' says Kim Spencer, president of WorldLink TV, a US satellite channel devoted to airing foreign news. "Americans have been unable to see how they're perceived."
For example, most Americans, watching CNN, Fox, or the US television networks, are not seeing as much coverage of injured Iraqi citizens, or being given more than a glimpse of the antiwar protests now raging in the Muslim world and beyond.
In the Middle East, Europe, and parts of Asia, by comparison, the rapid progress made by US led troops has been played down.
Israeli military experts assess the U.S.-led invasion: There has never been a war with such a high level of disinformation about what exactly is happening on the battlefield as the present conflict in Iraq, according to Israeli researchers and senior military officers.