WITH OR AGAINST:

Iraq gets sympathetic press around the world International media wary of U.S. reporting (Marco R. della Cava, 4/02/03, USA TODAY)

With the exception of pressing regional issues and breathless soccer analyses, global media reportage these days is all war, all the time.

Although such saturation coverage of the war in Iraq wouldn't surprise most Americans, the tone of these reports might. Channel-surf from Britain's BBC to Germany's ZDF, or flip through newspapers from Spain to Bangkok, and one finds stories that tilt noticeably against the war and in favor of besieged Iraqi civilians. Often these are emotional first-person accounts of visiting hospitals or bombed-out apartments, accompanied by graphic photos of the dead and dying that would never appear in U.S. outlets.

''Most Europeans do not support this war, and so the coverage is simply a reflection of that,'' says Giuseppe Zaffuto, project director at the European Journalism Center in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

''Besides, during the first Gulf War, journalists here were left to stand around and watch (CNN's) Peter Arnett in Baghdad,'' he says. ''This time, they're there. They feel compelled to not only explain what's going on in terms of the war, but also in terms of the victims of war.''

Zaffuto adds that in addition to being compelling drama, European dispatches could be a bellwether as the war grinds on: How the rest of the world perceives the U.S.-led effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power could affect everything from tourism to commerce.

For now, it seems much of the world's media still need to be convinced of Washington's position. That's no surprise in the Middle East, home of Qatari-based cable channel Al-Jazeera. It has infuriated U.S. officials, who consider it little more than an Iraqi public relations machine. But even in countries whose governments support the United States, skepticism rules.

It's strange that people consider America to have a problem because the rest of the world has sided with a Stalinist dictatorship. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 2, 2003 7:59 PM