By Marissa Wells
The Chicago Tribune reports that Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, the deputy chief of public affairs in Baghdad, is emulating journalism icon Mike Royko by pushing for a free press in Iraq. He's attempting to reverse the journalistic culture created under Hussein's rule, in which the government owned the media and anti-West/anti-Israel propaganda was common. Driscoll says that he's teaching Iraqi journalists "to question things, but also to understand the role of journalism in a free society."
There is still some resistance, however. The Iraqi parliament urged the prime minister shut down the country's largest newspaper and most popular news television network for criticizing the government in 2006, and last summer a Kurdish journalist was detained for allowing stories critical of a human rights organization to be published. Driscoll believes that the Iraqi media is just beginning to develop, though.
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