Reporters covering the Iraq war for Arabic and Middle East media from the Coalition Media Centre at As Sayliyah base in Doha, Qatar, have complained of lack of accurate information and alleged that there was a selective bias in favour of Western media.

"I have been here since the military operations started. When it comes to briefings and answering questions, the speakers tend to get biased and prefer to answer questions from the Western media," Ahmed Samir, a correspondent for Abu Dhabi TV told the Peninsula Daily, Doha.

"Mediapersons are expected to restrict themselves to reporting on the war events as they take place. But there are occasions when I find it really hard to focus on reporting the war, because some of the briefings we listen to tend to get political," he added.

Mohamed Al Mezel, Bahrain bureau chief of Gulf News said there was a scarcity of news and information at the media centre. "We are getting so little information and sometimes it is outdated. How are we expected to generate reports from here," he asked.

Mezel said reporters were forced to rely on television networks at times because they have 'embedded' correspondents on the frontlines and inside Iraq.

"I would have to say that the kind of briefings we get over here at the base are just superficial summaries of the events and military actions that took place during the day," he said.

Omar Al Issawy, a correspondent for Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel, said, "All the media people here at the Coalition Media Centre are suffering from the same problem -- lack of adequate information."

He said despite such setbacks, the Arabic media had been more successful in covering the war because it was 'able to separate the emotional factor from the core military and political information'.

PTI