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include the 2003 U.S. bombing of Al-Jazeera’s Baghdad bureau, which killed one
journalist, and the American military assault on the Palestine Hotel—the primary office for
most foreign correspondents in Baghdad—which killed two.45 However, there is no clear
evidence that American forces deliberately targeted journalists in these incidents. Foreign
journalists have also been detained by forces on both sides of the conflict. In 2003, four
foreign correspondents were harassed and imprisoned for eight days by Iraqi officials, and
an Al-Jazeera journalist has been held without charge by U.S. forces at Guantanamo Bay
since June 2002.
Restrictions on journalists’ access to Guantanamo Bay have added to the tension between
the media and the Bush administration. More than 1,000 journalists have visited the base
since it began housing detainees from Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite the insistence of a
Pentagon spokesman that Guantanamo Bay is “the most transparent detention facility in
the history of warfare,”46 Associated Press journalist Paisley Dodds has reported that after
the war in Iraq began, it became harder to see and interview prison staff and almost
impossible to photograph the base or prisoners.47 Under new media guidelines issued in
September 2002, journalists are required to have a media escort with them in areas where
detainees are held. These escorts have control over who journalists may speak with, and
have reportedly cut short interviews or prevented interviewees from responding to
questions on controversial issues. Journalists have been barred from independently
interviewing inmates since the prison opened in January 2002. In June 2006, three U.S.
reporters from the Miami Herald, the Charlotte Observer, and the Los Angeles Times were
expelled before they could complete an investigation into the alleged suicide of three
prisoners, and media access to the base was shut down entirely, though only for a time.
Despite the restrictions, the press has published numerous accounts of conditions inside
the facility, complaints by detainees, and details of military tribunals held at the site.
Covert influence over media coverage. Evidence has emerged in recent years that the Bush
administration paid to have news stories supporting its point of view placed in the
domestic and foreign media, often without accompanying disclosures of its role. Although
government funds had been employed to produce such propagandistic media segments
under previous administrations, the range of cases detailed below suggests that the Bush
administration has made the most extensive use of the practice.
In early 2005, it was revealed that the Bush administration had used federal funds to pay
several political commentators who supported some of its domestic policy initiatives. USA
Today reported in January that the Education Department had paid conservative columnist
Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind Act, an education
initiative of the Bush administration. In October 2005, auditors at the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) found that “engaging in a purely political activity such as this”
was “not a proper use of appropriated funds,” and concluded that the administration had
intentionally disseminated “covert propaganda.”48 The president asserted that the White
House did not know about the payments to Williams.
Soon after the Williams contract was exposed, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles
Times reported that the Health and Human Services Department had paid conservative
columnists Maggie Gallagher and Michael McManus $21,500 and $4,000, respectively, to
help promote the president’s $300 million initiative to encourage marriage.49 Federal
auditors who investigated these contracts discovered other cases in which the government
had paid for news stories on television and in newspapers. Most of these stories, two of

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