Since I posted the bit about Salam Pax, who is posting again by the way, my traffic has picked up significantly, with hits on search queries like "Baghdad cam", "live view of Baghdad", someone was even searching for "Peter Falk Iraq", if that makes any sense.

Putting aside for a minute just how those particular searches led to this blog (I don't know), what's really interesting is that there seem to be a lot of people searching the internet for information and photos of Baghdad during wartime. Which is unusual, since CNN is covering the war 24/7, as are CBC Newsworld, CP24, Newsnet, BBC World and probably hundreds of news channels around the world. So why do people want or need to search the internet for pictures and information about the war in Iraq?

For starters, every time that CNN says "we're not going to show those pictures", it is basically saying "we're engaging in self-censorship". CNN for instance, has a script approval policy which helps explain the lack of information coming out of Iraq other than some choppy videos of tanks moving through the desert. In an article which appeared in the Toronto Star recently, Robert Fisk discusses CNN's script approval policy, and the possible consequences for the war in Iraq. Fisk concludes that "We are going to have to see a US army officer denying everything the Iraqis say if any report from Iraq is to get on air." Maybe this explains why CNN journalist Kevin Sites, reporting from Iraq, says "I've been asked to suspend my war blogging for awhile"

And coincidentally, I just walked past the television, where CNN has been on virtually all week, and heard this sentence "the Pentagon asked that those interviews not be shown". I don't know what interviews they are talking about, but it's ironic that I heard that while in the middle of writing about CNN self-censorship. I am not saying that CNN is lying, in fact I still think that it's probably the most important media source in this war, but there are obviously a lot of things that aren't being said.

Which brings me back to the topic of people searching the internet for alternative media sources about the war. A week ago I did a search on Yahoo for "Baghdad cam". Almost all of the results were people discussing the fact that it was currently the most popular search phrase on the internet, but that there was no real Baghdad cam. Also there were a lot of sites that had added the phrase in the underlying HTML of their webpage, in order to attract traffic. Today I re-ran that same search, and there are all sorts of Baghdad web cams from different media outlets. And although I haven't checked them all yet, I've noticed that some of the major media sources like CBS news, have "web cams" which are really just links to a streamed version of their news programming. The point being that in the last few days, the mainstream media has caught on to the thirst for alternative sources of information about the war.
Anyway, here's one real webcam, if you're interested. Check the search link I provide for more.