JANET ALBRECHTSEN

You can be for the truth or with the terrorists


One sobering reminder of life under the former Iraqi dictator also failed to make the cut at most Australian newspapers. Late last week it was revealed that 113 Kurds – all but five of them women and children – were found in mass graves near the southern city of Samawah. There is a skeleton of a teenage girl clutching a bag of possessions. Many women were wearing their best clothes, like the shiny gold and purple dress found in one of the 18 trenches. Ten were babies. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, more than 290 mass graves have been found, filled with at least 300,000 people believed to have been executed by the Baathist regime.

The Australian and The Daily Telegraph reported the story yesterday. But where was the rest of our press on this important story? Ignoring it, perhaps, because they are loath to remind us that the Iraqi people are free from such tyranny.

The media is a player in modern warfare. The more they inform us about hostages, the more hostages are taken. This is the deadly, inevitable, side to the information age. But if the media would more often lift their head above the ruck and look to the longer view as well as today's disaster, the distinction between journalism and history may not be quite so stark as it is now.

It is nice to see we have a friend somewhere!