US Pressures on the Daily Star in Lebanon: More. I received the following email:
"I workerd on the Daily Star between 2000-03 as a sub editor and can confirm the stories of harrasement by the US embassy. The most blatant case happened the day after the fall of Baghdad when I arrived at work early to find US embassy staffers lambasting Rami Khoury while their entourage of hired goons sat at our desks (with their feet on our tables... goddamit). Apparently they were unhappy at our "negative coverage" of the invasion and were keen to "correct" Rami. Suffice it to say the odious Michael Young appeared shortly afterwards and Rami became "editor at large". there followed an exodus... 'nough said." (The person allowed me to use his name and to cite the message).
PS My source added this:
"Just that? or how they got rid of veteran US journalist and editor Barry
Came when he wrote an editorial criticising a police raid on Virgin
megastore?...or how they promoted 'placed' right-wingers (pro-LF) even though they
were virtually illiterate...or how silenced the journos we sent to Iraq before the invasion because they found that Iraqis were saying in private that although they hated
saddam, they would fight the US?...or how they tried to fire Jim Quilty because he wrote a less that complimentary review of Pearl Harbour (would you believe it!)...or maybe how managing editor Marc Siroi tried to rally the journos during the July War to go out and "faithfully report the truth"... only to be cut short and told only to "run pictures"?"