Editing Media coverage of the Iraq War (section)

==Attack on Palestine Hotel==
{{Further|April 2003 journalist killings by the United States}}

On the same day as the destruction of the Baghdad bureau of [[Al Jazeera Arabic|Al Jazeera]], a US tank fired a [[High-explosive anti-tank|HEAT]] round at what the US military later said was a suspected Iraqi forward artillery observer. Due to what the US states was a communications error, the tank fired at the Palestine Hotel, where approximately 100 international reporters in Baghdad were based, instead of the correct building, killing two journalists, Taras Protsyuk of Reuters and Jose Couso of the Spanish network Telecinco<ref>{{cite news| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2928153.stm | work=BBC News | title=Foreign media suffer Baghdad losses | date=April 8, 2003 | access-date=May 12, 2010}}</ref> and wounding three other correspondents.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://fair.org/press-release/is-killing-part-of-pentagon-press-policy/|title=Is Killing Part of Pentagon Press Policy?|date=April 10, 2003|website=[[Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Zucchino |first=David |title=Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghd |year=2004 |publisher=[[Grove Press]]|url=https://groveatlantic.com/book/thunder-run/ |isbn=978-0-8021-4179-8}}</ref>

After interviewing "about a dozen reporters who were at the scene, including two embedded journalists who monitored the military radio traffic before and after the shelling occurred" the [[Committee to Protect Journalists]] said the facts suggested "that attack on the journalists, while not deliberate, was avoidable." The Committee to Protect Journalists went on to say that "Pentagon officials, as well as commanders on the ground in Baghdad, knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of international journalists and were intent on not hitting it". It is not clear that orders not to fire upon the hotel had actually made it to the tank level.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://cpj.org/reports/2003/05/palestine-hotel.php|title=Permission to Fire?|website=[[Committee to Protect Journalists]] |last1=Campagna |first1=Joel |last2=Roumani |first2=Rhonda |date=May 27, 2003 |archive-date=July 27, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090727203625/http://cpj.org/reports/2003/05/palestine-hotel.php}}</ref> [[Reporters Without Borders]] demanded proof from Donald Rumsfeld that incidents "were not deliberate attempts to dissuade the media from reporting."<ref name="rsf">{{cite web |title=Reporters Without Borders accuses US military of deliberately firing at journalists |url=https://rsf.org/en/news/reporters-without-borders-accuses-us-military-deliberately-firing-journalists |date=April 8, 2003 |website=[[Reporters Without Borders]] |access-date=February 21, 2017 |archive-date=April 11, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190411215013/https://rsf.org/en/news/reporters-without-borders-accuses-us-military-deliberately-firing-journalists |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Amnesty International]] demanded independent investigation.