Both Iran and the U.S. released doctored videos recently of a January 6th confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz. The Washington Post's Bill Arkin says the awkwardly produced videos, plus a prankster called the ‘Filipino monkey,’ have overshadowed the real story in the media.

President Bush returned this week from the Middle East, where he toured with a three-point agenda: peace, Iran and oil. According to The Week's Susan Caskie, editorials from the region were all in agreement – thumbs down.

Controversies erupted recently, at both the liberal New Republic and conservative National Review Online, involving soldiers-turned-writers whose work contained now-admitted inaccuracies. Military historian Robert Bateman weighs in on the history of war stories as told by warriors.

For the past few months, the number of both Iraqi civilian and U.S. military casualties has dropped significantly. The numbers don't add up to victory yet, but some criticize the media for failing to report the trend. Bob takes a look at the coverage.

Yahoo! News correspondent Kevin Sites spent a year reporting solo from the world’s war zones - nearly every one of them. His new book, In the Hot Zone, tells the story of that year. Bob spoke with Kevin before he left. Now they catch up.

Turkey’s vote this week, to allow military incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan, comes amid growing tensions between Turkey, the U.S. and Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurds. The World’s Middle East correspondent Quil Lawrence explains that Iraqi Kurdistan has waged a long public relations campaign to brand itself as “the ...

From the seducing tribesman to the controlling sheik to the bomb-wielding terrorist, Hollywood has consistently broad brushed Arabs with caricature and cliché. But can an Arab be an American film hero? Hollywood is starting to believe that he can.

Director Brian De Palma clashed with producers of his controversial new Iraq war film, Redacted, over their decision to censor portions of real photos from the end of the movie. We speak with De Palma and legal scholar James Boyle.

During a speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention last month, President Bush invoked a host of historical analogies to buttress his case for sticktoitiveness in Iraq. But what can we really learn from looking at Vietnam or Cambodia or Korea? Brooke dwells on the past.

Stories this week about the Iraq War policy debate sat next to others about the anniversary of September 11th. A more deliberate attempt to link the anniversary and the war came in a series of TV spots from the conservative group ...

This week brought the long-awaited congressional testimony from General David Patraeus. Subsequent chatter centered on Iraq War policy, but a sub-narrative emerged in the media: should Democrats condemn a MoveOn.org advertisement? MoveOn's Tom Mattzie defends the controversial ad.

This week in Baghdad began another crimes-against-humanity trial for 15 flunkies of Saddam Hussein, accused in the massacre of Shia in the wake of the first Gulf War. Journalist Christopher Hanson says that – amid the euphoria of military triumph - the story was undercovered at ...

Frances Harrison was the BBC bureau chief in Tehran for three years, during which time Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime instated a harsh crackdown on journalists and Iranian citizens. Harrison completed her post recently and reflects on her time there.

There were decisive movements in the ongoing battle over the image of the war and its soldiers this week. For some, an image of heroic soldiers tells the right story. For others, images of soldiers’ bad behavior tells the real story. Brooke tallies the score.

Iraqi insurgent groups are mostly shadowy bands of nationalist or Islamist factions from whom we never hear, except in internet posts. Guardian reporter Seumas Milne says that some now wish to open a dialogue with Western media. And he believes that journalists are obliged to listen.

How did Al Jazeera respond to the detention of one of its employees? For over a year, they didn’t. Al Jazeera producer Ahmad Ibrahim produced a documentary about al-Hajj’s case. He says there was no response because Al Jazeera had little information and a lot of ...

Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj is the only journalist in Guantanamo, detained without charge for more than five years. Recent court decisions could affect his and other detainees' challenges to their imprisonments. Washington Monthly editor Rachel Morris tells al-Hajj’s story in this month’s Columbia ...

There’s been a lot of debate lately over how much trouble al Qaeda in Iraq is really causing. One way of gauging the group’s relative strength is to look at their media output. In a new report from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, analyst Daniel ...

Despite the many obstacles to reporting on military contractors, a few journalists have pursued the story. Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise Of The World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, talks about what it takes to see even a small part of the contracting

U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now outnumber military combat troops there. But you’d never know that from listening to officials and watching the news. Political scientist Deborah Avant talks about why the war’s privatization is slipping through the media’s cracks.