Well, msfe probably is still sleeping away, dreaming of a world where Saddam was still in power. I'm still waiting for msfe to back up his claim that "western European independent media ... usually" - or maybe even in just one significant instance - "report events in Iraq far more correctly than CNN & FOX networks, who are simply parroting Ari Fleischer´s primitive propaganda lies."
Maybe tomorrow. I can hardly wait.
In the meantime, here's a report from an independent German researcher who reached different conclusions:
German media bias detected in Iraq war
9 April 2003
JENA - German news coverage of the Iraq War is biased against the United States and Britain and is heavily weighted in favour of Saddam Hussein, a leading media analyst told Deutsche Presse-Agentur DPA Wednesday.
The broadcast and print media have largely abandoned objectivity to pander to public opinion surveys showing that more than 80 percent of Germans oppose the US- and British-led war, Jena University mass-communications professor Georg Ruhrmann said in a DPA interview.
"Public opinion is against the war and that has determined the way in which the war is being covered," he said, adding, "This is a worrying tendency."
Coalition forces are portrayed as the aggressors in the war, he said.
"Often the German media scan over the fact that it was a repulsive dictatorship which led to this war," he told DPA.
"At the same time, the German coverage conveys the impression that the US administration is wholly unified," he said. "This however is not the case. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stand for example at opposite poles of opinion."
The media professor at Jena University in eastern Germany said many broadcasters and newspapers in Germany had turned the war into "a mega-event".
"They focus on dramatic images and tend to overlook background which could put events into perspective," the analyst said.
"The problem is the failure to coordinate the flood of images with coherent coverage which includes insightful background specials aired in prime time viewing hours. That is wholly lacking on German television," Ruhrmann added.
"In addition, the German viewing public in general does not have a very profound knowledge either of America or the Arab world," he said. "And that too is reflected in the superficial news coverage by German broadcasters."
http://www.expatica.com/germany.asp?pad=190,205,&item_id=30334
His words were very mild compared to those of some other independent observers.