AP journalists prevented from entering Bahrain to cover Grand Prix; Thomson Reuters sponsoring team

Two writers for the Associated Press (AP) are being prevented by the Bahraini government from entering the country to cover the Grand Prix scheduled for Sunday:

The two writers, based in Dubai, were expected to cover practice and qualifying along with Sunday's race. They have been granted accreditation to cover the race by the sport's governing body, the Paris-based International Automobile Federation. But they have been told by Bahrain's Information Affairs Authority that their visa applications to enter the kingdom are pending approval.

Other Gulf-based journalists working for international news organizations also had not received visas in time to cover Thursday's practice.

"We cover sports events throughout the world, under all kinds of circumstances, and we see no reason that journalists should be prevented from coverage in Bahrain," AP Managing Editor for Sports Lou Ferrara said. "The government should not dictate or prohibit sports coverage in any way."

The Bahrain GP was canceled last year because of anti-government protests, which have left nearly 50 dead since February 2011. But last week, Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone declared the Gulf kingdom safe and decided to go ahead with the race.

Ecclestone said all 12 teams told him they were happy to travel to the island nation despite almost daily violent clashes between security forces and protesters.

Bahrain's Information Affairs Authority, which governs press issues in Bahrain, claims that the visas are being held up by "logistics."

Bahrain last year tightened its visa rules, including requiring advance clearance for journalists. Previously, journalists and others from many Western countries could receive visas upon arrival.

The AP and other news organizations have come under pressure from Bahraini officials and public relations consultants for extensive coverage of the uprising and anti-government groups.

Reuters maintains offices at Bahrain's $1.5 billion Bahrain Financial Harbour, but in May of last year, the Bahraini government expelled the one Reuters correspondent assigned to cover the country.

Thomson Reuters is a sponsor of the Williams team which is entered for Sunday's race.

Acquiring the critics

As per his bio on Facebook, Sir Harold Evans is a celebrated author, historian and journalist.  Evans was Editor of The Sunday Times of London from 1967 to 1981 and has written extensively on the turpitude of media propaganda.  Indeed, we quote Evans in our right sidebar:

"Propaganda is persuading people to make up their minds while withholding some of the facts from them."

On December 11th of last year, The Daily Beast published an article-cum-book review by Evans highlighting the duplicity and use of propaganda by the Palestinian Authority:

Leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA), including its chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, and prime minister, Salam Fayyad, stand accused of systematically deceiving the international community by portraying themselves in English as pursuing peace while in their Arabic-language media they relentlessly propagate hate speech and venerate terror.

The overall tone of the piece is one of shock and dismay and Evans posted a link to the article on his Facebook page at the time of publication.

We posted a comment under Evans' link noting that Reuters too, deceives its audience by employing propaganda to advance Palestinian interests and we linked to an academic study by Roosevelt University documenting Reuters use of propaganda and its powerful effect on readers.

Our comment has now been deleted from Evans' Facebook page.

Of interest: Evans was recently hired as Editor at Large for Reuters.

Pot, meet kettle

In a story about two suicide bombings in Syria last Friday and the government-run media's heavy focus on the bloodshed for propaganda purposes, Reuters correspondents Alistair Lyon and Erika Solomon demonstrate their practiced understanding of the way media companies employ heavily biased messaging to manipulate audiences: 

State media, often selective in their approach to news, devoted blanket coverage to the bombings, showing graphic footage of the victims and featuring interviews that drove home a single message.

Now, if they could only apply that same insight to their own reporting.