The Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press has issued an updated report showing "how the war on terrorism affects access to information and the public's right to know." The report includes sections on "covering the war," "military tribunals," "domestic coverage," and "the USA PATRIOT Act." The World Press Institute has just issued a similar report. "The situation for journalists has become even more dangerous," states its 2002 World Press Freedom Review.

The movie musical "Chicago" may be in line for the Best Picture award at this year's Oscars, but it gets a "Thumbs Down" Hackademy Award from the American Lung Association (ALA) for its numerous scenes involving cigarette or cigar smoking. Two of the main stars of the movie smoke regularly throughout the film. Catherine Zeta-Jones smokes even while dancing, even though very few women actually smoked during the period when the movie was set. "Thousands of girls are going to start smoking because of that movie," said physician and anti-tobacco activist Stanton Glantz citing the "That's going to go down as one of the classic pro-smoking movies in history. If they had eliminated every single bit of tobacco from that film it could have been just as good." Glantz believes that tobacco company "product placement" - where corporations pay producers to include their products in films - has helped fuel a cinematic tendency to depict smoking as glamorous.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia banned broadcast media from his speech on March 19 at an appearance where he received an award for supporting free speech. "That was one of the criteria that he had for acceptance," said James Foster, executive director of Cleveland's City Club, which gave Scalia its "Citadel of Free Speech Award."

"The Bush administration has frequently compared the level and scope of international support for its military operations in Iraq to the coalition that fought the first Persian Gulf War," reports Glenn Kessler. "But the statements are exaggerations, according to independent experts and a review of figures from both conflicts." The so-called "coalition of the willing is almost entirely a U.S.-British campaign, with virtually no military contribution from other countries except Australia. "It's a baldfaced lie to suggest that" the coalition for this war is greater than that for the 1991 war, said Ivo H. Daalder, a former Clinton administration official who supports the war against Iraq. "Even our great allies Spain, Italy and Bulgaria are not providing troops."

"Bush administration officials once referred to Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite network based here, as 'All Osama All the Time' for its regular showings of Al Qaeda video tapes and frequent appearances by anti-American commentators," write Jane Perlez and Jim Rutenberg. Last week, however, several U.S. officials accepted an invitation to a barbecue in at the home of Al-Jazeera's news director. "The party was one sign of how aggressively the Bush administration has embraced Al Jazeera as Washington fights the propaganda front of the Iraqi conflict. With all but one of the major American television networks now out of Baghdad - only CNN remains - Al Jazeera is likely to become a major source for Baghdad coverage."

"As the first bombs rain down on Baghdad, CorpWatch has learned that thousands of employees of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, are working alongside United States troops in Kuwait and Turkey under a package deal worth close to a billion dollars. According to US Army sources, they are building tent cities and providing logistical support for the war in Iraq in addition to other hot spots in the 'war on terrorism,'" CorpWatch writes. "While recent news coverage has speculated on the post-war reconstruction gravy train that corporations like Halliburton stand to gain from, this latest information indicates that Halliburton is already profiting from war time contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars."

"The new US war on Iraq has begun: arguably the greatest moral tragedy of a generation, an unprecedented failure of diplomacy and international order, and a profound crime against the principles of democracy," the Independent Media Center wrote in a statement calling on citizens to seek out news from and create news stories for their nearest IMC. "The Bush administration pushed relentlessly towards this war with a long series of incredible lies about virtually every aspect of the current conflict--US intentions, international law, weapons inspections, Iraq's likely military status and the amount of international support for Bush administration aims. Applauded by American corporate interests and cheered on by media institutions, the Bush administration's unilateral drive to war has been actively opposed by most of the world's people, governments and international institutions. Nobody on Earth will wake up safer tomorrow than they did today."