Do what we see in today’s wars actually reflect what is happening on the ground? Despite the abundance of information, in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), the broader picture is shaped by restrictions, manipulation, and content engineered to appear real. This article examines and analyses this shift in the coverage of war.

More than three and a half decades ago, during the Second Gulf War in 1991 following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the world witnessed one of the first wars to be broadcast live, around the clock, from the ground. Some observers went so far as to call it a “video game war.”

As technology and communications advanced, the world seemed to shrink into a global village. The rise of the citizen journalist—capturing events in real time and publishing them instantly—reinforced the belief that access to information had become easier than ever. The era when news reached audiences only after events had already passed, overtaken by more urgent developments, seemed to be over.

But the current war—between Iran on one side and Israel and the United States on the other—forces a reassessment of that assumption.

In wartime, many governments come to view media freedom as a dangerous luxury. Restricting “hostile” media, combating “propaganda,” and suppressing information deemed harmful to public morale or military operations are framed as necessary measures. This war has seen sweeping restrictions on media work across all involved countries and their neighbours—alongside the emergence of a new kind of propaganda shaped by the logic of the AI age.

The Media at the Frontline: Restrictions and Targeting

In September 2025, the United Nations described the war in Gaza as the deadliest conflict in history for journalists, with more than 252 killed, many directly and deliberately targeted by Israel.

During the current war, launched by the United States and Israel on 28 February 2026, journalists are facing increasingly restrictive and hostile conditions. Arrests, obstruction of reporting, destruction of media infrastructure, and severe restrictions on coverage have become widespread.

By 19 March, the Committee to Protect Journalists had documented the killing of three journalists, threats or attacks against eight others, the destruction of eight media institutions in Israeli airstrikes, the arrest or questioning of five journalists, and the obstruction of ten more across Israel, Iran, Lebanon, and beyond.

In Lebanon, an Israeli strike wounded two reporters from Russia Today in Tyre. Another strike killed a Lebanese journalist working for Al-Manar TV in Beirut. Additional strikes destroyed the headquarters of a newspaper in Saksakiya in southern Lebanon, as well as Radio Voice of Joy in Tyre, Radio Al-Nour, and the Al-Manar TV building in Beirut’s Haret Hreik.

In Iran, an Israeli strike damaged parts of the Sazandegi newspaper building in Tehran, while a joint US-Israeli strike in Qom killed a former director of the Tasnim News Agency. Iran, for its part, threatened to target satellites and infrastructure linked to Iran International, accusing it of waging psychological warfare against the Iranian public.

In Israel, police obstructed the work of a Roya News correspondent in the Galilee, as well as Al-Araby TV and Al-Ghad correspondents in Haifa—most of them Palestinians from the territories occupied in 1948. A Times of Israel reporter received death threats aimed at influencing his coverage of missile attacks. Israeli authorities also detained two Turkish journalists for six hours at the Egypt–Israel crossing, and arrested a CNN Turk reporter and cameraman during a live broadcast from Tel Aviv.

In countries indirectly involved in the conflict, members of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces obstructed a Rudaw TV crew in Kirkuk. Meanwhile, the UAE and Bahrain warned citizens and residents against filming or sharing images of sites damaged by Iranian strikes.

Across the board, governments have sought to prevent the publication of images showing strike locations, missile trajectories, or launch sites.

Access to information has also been curtailed. In Iran, media access outside Tehran is nearly non-existent. Agence France-Presse (AFP), which maintains a bureau in the capital, reported being unable to visit the site of a strike on a school in the town of Minab, where more than 150 people—most of them children—were killed. Instead, it has relied on interviews with people who fled the country and on social media posts.

Internet shutdowns in Iran have added another layer of complexity. Journalists have resorted to encrypted apps or smuggling reports out of the country. While limited access has been restored for select users, connectivity remains restricted and intermittent. Iranian authorities are acutely aware that the internet facilitates infiltration, enables communication between operatives, and connects the public to external media—threatening both official narratives and domestic morale.

Israel, meanwhile, has long imposed military censorship on sensitive operations, but restrictions have intensified during this war. Live broadcasts of city skylines during air raid sirens have been banned. Filming air defence systems—previously a defining visual of the June 2025 war—has also been prohibited. Coverage of civilian damage is permitted, but without revealing precise locations or sensitive military details. Additional restrictions have extended to social media content.

Governments justify these measures as necessary to prevent real-time intelligence leaks that could expose targets to attack, and to preserve public morale.

The result is paradoxical: in an age defined by unprecedented connectivity, we are witnessing a war with remarkably limited visual documentation and fragmented reporting. For the casual observer, the sheer scale of misinformation makes it difficult to grasp what is actually happening.

AI Propaganda

In the past, propaganda was labor-intensive, requiring networks of spies, local operatives, and physical infrastructure to spread rumours. Today, it can be conducted remotely through social media platforms and satellite channels. Internal actors—shaped by sectarian and ethnic divisions exacerbated over decades of conflict—also play a role in amplifying these narratives.

In The Baghdad Set: Iraq Through the Eyes of British Intelligence, 1941–1945, Canadian author Adrian O’Sullivan describes how British and German agents, including Freya Stark, spread propaganda in Iraq during the Second World War. They relied on embassy events, elite networks, pharmacies, German kindergartens in Baghdad, journalists, missionaries, and even tea gatherings among Jewish women to circulate narratives. It was painstaking work that required a physical presence. Today, public opinion is reshaped through the mass flooding of digital platforms with targeted messaging.

While Israel has deployed AI in weapon systems and precision targeting, cyber experts suggest that Iran has flooded platforms such as X, Instagram, and Bluesky with coordinated campaigns. These campaigns exploit the unpopularity of the war within the United States—including among supporters of Donald Trump—in an effort to generate domestic pressure against continued involvement.

At the same time, AI-generated images have circulated widely, falsely depicting successful strikes on the USS Abraham Lincoln and Israeli soldiers fearing of Iranian retaliation. Fabricated satellite imagery has also been used to claim significant military achievements, garnering millions of views.

Images have long been seen as evidence that persuades the mind. But today, the average viewer struggles to distinguish between authentic visuals and AI-generated fabrications. Many Iraqis have participated in spreading such content—either because they cannot identify it as false, or because it aligns with what they want to believe. This is compounded by structural issues: financial pressures, politically controlled media funding, restrictions on press freedom, and an environment that stunts the development of young journalists.

The Future of Journalism

In this increasingly complex landscape, and amid growing questions about the future of traditional journalism, professional, on-the-ground reporting is more essential than ever.

Without it—and acknowledging that absolute neutrality in media is a myth—the picture becomes even more obscured. A climate of uncertainty takes hold, making it harder for both the public and policymakers to form positions, while opening the door to manipulation through external propaganda or the illusion of victory constructed by internal narratives.

AI-generated content has, paradoxically, made professional journalism more important. It has also created a new domain of work: debunking misinformation. Where journalism once focused primarily on uncovering facts, it must now also actively refute falsehoods. Fact-checking has become a field in its own right—defending truth and protecting audiences from deception.

As newsrooms increasingly turn to large language models to produce reports—and sometimes even analytical pieces—the only truly irreplaceable contribution becomes the work of reporters on the ground: the information they gather, the images captured by photographers and camera crews.

In this landscape of distortion, these remain the last anchors of reality. Indeed, the opacity surrounding this war underscores, more than ever, the indispensable role of journalism—not only in documenting the present, but in preserving the historical record for the future.

This article was originally published in Arabic, in partnership with the Iraqi Network for Investigative Journalism (NIRIJ), available here.