BANNED IN NIGERIA. The so-called reform government of Nigeria has banned live BBC reports from its airwaves. This story on the BBC website doesn't do it justice - this morning I heard a report on the BBC World Service (broadcast locally by WBUR Radio, 90.9 FM) that featured an Orwellian interview with a Nigerian official, based in London, as to how live foreign newscasts could endanger national security.

MAKING SENSE OF FALLUJA. News Dissector Danny Schechter's indispensable weblog is the place to go this morning for a media roundup of the horror in Falluja yesterday. He writes:

Here, the US government is caught in a trap of its own making: it is in too deep to leave and has no real exit strategy because officials know how unprepared the Iraqis in the US-appointed Governing Council are to run things.

Meanwhile, the English-language website of the Arab news organization Al-Jazeera is curiously subdued on the attacks. The incident barely rates a tease on the home page, and the Falluja killings and mutilations are relegated to the second item in a roundup.

Interesting news judgment, given how obsessively Al-Jazeera lingered over images of death and dismemberment during the war last year.

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby picked a bad day to say how great things are going in Iraq.

NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. Boston's dueling dailies, the Globe and the Herald, have entered a new phase of their long rivalry - one that threatens to consign the Herald to irrelevance.

Also, why can't you buy the anti-war documentary Uncovered at Wal-Mart?