There have been moments since September 11th…
When, for instance, I zapped channels after Colin Powell’s UN presentation and found the full range of televised opinion stretched from Condi Rice (who helped write the speech) to former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, hauled out of retirement to support it, that I thought, well, if I were in the Soviet Union, I’d know exactly what I was watching — a propaganda system. It’s a point Toronto Sun columnist Eric Margolis makes in his scathing column this week. But, of course, the American media is something far more complex and curious — and so, far more effective — than a Soviet-style propaganda system.
It certainly is a way of life. A recent USA Today piece, for instance, had the following talleys:
“Of 414 stories on the Iraqi question that aired on NBC, ABC and CBS from Sept. 14 to Feb. 7, [Andrew] Tyndall [identified as “a news analyst”] says that the vast majority originated from the White House, Pentagon and State Department. Only 34 stories originated from elsewhere in the country, he says.
“Similarly, a check of major newspapers around the country from September to February found only 268 stories devoted to peace initiatives or to opposition to the war, a small fraction of the total number.
“‘Most editors and reporters think the diplomatic story — the great power narrative — is more real,’ NYU’s [Jay] Rosen says. ‘And people who move into the White House know how to dominate the news agenda.'”
To the Margolis column I’ve added a couple of pieces on the war coverage we’re likely to get soon (barring further surprises). Chris Hedges, former New York Times war correspondent — one of the rare “unilaterals,” who, in the Gulf War, went his own way outside the Pentagon pool system — comments on the Pentagon’s new “embeds” policy in Editor & Publisher magazine. The real purpose of the policy, Hedges comments, “is to bond, to feel part of a unit, and to get the military good press.”
“Similarly, a check of major newspapers around the country from September to February found only 268 stories devoted to peace initiatives or to opposition to the war, a small fraction of the total number.
“‘Most editors and reporters think the diplomatic story — the great power narrative — is more real,’ NYU’s [Jay] Rosen says. ‘And people who move into the White House know how to dominate the news agenda.'”
To the Margolis column I’ve added a couple of pieces on the war coverage we’re likely to get soon (barring further surprises). Chris Hedges, former New York Times war correspondent — one of the rare “unilaterals,” who, in the Gulf War, went his own way outside the Pentagon pool system — comments on the Pentagon’s new “embeds” policy in Editor & Publisher magazine. The real purpose of the policy, Hedges comments, “is to bond, to feel part of a unit, and to get the military good press.”
If you don’t believe that, check out one embed’s experiences — Andrew Jacobs’ “My Week at Embed Boot Camp” in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.
“All that marching, commiserating and drinking with the Marines makes for warm and fuzzy feelings on both sides. By the end of the training, seen-it-all reporters were raving about military rations and the on-the-record interaction with commanders and lieutenants, who turned out to be genial hosts. One memorable bonding episode was a snowball fight outside the barracks on our final day.”
And then there’s a brief piece by Robert Fisk on how CNN is likely to finish off the job the Pentagon has started on its own. Tom
Bush’s war is not about democracy
By Eric Margolis, contributing foreign editor
The Toronto Sun
March 2, 2003PALM BEACH, Fla. — President George Bush claimed last week his impending war against Iraq would bring peace and democracy to the Middle East, and liberate Iraqis from repression.
At the same time, in a move clearly aimed at intimidating the media, the White House denounced a CBS News interview with Saddam Hussein, in which the Iraqi leader asserted his nation had nothing to do with 9/11 or al-Qaida, as “propaganda.”
Now, I have no love for Saddam’s sinister, brutal regime. The last time I was in Baghdad, in late 1990, the Iraqi secret police threatened to hang me as a spy after I discovered a group of technicians and scientists who had been secretly sent by the British government to produce anthrax and other germ warfare weapons for Iraq to use against Iran.
But what I dislike even more than Saddam’s nasty regime are government lies and propaganda.
To read more Margolis click here
War Correspondent’s Advice: Stay Off the Press Bus
Chris Hedges Covered Many Armed Conflicts
By Barbara Bedway
Editor & Publisher
February 26, 2003On a day the Pentagon was announcing its guidelines for the more than 500 “embedded” reporters accompanying U.S. forces in any attack on Iraq, veteran war correspondent Chris Hedges remained worried about what, on the face of it, might seem extraordinary measures by the Pentagon to facilitate press coverage.
Hedges, who has spent much of the past two decades as a foreign correspondent for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and The New York Times, has been ambushed in Central America, shot at in southern Iraq, shelled in the former Yugoslavia, imprisoned in Sudan, beaten by Saudi military police, captured by the Iraqi National Guard, and deported from Libya and Iran.
To read more on Chris Hedges click here
How the news will be censored in this war
A new CNN system of ‘script approval’ suggests the Pentagon will have nothing to worry about
By Robert Fisk
The Independent
February 25, 2003Already, the American press is expressing its approval of the coverage of American forces which the US military intends to allow its reporters in the next Gulf war. The boys from CNN, CBS, ABC and The New York Times will be “embedded” among the US marines and infantry. The degree of censorship hasn’t quite been worked out. But it doesn’t matter how much the Pentagon cuts from the reporters’ dispatches. A new CNN system of “script approval” – the iniquitous instruction to reporters that they have to send all their copy to anonymous officials in Atlanta to ensure it is suitably sanitised – suggests that the Pentagon and the Department of State have nothing to worry about. Nor do the Israelis.
Indeed, reading a new CNN document, “Reminder of Script Approval Policy”, fairly takes the breath away.
To read more Fisk click here