tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615135.post109480821135703270..comments2023-08-26T10:34:53.715-05:00Comments on Escape the Okie Zone: On Guard or AWOL?Garvaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18439316429769913477noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615135.post-1095008378127914862004-09-12T11:59:00.000-05:002004-09-12T11:59:00.000-05:00It's like Iraq, all over again!
The administratio...It's like Iraq, all over again!<br /><br />The administration, which successfully mobilized the media and public opinion <br />behind their military venture in Iraq, are using the same techniques to fight <br />a political war against their Democratic opponents.<br /><br />From MediaChannel.org, September 9, 2004<br />By Danny Schechter<br /><br />During the run-up to the war in Iraq and through the US invasion, it was <br />obvious that our media system had signed up as an unofficial megaphone for <br />war. There was a uniformity of perspective, a reliance on the same "facts," <br />and a dismissal of critics and dissenters.<br /><br />Journalists outside America compared our TV coverage to that of a "state-run <br />media" even though most U.S. media outlets are in private hands and nominally <br />competitive with each other.<br /><br />A year and a half later, some journalists and newspapers took a second look <br />at their coverage and acknowledged it had been flawed. There were admissions <br />of misreporting, especially on supporting the government's allegations of <br />weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.<br /><br />These media admissions never rose to the level of institutional post-mortems <br />or real mea culpas. They haven't led to more diversity of perspective, <br />investigative journalism or dissection of government claims. The modalities <br />of coverage continue.<br /><br />The New York Times spent more time and space exposing the fraudulent but <br />minor inventions of a troubled reporter, Jayson Blair, than on its own role <br />in the selling of a war that its own public editor Daniel Okrent would later <br />pinpoint as an "institutional failure."<br /><br />The Washington Post's ombudsman Michael Getler selectively critiqued his <br />newspaper's coverage, as did media correspondent Howard Kurtz. Editorially, <br />the newspaper said little and refused to mount an internal investigation.<br /><br />The three television networks that most Americans rely on for their news and <br />information about the war also said little or nothing. They moved on to other <br />stories without any acknowledgement that the modes of coverage that we saw <br />during the war need to be changed fundamentally.<br /><br />Mili-tainment Goes Political<br /><br />The administration, which successfully mobilized the media and public opinion <br />behind their military venture in Iraq, are using the same techniques to fight <br />a political war against their Democratic opponents. The embedded reporters <br />may be gone but the routines of political coverage and their deferential <br />approach can be relied on to achieve the same results.<br /><br />A new book analyzing the White House spin assesses why the administration's <br />media machine is so successful. In "All the President's Spin," Ben Fritz, <br />Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan explain: "Bush's White House has broken new <br />ground in its press relations strategy, exploiting the weaknesses and <br />failings of the political media more systematically than any of its <br />predecessors. The administration combines tight message discipline and image <br />management – Reagan's trademarks – with the artful use of half- or partial <br />truths and elaborate news management – Clinton's specialties – in a <br />combination that is near-lethal for the press."<br /><br />The authors cite four "key weaknesses" of the press that helps a determined <br />media spin operation get its message – and none other – through: " First and <br />foremost, reporters are constrained by the norm of objectivity, which <br />frequently causes them to avoid evaluating the truth of politicians' <br />statements. In addition, because reporters are dependent upon the White House <br />for news, the administration can shape the coverage it receives by <br />restricting the flow of information to the press. The media are also <br />vulnerable to political pressure and reprisal, which the Bush White House has <br />aggressively dished out against critical journalists. Finally, the press' <br />unending pursuit of scandal and entertaining news often blinds it to serious <br />issues of public policy."<br /><br />The White House handles the press the way TV producers package information: <br />with careful pre-planning, structured themes and packaged infomation. And so <br />the "mili-tainment" we saw during the war has given way to "electo-tainment." <br />The dynamics of coverage remain largely the same: simplistic, superficial and <br />uncritical.<br /><br />Only a few commentators in the media have even commented on the "Iraqization" <br />of our domestic election coverage. Paul Krugman of the New York Times is one <br />of them, writing: ". . .the triumph of the trivial is not a trivial matter. <br />The failure of TV news to inform the public about the policy proposals of <br />this year's presidential candidates is, in its own way, as serious a <br />journalistic betrayal as the failure to raise questions about the rush to <br />invade Iraq."<br /><br />Preceding the war, there were months of demonization of Saddam Hussein. A <br />dictator in a sanctions crippled society that the U.S. had put in power in <br />the first place and armed for years was pictured as prepared to attack the <br />United States or the world, take your pick. He was compared to Adolph Hitler. <br />Time Magazine even redid a 1930's cover once used to chastise the Fuhrer, <br />replacing his face with the "butcher of Baghdad."<br /><br />The Hollywood Playbook<br /><br />To sell its war the administration dipped into the playbook of Hollywood <br />narrative technique, relying on story-telling, not sloganizing. A master <br />narrative was concocted that fit the good guy/bad guy formula that works so <br />well on the silver screen. The narrative was simplified into themes <br />justifying pre-emptive intervention as the only recourse. Corporate PR pros <br />helped plan and execute the strategy. Andrew Card, the President's top aide <br />compared the launch of the war to a "product roll-out."<br /><br />With some modifications, they are doing it again. This time their media plan <br />relies on demonizing John Kerry with repeated charges like "flip flopper" and <br />distorted information about his military service, knowing that a media that <br />readily accepted their WMD claims will do little to scrutinize attacks on the <br />Democratic candidate's character.<br /><br />We heard them endlessly: "The war was forced on us;" "We will either fight <br />them there or here;" "Saddam Hussein was a weapon of Mass <br />Destruction;" "Kerry was for the war until he was against it;" etc., etc.<br /><br />The GOP convention showcased all of these techniques built around vicious <br />personal attacks, and distorted arguments that ignored any and all <br />information that had earlier debunked them. They also used techniques honed <br />in Qatar to build the case for their own political cruise missile: "Dubya." <br />In fact, the administration official who supervised the coalition media <br />center in Doha was brought in to run the GOP's convention press operation.<br /><br />This master narrative for The Garden was a tale of a humble Texan whose <br />character was forged by an epiphany of Biblical proportions after America <br />came under attack by a foreign evil, and who by attacking Iraq has kept <br />American families safe from terror. The conveniently added subplot: bringing <br />freedom, "a gift from the almighty," to those poor Arabs suffering under <br />ruthless extremists in the Middle East.<br /><br />It was as if the 9-11 Commission had never happened, or the Senate <br />Intelligence Committee report was never issued. The Republicans paid no <br />respect to the facts; instead they hammered home a simple, made for TV <br />narrative that delegates could mindlessly repeat like a mantra of received <br />truth.<br /><br />Media Shy Away from a Hard Truth<br /><br />Perhaps you would expect that from politicians but what of the media? Were <br />news organizations fact checking and debunking distortions? A few did but <br />most did not. When their keynote Zell Miller finished his rant, he did find <br />himself challenged aggressively by a few journalists – Chris Matthews on <br />MSNBC and Wolf Blitzer on CNN. That was it. John Stewart featured the <br />confrontations as a high point on his Comedy Central show without mentioning <br />that their challenges were the exception to uncritical coverage.<br /><br />The Washington Post's sometime liberal columnist called Miller's "diatribe" <br />a "Category Five lie," and characterized the speech as "as mad an eruption of <br />hate as I have witnessed in politics. Some time back, Kerry must have dissed <br />Miller. This was personal."<br /><br />But was it? Miller actually published a book that most of the press corps had <br />not bothered to dig out called "A National Party No More," In it he trashes <br />all the Democratic White House hopefuls at the time in the nastiest terms. <br />The Republicans knew where Miller stood even if the press corps didn't bother <br />to find it.<br /><br />Most of the convention was then treated as a triumph for Bush because of <br />his "likeability." His speech was not scrutinized. The largest protest at any <br />convention in American history with more than l,800 arrests, as opposed to <br />600 in Chicago in l968, was contained by police state tactics, treated as a <br />nuisance by the GOP and ignored in most of the press, except on the Sunday <br />before the event began.<br /><br />Ignoring the Protesters at Your Gate<br /><br />The streets around The Garden came to resemble Baghdad's high security Green <br />Zone. There were protests against the media coverage in New York that went <br />largely ignored.<br /><br />I know. I spoke at one outside Fox News and down the block from CNN studios. <br />The only wire story that I read about the event was by Agence France Press on <br />a Turkish news website. I was interviewed by Canadian public radio, not NPR. <br />One newspaper was there: The Toledo Blade.<br /><br />The Blade's Jim Drew wrote: "For those of us with the 'limited access' <br />credentials that couldn't get us on the convention floor, the streets were an <br />option. And the guerrilla reporters found by far the most important and <br />interesting story. In the age of international terrorism, the patriotic right <br />of political dissent in the United States is in crisis."<br /><br />He quoted Peter Hart, of Fairness and Accuracy in Media, which helped <br />organize the march: "Mr. Hart said activists 'demand a more accountable <br />media,' and they marched to the headquarters of 'corporate media' to <br />celebrate the independent and alternative press."<br /><br />"These are the people who sold us a war. The biggest media companies get <br />bigger and bigger based on favors from the government. They sell ideas; that <br />assistance to the poor must be reformed, and free trade is the only way. <br />These are the ideas that the mainstream media are selling – and we're not <br />buying," Hart told Drew.<br /><br />I was quoted too saying, "I've never seen the level of defensiveness in the <br />major media, the level of disenchantment, and the level of dread; journalists <br />on the front lines representing the public in some way feeling they can't <br />play that role."<br /><br />And why? Because their bosses and the culture of corporate news makes it <br />impossible.<br /><br />At least some media outlets have not lost the spirit of independence and <br />crusading that the US press used to be known for. The Toledo Blade's coverage <br />of the protests mirrored its relentless and award winning coverage of war <br />crimes in Vietnam.<br /><br />Not the alleged "crimes" of John Kerry being blasted inside The Garden but <br />real crimes committed in Vietnam 35 years ago by an American military unit <br />that had all but been ignored by major media then and now. The Blade <br />uncovered massacres by US troops and bravely made it news. And now the <br />Pentagon is being forced by their persistence to reopen the issue.<br /><br />And so, once again, the coverage of war or lack of coverage is linked – in <br />this case by a heroic example of a newspaper in a small Ohio city in the <br />heart of a battleground state.<br /><br />The media battle, the political battle and the fight for truth about war have <br />been joined.<br /><br />Danny Schechter writes a daily blog for MediaChannel.org. 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