[Media-watch] FW: Exposing power to the sunlight

[David Miller]

----------
From: MediaLens Media Alerts<editor at medialens.org>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 10:39:19 UT
To: Friend <david.miller at stir.ac.uk>
Subject: Exposing power to the sunlight

MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media


February 14, 2003


MEDIA ALERT: A DAY OF GLOBAL ACTION FOR PEACE

Mainstream media stand exposed

On Saturday 15 February, anti-war demonstrations will be taking place
around the world. The Media Lens co-editors will be joining upwards
of half-a-million peace activists in London. This promises to be the
biggest public protest in British history. We await the mainstream
coverage of this day with interest: not only to see  the extent and
tone of coverage devoted to the public opposition to the Bush-Blair
terror campaign, but also to observe whether the cogent views of
peace campaigners are afforded even one day to undermine many months,
indeed years, of constant deception, omission and outright lies
emanating from the war-mongers in Washington and London.

In the run-up to this momentous day for peace, Media Lens readers
have been responding in force to our media alerts, deluging the
offices of the BBC, ITN, The Guardian, The Observer and The
Independent with emails protesting about weak, biased and distorted
news reporting and analysis, and near-universal media propagation of
the Blair-Bush barrage of warmongering propaganda. The British
public's opposition to war - regardless of any bribery, blackmail or
coercion in any US-UK attempt to rig a fig-leaf second United Nations
resolution - would be almost total if the British media reported
accurately, fairly and responsibly the deceptions of US-UK power.

The disturbing front-cover photograph in Wednesday's Independent,
depicting a malnourished four-year-old Iraqi boy, is an example of
the kind of reporting that ought to have been prominent for the last
twelve years The photograph illustrated foreign editor Leonard
Doyle's news report of the potential humanitarian catastrophe to
come. Doyle noted: "With or without UN Security Council backing, the
looming war on Iraq will have immediate and devastating consequences
for the country's children, more vulnerable now than before the 1991
Gulf War."
('Vulnerable but ignored: how catastrophe threatens the 12 million
children of Iraq', Leonard Doyle, The Independent, 12 February, 2003)

But Doyle still failed to draw a direct link with US-UK culpability
for the ongoing Iraqi 'genocide' (to quote Denis Halliday, former UN
humanitarian coordinator in Iraq). If this is the most enlightened
that liberal reporting ever gets in this country, it shows the
appalling failure of mainstream media to hold our politicians to
account as we stand on the verge of a truly horrendous assault on an
already stricken nation. It is to the credit of the British people
that there is nonetheless such enormous public opposition to our
'leaders' who are quite prepared for others to pay a 'blood price':
elite politicians who, in a truly democratic society, would now be
standing trial for their war crimes in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.


Media Lens readers shame editors and journalists into replying

Journalists, like any professionals, dislike accusations of laziness
or incompetence. These charges are, however, readily shrugged off.
What they really can't stand is being accused of defending or
sheltering elite power. But this is indeed the primary role of
journalists in modern society.  As Harvard professor Samuel 'Clash of
Civilisations' Huntington once rightly observed: "The architects of
power <sum> must create a force that can be felt but not seen. Power
remains strong when it remains in the dark; exposed to the sunlight
it begins to evaporate."
(Quoted, 'Propaganda and the Public Mind: Conversations with Noam
Chomsky', David Barsamian and Noam Chomsky, Pluto Press, London,
2001, page 8)

Below, we present a number of media responses to literally hundreds
of challenges by Media Lens readers. These responses indicate that
editors and journalists feel deeply uncomfortable about having their
output challenged patiently, rationally and persistently. We invite
readers to maintain or even increase public pressure on media outlets
to report honestly and critically, and refuse to allow such outlets
to provide little more than an echo chamber for government
propaganda. In particular, television news on both the BBC and ITV is
execrable in this regard. 
Paxman fails the public

Following our analysis of Jeremy Paxman's Newsnight interview with
Tony Blair (see media alerts section of www.medialens.org; media
alerts dated 10 and 11 February, 2003 ) many readers emailed Paxman:
some in their own words, and others using the letter we had suggested
below:

"Why, in the recent Newsnight interview with Tony Blair (February 6,
2003), did the BBC fail to present even the most basic
counter-arguments to Blair's case for war? Why did you not mention
that Iraq had been "fundamentally disarmed" by 1998, according to
chief UN arms inspector Scott Ritter? Why did you not mention that
Iraq's nuclear capability had been 100% destroyed? Why did you not
raise the fact that limited shelf-lives mean that any residual Iraqi
chemical and biological weapons must by now be harmless sludge? Why
did you not refer to the many credible and authoritative voices
arguing that war on Iraq is about oil and will have the effect of
exacerbating the terrorist threat against the West?"

On 11 February, Jeremy Paxman responded to one Media Lens reader:

"You evidently did not watch the thing. If you honestly believe that
50 minutes of sustained questioning and an audience entirely made up
of critics of the war amounts to some whitewash of Blair, then there
is simply no basis for discussion. Good night."

Although we are pleased to note that Jeremy Paxman at least
responded, his answer is completely dismissive, addressing none of
the points raised. This kind of arrogant refusal to engage with
reasoned challenge is sadly commonplace. However, what it does reveal
is the inability of apparently authoritative journalists to respond
rationally. As we noted in our two-part analysis of Paxman's
interview, audience members were neither sufficiently well-armed with
the basic facts nor adept at pressing home their points: a dual role
which Paxman, the BBC's seasoned 'rottweiler', singularly failed to
perform on the public's behalf.


Liberal smokescreens, establishment guardians

We remind readers that we focus repeatedly and deliberately on the
liberal media, as these delimit the 'acceptable' limit of left-green
dissident expression in the mainstream (see 'FAQ' section at
www.medialens.org for more on this). In almost two years of issuing
media alerts on the abysmal performance of The Guardian in reporting
(or rather not reporting) important issues such as big business
lobbying to stifle measures on combating climate change, deceptive
corporate spin and PR,  massive public subsidies made to private
interests such as the arms industry, the fakery of the 'war on
terror', the west's attack on Afghanistan, the ongoing devastation of
Iraq by genocidal sanctions regime, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger
has never sent more than the very occasional cursory or flippant
reply. A recent example, after a polite and considered challenge by a
Media Lens reader:

"I wonder - from your email - if you actually read the Guardian, or
whether you are responding to a suggested form of words on a website?"

(Email from Alan Rusbridger to Media Lens reader, 7 February, 2003).

This kind of lazy and facetious editorial put-down implies that
people mindlessly respond to Media Lens media alerts as though they
are well-programmed automatons. Thus, an editor need never deign to
pick up the gauntlet and actually engage with the argument presented
to him (see: 'Why the Media Will Not Debate With Media Lens', media
alert, June 19, 2002; www.medialens.org ). Thanks to ever-increasing
persistent and polite pressure of readers' emails, Rusbridger has
finally capitulated and actually formulated a seemingly reasonable
response:

"Thanks for your inquiry, one of a number evidently prompted by Media
Lens. A word on their figures, which claim to prove a pro-war bias in
the Guardian: this is a terribly crude and simplistic way to measure
- or comment on - coverage. Tony Benn's trip to see Saddam was
interesting - and we reported it pretty fully.  But he's not running
the show. George Bush, Tony Blair, Donald Rumsfeld are.  So it would
not amaze me if mentions of these three outnumber the campaigners for
peace by a significant margin.  That reflects the absolute reality of
the situation.  If you read the Guardian regularly you'll know that
we've run numerous comment pieces arguing against the war  - far more
than any other British title.   You'd also know that we've  devoted
huge resources to reporting, analysis and context.  We did seven
pages on Powell's speech - much of it highly sceptical.  The weakness
of the MediaLens approach - which is avowedly  to concentrate on the
liberal and progressive press is that that very process  introduces
its own distortions. So, when  a few people respond to MediaLens's
promptings to write in claiming they'll cancel the Guardian I'm
afraid I'm rather sceptical myself.  I'd be intrigued to learn  which
source of news and comment meets  a higher, more progressive standard
- including standards of accuracy, fairness and truth."

(Email from Alan Rusbridger to Media Lens reader, 7 February, 2003)

We would like to reassure Rusbridger that Media Lens has not been set
up to compete with the Guardian as a "source of news and comment". We
invite him to take a look at the "Frequently Asked Questions" section
at www.medialens.org so that he may clarify in his own mind the aims,
function and motivation of Media Lens. We do, however, agree with
Rusbridger that using the Guardian online archive database to search
for keywords such as "Iraq Donald Rumsfeld" or "Iraq Denis Halliday"
gives only a crude measure of the relative degree and context of
coverage afforded establishment and dissident viewpoints. But Media
Lens has not argued otherwise. The crucial point, which Rusbridger
apparently fails to grasp, is that we provide such search results to
+complement+ the in-depth analysis of the reporting and arguments
that are presented in The Guardian's news and comment pages.
Rusbridger has yet to respond to the many substantive points made in
these alerts.

Moreover, when Media Lens observes that in 2002, The Guardian devoted
almost zero coverage in the comment pages, and zero mentions in the
news pages, to the authoritative views of former UN humanitarian
coordinators in Baghdad, Hans von Sponeck (one comment article) and
Denis Halliday (none), such a 'crude measure' cannot easily be
dismissed.

Rusbridger argues that George Bush, Tony Blair and Donald Rumsfeld
are "running the show". This is so largely because politicians'
deceptive rhetoric is not seriously and repeatedly subject to the
scrutiny it deserves. For example, the scepticism supposedly
displayed by The Guardian towards Powell's speech, or any other
aspect of the ongoing Iraq crisis, is almost invariably within a
narrow framework that excludes radical analysis of the substance of
the policies followed by the UK and the US governments. 'Scepticism'
about Powell's deceptive claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
is one thing; exposing the reality that WMD is a smokescreen for US
hegemony is another: that would be real scepticism. 
If such persistent serious challenges did occur in the mainstream,
then no doubt powerful 'flak' would quickly be deployed by elite
politicians who would likely threaten denial of access to government
sources in the future: a scary prospect indeed for news editors
anywhere. Such extreme measures rarely have to be implemented, simply
because obedient media managers know the acceptable limits of
challenge and behave accordingly. The establishment-friendly 'news'
and 'analysis' that are thus generated serve power and profit, and
not the public need and desire for objectivity, fairness and balance.
Nor is mainstream media output characterised by the rationality,
context, humanity, and the incisiveness of the wealth of material
that appears every day on 'alternative' internet sources, such as the
indispensable ZNet website at www.zmag.org.  Such sites are becoming
increasingly popular, as more and more people question the value,
accuracy and hidden agendas of mainstream news channels.


Observer of falling standards

Many readers have also challenged The Observer, particularly
following its pro-war editorial last month ('Iraq: the case for
decisive action', 19 January, 2003). Roger Alton, the editor, and Ben
Summerskill, assistant editor, have responded thus to Media Lens
readers:

"Thank you very much for your e-mail. As you might imagine, we have
received a number of very similar notes from both readers and
non-readers of the paper.

The Observer seeks, as it always has, to reflect a broad range of
views and sources of information. In the last few weeks alone, we
have carried Ian Fisher's report from Saddam City on what ordinary
Iraqis think about a possible war, a lengthy forensic analysis
undermining claims of a link between al-Zarkqawi and al-Qaeda with
Iraq, a huge exposé in our business pages of who stands to make money
out of a war, Charles Kennedy's utterly passionate denunciation of
the possibility of war, Mary Riddell's columns on our comment pages
arguing the case for being a 'dove', Will Hutton's polemics on the
inadequacies of George Bush, Terry Jones's excoriating attack on Bush
as well.

We have also published huge numbers of letters from readers
supporting and opposing military action in proportion to the number
we have received. We have also recently carried articles by
contributors to other publications such as John Pilger.

It is difficult to see how someone could think we had not welcomed a
range of views into the paper unless, perhaps, they hadn't been
reading it too closely. (Although, of course, there are some
potential contributors such as Tony Benn who have simply refused any
contact.)

We have also received, as you might also imagine, some letters
suggesting that people might no longer buy the Observer. Regardless
of any impact this has financially (it just reduces the resources
available to give coverage to a huge range of important things we
report) this does seem a bizarre, even authoritarian, response to a
suggestion of lack of inclusion.

Should you examine the whole of the Observer carefully over the past
six or seven months, and over the next six or seven, we're sure you
will feel reassured about the variety of coverage within it.

Thanks again for writing. We're always delighted to hear from readers."

Roger Alton (Editor)
Ben Summerskill (Assistant Editor)

(Email dated 8 February, 2003)

Media Lens has demonstrated in case after case over nearly two years
that The Observer has failed abysmally to give due attention to the
abuses of state-corporate power (see archived media alerts). On Iraq,
its editors may feel that they "reflect" a "broad range of views and
sources of information", but the predominant content and tenor of its
news coverage strongly reflects establishment priorities, and
discussion is almost exclusively restricted within boundary
conditions set by US-UK power: such as the doctrine that the reason
for invading Iraq would be to rid the country of alleged weapons of
mass destruction. Reporting that scrutinises power, and truly
rational and challenging analysis, are conspicuous by their absence.
Very occasionally, fig-leaf exceptions do appear, thus maintaining
the illusion of fair, accurate and balanced coverage.

We recall the observation of George Orwell, sadly more relevant now than
ever:

"I really don't know which is more stinking, the Sunday Times or The
Observer. I go from one to the other like an invalid turning from
side to side in bed and getting no comfort which ever way he turns."
(George Orwell, quoted, Bernard Crick, George Orwell, A Life, p.233,
Penguin Books, 1992).


ITN's concern for human rights

On 10 February, we challenged Jonathan Munro, ITN's head of
newsgathering, about his news priorities that day:


Dear Jonathan Munro

Even by the dismal standards of recent ITN reporting, your decision
to promote the Michael Douglas/Catherine Zeta Jones court trial above
the Franco-German peace plan and Nato split over war against Iraq in
today's lunchtime News is truly staggering.

Sincerely
David Edwards
Co-Editor - Media Lens


Munro was very quick to reply, responding within a few minutes:

"I'm sorry, but I can't agree. We are leading the vast majority of
our programmes at the moment with stories related to the war. The
Zeta Jones case is a legally crucial hearing, about human rights such
as privacy. Its outcome will have far reaching implications for the
freedom of the press, and the rights of the individual. It's a very
legitimate lead, especially as the Franco-German plan was in the
public domain over the weekend, and is not a new story for the
Lunchtime News audience.

You have no justification for your sweeping description of our
reporting as 'dismal' - I think you'll find that in London, Baghdad
and New York, we have given enormous amounts of air time to all sides
in the Iraqi debate, and we shall continue to do so. Indeed Trevor
McDonald presented two programmes from Baghdad last week, including
the only British TV interview with Tariq Aziz after the first Blix
report.

Many of the people who forward round-robin e-mails to me and others
about our coverage are clearly not even watching the programmes,
since they make the same points to BBC and ITN executives, regardless
of which network is running stories."


By the 10 o'clock news that evening, the Zeta Jones case had made way
for Iraq as the lead story. In the meantime, we look forward to ITN
continuing to give heavy prominence to human rights issues, such as
privacy.



BBC fails to uphold its self-declared Reithian ideals

Meanwhile, Richard Sambrook, the BBC's director of news, has
responded to similar criticisms regarding the BBC's failure to
provide an accurate and comprehensible view of the ongoing Iraqi
crisis:


"Thank you for your email about our reporting of the situation in
Iraq. I'm afraid I cannot agree with your assertion that we fail to
reflect dissenting voices in the conflict, and that we do not examine
the possible consequences of a war against Iraq. BBC News has
frequently broadcast a range of views including many from those
opposed to war - and we shall continue to do so. In recent months we
have broadcast views from, among others, Noam Chomsky, Dennis
Kucinich, Denis Halliday, Hana Ashwari, Kamila Shamsie, Dr Mercy
Heatley, Ken Loach, Prof. Paul Rogers, Paul Robinson from Hull
University, George Galloway, Scott Ritter, Ken Livingstone, Tony Benn
and the views of citizens in the UK, Iraq and elsewhere in the world
who have all questioned the plans for war. A month ago an entire
edition of Panorama was devoted to "The Case Against War" which
included views from a number of people connected with the US and
British military establishments in the last Gulf War who are opposed
to conflict now.

The BBC will continue to report all issues, including Iraq, with
impartiality and to provide a platform for a wide range of views."

Richard Sambrook
Director, BBC News

(Email dated 7 February, 2003)

Sambrook neatly side-steps the question of why the BBC's coverage is
so heavily slanted towards the government's agenda. Sitting in his
plush directorial office, with a very comfortable salary and an
extensive network of establishment contacts, he may be 'afraid' that
he cannot agree with 'assertions' from viewers about unbalanced BBC
coverage. It is always possible to pick out a few counter-examples to
establishment-friendly reporting: a mildly challenging Panorama
programme here, a dissident allowed a couple of minutes there.

A measure of dissent is marginally more prominent on radio
programmes, but again this is swamped in volume and intensity by
uncritical news reporting and analysis, characterised by the vacuous
BBC1 'debate' hosted by David Dimbleby on Wednesday evening this week
(Iraq: Britain decides, 12 February, 2003). But the overwhelming
pattern is of compliance with a view of the world shaped by power and
profit.

Even the professed need to display "impartiality" is deceptive. As
the Brazilian writer and educator Paolo Freire once noted: "Washing
one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless
means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." (Quoted,
'Propaganda and the Public Mind: Conversations with Noam Chomsky',
David Barsamian and Noam Chomsky, Pluto Press, London, 2001, pp.
214-215)

It is a disgrace to see the publicly-funded BBC raising levels of
domestic fear and terror by repeatedly highlighting government
warnings of 'terrorist threats', and refraining from challenging
seriously the government's agenda, as we have documented in many
media alerts in the last few months. As noted above, so-called
'dissident' (perhaps we ought to say 'rational')  voices are rarely,
if ever, given top billing in television news bulletins. If the BBC
were to host just one peak-time, thirty-minute programme in which any
one of Noam Chomsky, John Pilger or Milan Rai, for instance, were
able to challenge Tony Blair or Jack Straw, then the US-UK supposed
case for war would quickly crumble before the public's eye. But Blair
and Straw can rest easy. There is little risk that a mainstream news
broadcaster would perform such a public duty. War, therefore, becomes
more of an inevitability.

As media analyst W. Lance Bennett once observed:

"The public is exposed to powerful persuasive messages from above and
is unable to communicate meaningfully through the media in response
to these messages<sum> Leaders have usurped enormous amounts of political
power and reduced popular control over the political system by using
the media to generate support, compliance, and just plain confusion
among the public." (Media analyst W. Lance Bennett, quoted in
'Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media',
Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Vintage, London, 1994, p. 303).

On Saturday, 15 February, the US and UK governments will, for once,
be treated to an enormous show of popular support for peace. It may
terrify our leaders, but it will help to liberate us.




SUGGESTED ACTION:

The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and
respect for others. In writing letters to journalists, we strongly
urge readers to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive
tone.

Write to the heads of BBC news and ITN expressing your views:

Richard Sambrook, BBC director of news.
Email: richard.sambrook at bbc.co.uk

Jonathan Munro, head of ITN newsgathering.
Email: jonathan.munro at itn.co.uk

Write to the editors of The Guardian and The Observer:
Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor
Email: alan.rusbridger at guardian.co.uk

Roger Alton, Observer editor
Email: roger.alton at observer.co.uk


Write to the editor and foreign editor of The Independent:
Simon Kelner, Independent editor
Email: s.kelner at independent.co.uk

Leonard Doyle, Independent foreign editor
Email: l.doyle at independent.co.uk


You might like to ask them one or more of the following:

1. Why does your coverage of the Iraq crisis not seriously challenge
the stated reasons by US and UK politicians for going to war.
2. In particular, the US and UK governments have focussed attention
on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, and alleged actual or
possible future links with terrorists, such as the al-Qaeda network.
Why has the overwhelming majority of your coverage been fixed within
this deceptive framework?
3. Why have you not given the same treatment to a more rational
analysis that presupposes a desire for the US to maintain and extend
its hold on global resources, lock foreign countries into US-led
corporate globalisation, and provide a showcase of awesome
destructive military power against a weakened country, as a
demonstration of what will befall any challenger?
4. Why do you allow Tony Blair, Jack Straw and other ministers to
continue repeating myths, deceptions and lies about Iraq and
terrorism?
5. Why have you had so little coverage of the likely effects on the
Iraqi people of a massive assault on Iraq?
6. Why don't you carry any seriously challenging critique of your own
media performance on any issue?

Please copy all your letters to editor at medialens.org

Feel free to respond to Media Lens alerts: editor at medialens.org

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