[Media-watch] Saving America is responsibility of US Media - 2/4/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2004%20opinions/April/2o/Saving%20America%20is%20the%20responsibility%20of%20the%20US%20media%20By%20Marwan%20Al%20Kabalan.htm
Saving America is the responsibility of the US media 

By Marwan Al Kabalan







Gulf News, April 2, 2004


Anyone interested in the study of state-press relations in the United States would have noticed that since coming to power, the Bush administration has been immune to a wide-scale media criticism on foreign policy-related issues. Criticism - whatever little there was - almost disappeared after the September 11, 2001 attacks, as the media stood by the Bush administration on every single foreign policy question. 

To a large extent, it echoed the voices and reflected the dominant views in the foreign policy establishment, garnering domestic and international support for official policies. The stance against terrorism replaced the ideological bond of the Cold War and led to a new consensus shaped largely by patriotism and America's exceptional position in world history. 

In the aftermath of 9/11, the media accepted the role of an indentured servant for the foreign policy elite because it was expected to be patriotic in a global battle in which so much was at stake. It disseminated information and presented certain views in order to ensure that the strategic interests of the US were served and well protected. The US media committed itself totally to this role, particularly during the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. In these two cases, very few expected the media to take the risk, oppose policy, and, subsequently, be branded unpatriotic. 

In the past few weeks, however, the media have started challenging the official agenda by putting on the news divisive issues and by giving space for opposing views. This new line of coverage should not be understood as part of the investigative traditions of the US media - as some American journalists have us believe. Rather, the media became critical of the policies because they detected weakness in the executive, and divisions among the ruling elite. 

Policy-makers are getting increasingly weary of the situation in Iraq and the outcome of the "war on terrorism", particularly after the Madrid bombings. They are also becoming less certain about their policy concerning a wide range of international issues and, hence, are unable to feed the media and the public a consistent policy line. 

In the past few months, Democrats have started questioning the motives for going to war in Iraq after the US failed in finding Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction. But, this was something quite normal, given the partisan nature of the domestic debate in an election year. 

Hence, the Bush administration did not seem to be particularly concerned about the Democrat offensive. 

However, things became serious last week when an administration insider launched the first major attack against the president. In his book, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror", Richard Clarke, former White House counter-terrorism co-ordinator, asserted that President Bush had "failed to act prior to September 11 on the threat from Al Qaida despite repeated warnings and then harvested a political windfall for taking obvious yet insufficient steps after the attacks." 

He also questioned the basis for the Iraq war and alleged that Bush had pressed him to find any clue that linked Saddam to 9/11. "Go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this," Bush asked Clarke in a private conversation. Clarke also stated that among the motives for the war were the politics of the 2002 mid-term election. "The crisis was manufactured, and Bush political adviser Karl Rove was telling Republicans to run on the war," Clarke told CBS's 60 Minutes in an interview broadcast recently. 

This was the first detailed portrait of the Bush administration's war-time performance by a major participant and the media seized on it to break the government monopoly on information supply. The Bush administration, by the account of many observers, is the most disciplined government the US has had since the Eisenhower presidency. And this was, indeed, one of its major strengths vis-à-vis the media, the public and the opposition Democrats. 

This discipline has been troubled for the second time in less than three months. In January, former Treasury Secretary, Paul H. O'Neill, resigned from the administration in protest over the handling of foreign policy, making similar accusations regarding both Iraq and the "war on terrorism". 

This must be seen as a positive development. The outbreak of debates among the elites will provide the media with a more regular supply of safe, reportable opposition views to put in the news. This will intensify in the light of the public's insistence on knowing what happened inside the Bush administration after the September attacks and during the planning of the Iraq war. 

When leaks and trial balloons function as devices of elite communication in an election year, the media responds with a frenzied coverage. If this happens, the public debate will slip away from the hands of policy-makers and this will be good for the US, for democracy, for the world, but not for Bush and his neo-conservative clique. 

Dr. Marwan Al Kabalan is a scholar in international relations based in Manchester, UK. He can be contacted at: makabalan at gulfnews.com  
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