[Media-watch] Media, newsgathering, sources and Iraq - 3 pieces - 16/04/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

Snipped to reduce volume.
JA
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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18436
Managing the Message

By Bill Berkowitz

April 16, 2004

In Iraq these days, Bush Administration media manipulators appear to be
spread about as thin as U.S. troops itself. Made up of former Bush campaign
workers and PR hotshots, Team Bush's spinmeisters in country are still
trying to shine a positive light on the administration's bountiful blunders.
With the number of U.S. soldiers killed ticking ever upwards and reports of
a U.S. military massacre of women and children in Fallujah, even the most
sycophantic reporter is no longer interested in doing a piece about a newly
painted school or a renovated soccer field.


According to columnist Molly Ivins, the Bush media team's press releases -
with headlines such as "Beautification Plan for Baghdad Ready to Begin," and
"The Reality Is Nothing Like What You See on Television" - reflects just how
out of touch the occupation press people are.

[... Snipped. More at URL]

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http://www.pressaction.com/pablog/archives/001632.html

April 16, 2004 How the "mainstream" media enables the Bush administration
and why they'd be happy to do the same for Kerry and friends.

By Micah Holmquist

Bush's recent press conference is a prime example of how the "mainstream"
press assists in government distortions and manipulations.

Reporters asked Bush about parallels between the current occupation of Iraq
and "Vietnam," but the president's assertion that what the United States
faces in Iraq is "not a popular uprising" went unchallenged. Bush faced a
question about the missing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but nothing
on the problem in his logic when he argued Saddam Hussein was a threat
against the United States "because he hated us." One journalist asked Bush
if he had "failed in any way to really make the case [about the importance
of what the U.S. is doing in Iraq] to the American public?" but the
possibility that Bush doesn't have a case to make publicly never came up.

The message from these reporters - all of whom are representatives of news
organizations "mainstream" enough so as to be allowed to ask questions of
the president - was clear. They will ask "tough" questions about matters
that have already been discussed on cable news and talk radio by people who
are nearly exclusively interested in promoting the Democrats or Republicans,
but nothing will be done to undermine the foundations of U.S. policy with
regard to the "war on terror."

There's a reason for this. It isn't that these reporters are all merely
incompetent or uncritical, although many indeed are. Assistant Professor of
Communication at the University of Pittsburgh Jonathan Sterne argues in an
essay published by Bad Subjects last year that the problem resides in the
process of newsgathering. Needing sources and facing tight deadlines, Sterne
argues, reporters rely on government sources because they are accessible,
accommodating and often the only conduit for information. This last quality
in particular sets up the dynamic that was in play at Bush's press
conference. When comments are requested from other sources, many, if not
most, of which are either cheerleaders or mindless critics of one side or
another, the issue is still likely to be framed as the government sources
want it to be.

[... Snipped. More at URL, text has links in original.]

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http://technicianonline.com/story.php?id=009441

04/16/2004

Alexander Sheppard

Media omitting crucial facts
Posted: 04.16.2004
Alexander Sheppard
I'd like to go back and take a closer look at some of the death tolls that I
listed in "End ROTC programs at State," two articles ago. I want to list
some of the sources where I got this information; I think maybe a lot of
people thought I just pulled it out of a hat or something. That is quite
understandable, this kind of information is almost never prominent in the
mainstream media. I can't remember the last time there was a front-page
article in any of the big papers titled "10 thousand civilians killed in
Iraq." Can you?

[... Snipped. More at URL.]

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