[Media-watch] What if Iraq media coverage was scrutinized like CBS documents? - Democracy Now / MacArthur - 21/09/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/21/1348226

Tuesday, September 21st, 2004
What if Iraq Media Coverage was Scrutinized Like CBS
Documents?


What if the model being used to dissect Dan Rather and
CBS News was applied to all of the corporate media for
their coverage in the build up to the invasion of
Iraq? We speak with Harper's publisher Rick MacArthur
who says "there would have been no war." [includes
rush transcript]

    * John R. (Rick) MacArthur, publisher of Harpers
Magazine and author of the book Second Front:
Censorship and Propaganda In the Gulf War.
___________

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: We're also joined by Rick MacArthur, who
is Publisher of Harper’s Magazine. Welcome to
Democracy Now!, Rick. Your response to this
controversy, to Dan Rather, to the memos.

RICK MACARTHUR: Well, I'm appalled by Dan Rather,
because I think -- or by–I don't know that Dan Rather
has done any reporting in 30 years, but he is the
supervisor of his producers–and as an investigative
reporter, I just -- I can’t believe how stupid they
were. I mean, you have to ask yourself: have they ever
read any history? Do they know anything about the
Hitler diaries? You remember the Hitler diaries? Stern
in Germany bought these forged diaries, and before you
knew it, even one of the most famous historians of
Nazi Germany, Hugh Trevor-Roper, had been conned.
Harper’s Magazine itself published a document about
ten, twelve years ago about George Bush Senior's
record as a navy pilot because he strafed some
survivors of a Japanese lifeboat. The press covered it
up, didn’t want to publish it. We did it after the
election, after Clinton beat him. But when you check
out a document, you take it to the source. You take it
all the way to the source. The idea that they would
actually go with a story without actually -- without
following it to the National Guard archive or to the
Pentagon and verifying its actual authenticity is just
mind-blowing; but it's not surprising, I guess, given
Rather's terrible record. Don't forget that he was
practically saluting Bush on David Letterman famously
after 9/11. He said “All -- He's my
commander-in-chief. All he has to do is tell me where
to line up and I'll do it.” Even on the Abu Ghraib
scandal, which they did break (I mean, we have to give
CBS credit for putting it on the air), they called
General Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, once they had the pictures and the evidence,
confronted him with it, and he said, “Well, give me a
couple of weeks. Please don't do the story,” and they
sat on it for two weeks! And then later said, “Well,
we went with the story because -- only because it was
going to break on the internet.” Not because it was
the right thing to do. So now, the -- you have a case
of crazy overcompensation, but incredible incompetence
by CBS. I don't want to sound like an old geezer, I'm
48 years old, but I talk to journalism classes, I talk
to a lot of young people going to journalism, and I --
I sort of say flippantly, “We don't have any reporters
anymore; people don't know how to do journalism
anymore,” and I guess I wasn't exaggerating. Here you
got a 72-year-old guy with some experience. He doesn't
know what he's doing! It's just unbelievable.

AMY GOODMAN: Let's also remember that the same
producer who did this story on Bush's National Guard
record and got the documents is the one who got the
photos in the Abu Ghraib case.

RICK MACARTHUR: She did get the photos.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes. Same producer.

RICK MACARTHUR: Well, I give her credit for that; but
I'm just saying that CBS doesn't have a great record.
Rather doesn't have a great record on, I don't know,
doing thorough and accurate journalism as Rather
piously said last night. They specialized in not
asking the tough questions. This was gratuitous, too.
What did we need this for? The record is clear that
Bush was given preferential treatment. Just getting
into the Guard was a clear case of getting
preferential treatment. What was the purpose -- what
purpose did this serve?

AMY GOODMAN: I’ve been listening to Bill O'Reilly and
Sean Hannity as we were driving into Colorado Springs
last night, listening to Hannity's radio show. It’s
been amazing to listen to them talk about here,
getting these documents, not investigating, going with
what they believed, which proved that they were
partisan. It's interesting to look at that and compare
it to what all the media, not just Fox, did in the
lead-up to the invasion. The kind of scrutiny they
said that Dan Rather should use. Can you look at that
model, what it would have meant in the lead-up to the
invasion, what the corporate media should have done?

RICK MACARTHUR: Rather, also remember, got the highest
rating from Brent Bozell’s right-wing media watchdog
group -- I forget which one it’s called, what the
title -- what the name of it is -- for his coverage of
the Iraq war, of the invasion. In other words, he was
-- CBS and Dan Rather were the most superpatriotic,
pro-war, or sympathetic to the war, network among all
of the networks. They got a higher grade even than
Fox. So when you talk about the corporate media, you
have to understand that you’re talking about the kept
media; and the kept media follows the wishes, follows
the tendencies, follows the interests of power, and in
this case, power in the form of the Bush
Administration wanted the war. They wanted to go into
Iraq, and Rather and company went along for the ride
and distinguished themselves in the eyes of the
right-wingers. I hope that people point out Dan
Rather's high grade from Brent Bozell when Hannity and
company starts to -- talking about the liberal media
again, saying, “Oh, look at the liberal media trying
to get Bush.” It's preposterous. Rather was in the bag
during the invasion.

AMY GOODMAN: What about all of the media? What about
all of the media applying this same level of scrutiny
to the issues of weapons of mass destruction?

RICK MACARTHUR: Well --

AMY GOODMAN: The whole issue of --

RICK MACARTHUR: If we’d had the kind of energy that
Rather –it's incompetent, but it does show some
initiative and energy–that he showed in this
investigation, in theory, there would have been no
war. The New York Times, as I’ve said a hundred times,
distinguished itself in its production of fraudulent
information, which was all served to them by White
House, supporting the thesis that Saddam was on the
verge of getting an atomic bomb. It was all false.
There was plenty of evidence to the contrary; but The
New York Times and the Washington Post just went out
of their way to promote the fraudulent premise of the
war. So did most of the rest of media. There are a
couple of distinguished exceptions: The Knight-Ridder
Washington Bureau, sorry to promote myself, me, and
anybody who put Scott Ritter on TV or radio; but
beyond that, there wasn't any real scrutiny. On the
contrary, there was promotion of the and advancing of
the administration lies about w.m.d., which I hesit
--It's about -- remember it's not about weapons of
mass destruction, back when it counts; it's about an
atomic bomb threat. That's what they were promoting,
which was the most preposterous of all of the premises
put forth.

AMY GOODMAN: Rick MacArthur, I want to thank you very
much for being with us, Publisher of Harper’s Magazine
– and Jim Moore, author of, among other books, Bush's
Brain. This is Democracy Now!


	
	
		
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