The Ratings Envelope, Please
February 28th, 2003 - by: danny
*ITS OFFICIAL: SADDAM IS #1
*PHIL DONAHUE DUCT TAPED
*WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT CABLE TV?
Move over Dan Rather, and let another Dan sit behind the desk. I am sure you need a rest after that exhausting round of TV interviews hyping your big interview with that SH, the baddie from Baghdad. We may be racing towards war, but, hat’s off. You won the big war for CBS. The EYE network, as insiders call it, can claim victory, Yes, folks, SADDAM HUSSEIN was #1 in the ratings, and beat out Barbara, the beast, Baretta and the rest of the boobs on the tubes.
When the New York Times reports it, it must be true:
“Hussein Grabs Top Sweeps-Week Ratings in His Prime-Time Debut”Saddam Hussein drew 18 million viewers to CBS on Wednesday night, but some media critics thought Dan Rather was too soft.”
NETWORKS FEAR MONEY WOES
There was no reaction from Saddam, whose “Showdown Iraq” series threatens to become the longest and bloodiest program on the air. As one network cracks open the champagne, high anxiety haunts TV cable newsland. James Welborn explains why on TomPaine.com:
“If and when the bombs start raining down there won’t be any shortage of viewers for either network. What will be in short supply, however, are advertisers. And no advertisers, of course, means no profits.
“According to The New York Times, “Executives of the 24-hour cable news channels — CNN, Fox News and MSNBC — said they expected to suspend all advertising for at least the first few days of a war. Paul Rittenberg, the senior vice president of advertising for Fox News, said the network usually brought in about $1 million in advertising a day. But executives at all three channels said they expected at least a few advertisers to return within weeks, especially if the war ended quickly.
“But that model is predicated on what happened last time around, when the war in Iraq was over almost as quickly as it began. If the new war becomes a protracted affair, the cable news channels could suffer irreparable financial harm. Evidently, none of the sponsors are all that excited about cutting away from a shot of bloody carnage to bring you a warm, fuzzy message about their latest product.”
WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION
As we reported yesterday, despite the impression circulated by Dan Rather that Iraq would not destroy its illegal long-range missiles, he will. That deal was done. Of course the US is glossing over Iraq’s claim that the missiles could not overfly proscribed limits when outfitted with guidance systems and nose cones. This issue is not only technical. It’s all about scoring political power points.. It seems like the UN Security Council is deadlocked over what to do, with the Russians now threatening to veto the proposed new US-British resolution. I watched a CBC report showing how the non-permanent members are being lobbied, wooed, and probably bought. South Africa’s Mail and Guardian reports that some of the non-permanent members may be caving to the pressure. “Angola, Mexico and Pakistan showed signs of buckling when each of their governments issued statements indicating a softening of their previous opposition to the war option.”
(Ed. note: There is growing evidence, cited by Debka, that Iraq’s nuclear weapons were moved to the Bekaa Valley months ago and aimed at the heart of the only democracy in the Middle East.)
“The Foreign Office minister Lady Amos pressed the US-British line at a meeting with the Angolan president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who also received phone calls from the President George Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, the secretary of state, Colin Powell, and the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.
“Although the Angolan government officially denied that there was any change, its foreign minister, Joa Miranda, adopted a noticeably more hawkish tone. Pointing out that Luanda clinched peace via a 27-year civil war, he said: “Angola believes it is possible to wage war to achieve world peace.”
huh?
WHO VETOES THE MOST?
On the question of vetoes, Noam Chomsky has a new booklet out from 7 Stories Press called Power and Terror with his views on many issues including the UN. He opines: “From the 1960s until today, the United States is far in the lead in vetoing resolutions, Britain is second, France is a distant third and the Russians are fourth. It is exactly the opposite of the standard picture.” His statement implicitly indicts most media coverage which is, after all, responsible presenting that “standard picture.”
DEFECTOR SPEAKS
As for weapons, what is real and what’s not? Norman Solomon is reporting that an interview with an Iraqi defector — one of “ours” until recently — is being glossed over in most of the news we see. “You gotta hand it to America’s mass media: When war hangs in the balance, they sure know how to bury a story.
“After devoting thousands of network hours and oceans of ink to stories about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq, major U.S. news outlets did little but yawn in the days after the March 3 issue of Newsweek published an exclusive report on the subject – a piece headlined “The Defector’s Secrets.”
“It’s hard to imagine how any journalist on the war beat could read the article’s lead without doing a double take: ‘Hussein Kamel, the highest-ranking Iraqi official ever to defect from Saddam Hussein’s inner circle, told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N. inspectors in the summer of 1995 that after the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them.’
“The article was written by Newsweek national security correspondent John Barry, who has been with the magazine since 1985. After following the Iraq weapons story for a dozen years, he draws on in-depth knowledge – in stark contrast to the stenographic approach taken by most journalists on the beat, who seem content to relay the pronouncements coming out of Washington and the United Nations.
“‘I think the whole issue of Iraq’s weaponry has become steadily more impacted and complicated over the years,’Barry told me in a Feb. 26 interview. ‘People often have trouble making sense out of the twists and turns of the arguments.’ And, Barry added, ‘what’s reported as “fact” provided by the U.S. government or the U.N. is in many cases mere “supposition.”‘”
WAR IN THE AIR AND ON THE GROUND
The United States continues to ring Iraq with warplanes and weapons. There was more bombing in the South and the North today, supposedly to enforce no fly zones. Defense Department war booster Paul Wolfowitz was on CSPAN yesterday, testifying on the Administration’s latest request for more, more, more moolah. You couldn’t help feel that you were being taken into a heart of darkness and delusion. It was as if he was singing “When the Saints Go Marching in” as he painted a picture of Iraqis cheering on the bombers and waiting for their liberation. He claims that once war begins, 40 countries will be on Washington’s welcome wagon.
What does it look like on the ground in Iraq? Most of the TV coverage in the US comes from Baghdad, where reporters do stand-ups, usually to relay whatever the Iraqi government is saying and usually why it is flawed. Independent journalist John Ross is traveling around in the countryside. He reports in part:
“The heat here, they say, will fry the brains of the invading army, and because the brains of the U.S. barbarians are now embodied by killer computers, their machines of war will slow and discalibrate, and the 3,000 missiles Bush brags he will drill down upon us in an unprecedented 48-hour blitzkrieg are not guaranteed to kiss their targets with any precision. Above all, this is not good news for my new neighbors here.
“Everywhere I travel, the war is in the air. In Mosul 200 miles to the north where the desert climbs into the cold mountain rain, if the experience of 1991 is any teacher, a bloodbath seems inevitable as U.S. proxy Kurds and Turkish troops (if their Parliament greenlights their participation) will go at it with the Iraqi army, trapping the civilian population in a deadly squeeze…”
GERALDO ARRIVES
Speaking of the Turks, their parliament decides this weekend if all the US troops can base there. It looks like the pols want a taste of the big bucks the military has snagged. But don’t worry, folks, we will now find out exactly what’s going on because Fox News’ GERALDO is in place and on the case.
US journalist Tom Goltz reports from Instanbul: “Geraldo Riviera of Fox News Fame is already down in the eastern Mediterranean (and last I looked, still Turkish) port of Iskenderun, gleefully counting US Army tanks and trucks as they off-load for the so-called Northern Front. And hey, if Geraldo says Gulf War Two is a certain thing, I guess it must be…
“Now, I do not know with whom Geraldo and the rest of the imported hack-pack have been chatting over the past few weeks, but I myself have been glued to Turkish television, channel-surfing through talk shows, discussion groups and key-player interviews, and what I have been seeing is a proud nation of 70 million with a state-building history reaching back almost 1,000 years being completely stripped, once and for all, of any delusions that it will ever again have any real autonomy in the brave, new world of George W and his solo-polar power planners.
ANOTHER VIEW
Our Adam McConnel of the Globalvision News Network is even more sneering:
“Unfortunately Geraldo Rivera has decided to bless Turkey with his presence for FOX News; moments ago he was interviewed live by CNN Turk. Good quote: ‘Our [FOX's] critics exaggerate the difference between FOX and other stations.’ Geraldo, in his almost inimitably shallow style, gushed about Turkey and the relationship between Turkey and the US, never mentioning that the Turkish population is completely opposed to helping the US attack Iraq. ”
CENSORSHIP AT MSNBC AND PHIL’S FILL
Back in the USA, it now seems even more certain that Phil Donahue was bounced from MSNBC for political reasons, not because his ratings were low. Someone in the know writes confirms that there was an internal report that criticized the show’s openness to presenting war critics:
“I’m not free to talk publicly but that report, conforms with management insistence that hawks outnumber doves on Donahue — a guest list slant obvious to anyoneclosely watching.”
Phil Donahue has issued a clearly still gloves on statement which says in part: “From launch to date DONAHUE has been the highest rated program on the MSNBC primetime line up. Of that we are proud. The national ratings data also reveals that we raised the audience for our time period beyond anything that appeared at eight o’clock before us. It took almost three years for FOX to overtake CNN. We had six months. Alas, our numbers and our upward trend were, in the view of management, not good enough or fast enough. My wish for the people who replace us is a longer time in the ring and a more patient management team loudly cheering on from the corner. This is the only way for a Cable host on MSNBC to have any chance of being a contender.
“We were hoping to break through the noisy drums of war on Cable and become a responsible platform for dissenters as well as Administration supporters. The New York Times op-ed page features a variety of views regarding the Bush war on Iraq, including regular columnists who have been quite critical of the Administration’s foreign policy team. MSNBC’s voice should be no less diverse. The hiring of Mike Savage, Dick Armey and Joe Scarborough suggest a strategy to out-Fox FOX.”
PUBLIC COMPLAINS, MEDIA WANTS MORE POWER
Whats behind all of this? Could NBC’s interests in winning rule changes that could boost its business from the FCC have anything to do with this? Yesterday, as AP reports, more people spoke out against mounting media concentration at a public hearing in Richmond Va. ”
“RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Critics of efforts to overhaul media ownership rules said Thursday that weakened government restrictions will lead to more mergers and a few large companies controlling what people read, hear and watch.
“Representatives of newspapers and television networks disagreed, saying that decades-old ownership rules are outdated in today’s world of satellite broadcasts, cable television and the Internet….”
“Both sides made their pleas to the Federal Communications Commission, which moved out of Washington for a day to get opinions on its review of six ownership rules. The FCC is expected to make its decision in May….”
BET AIRS RIGHTWING ISRAELI INFOMERCIAL
Speaking of cable, Jeffrey Blankfort is circulating an email about what’s happening at VIACOM: “This was forwarded to me tonight and is an indication of what happens when Black Entertainment Television is taken over by Viacom whose ownerSumner Redstone was recently described in the New York Times as the world’s biggest media owner. Not only has he eliminated BET’s news program, he is now running evangelical Christian infomercials for Israel. Viacom also owns CBS, whose president, Leslie Moonves is the great nephew of David Ben-Gurion, but that’s just a purecoincidence.”The email explains: “I did notice that BET (Black Entertainment TV) is airing a commercial by a group called Wings of an Eagle, wherein Former PrimeMinister… Benjamin Netanyahu is soliciting Americans to send money to an Israeli fund to assist Jews to migrate to their “homeland” Israel. They can donate $350 for one person, $700 for a couple or $1400 for an entire family. Moreover, the commercial (which is a quasi short film) explains that it is the duty of all Christians to save these Jews fromThe Palestinian terrorists (yes, they used the word terrorists).”
CAN CABLE TV BE CHANGED?
What can be done about cable TV? Is a more diverse, more liberal channel even possible? Salon editor David Talbott says he tried. Lawd, did he try:
“From time to time Salon has thought about launching a cable TV show. It seems like a natural leap — we have a stable of smart political and cultural commentators who know how to banter and entertain on camera. And God knows the chat channels could use a regular dose of strong, articulate progressive voices to balance the fire-breathers on the right and the cautious centrists often presented as the liberal alternatives. Plus, Salon doesn’t just chatter, we break news stories that create buzz. But whenever we engage with the cable TV gatekeepers, we never get beyond Step 1.
“When Walter Isaacson took over CNN two years ago, I thought we had a shot. I was an acquaintance of his and I knew he read Salon — he even poached our media critic when he was running Time magazine. But when I contacted Isaacson about exploring the possibility of a Salon-produced show for his network, his reply was vague and noncommittal. Not long after, it was reported that the new CNN chief was making a run at Rush Limbaugh, in what turned out to be a futile attempt to outfox Fox.
“Salon’s efforts to stir up interest at MSNBC also proved fruitless. When I called MSNBC chief Erik Sorensen, his assistant said he would get back to me. That was in December. Earlier this week Sorensen announced he was firing the network’s sole liberal host, Phil Donahue, who admittedly seemed lost in the new TV environment, but who enjoyed the highest ratings on the struggling network…
“Ironically, the only cable news operation interested in meeting with Salon was Fox, liberals’ favorite media whipping boy. Fox’s top news executives sat down with a team from Salon in their Manhattan offices late last year, a meeting enlivened midway by the entrance of Fox’s chatty, roly-poly dark lord, Roger Ailes himself. Now here was a man so supremely confident in his domination of talk-TV that he could grant a meeting to the enemy and graciously consider the counterintuitive notion of giving Salon a slot in his lineup, cheek by jowl with O’Reilly and Hannity and Hume….Ailes told us — every show in his lineup was “kicking the competition’s ass” and he was not about to mess with success by opening a hole for Salon. Though he didn’t say it, there was also a clear implication that a regular dose of Salon might be too much for his audience, which Ailes described as age “55 to dead, like me” (he left out white and intolerant). Years earlier, when hunting for a liberal punching bag to pair with Sean Hannity, Ailes had tried out a tough Salon writer. He apparently punched back so effectively in his audition that Fox picked bespectacled milquetoast Alan Colmes instead. Fox likes its liberals soft and chewy, the better to eat them, my dear…”
PUBLIC BROADCASTER ADDS GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDIST
Conservatives are also moving into positions in public television. Current, the public broadcasting paper, reports that Michael Pack has become the new senior VP of Television programming at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which funds PBS and NPR and other public broadcasting. Pack is described as “among the filmmakers who benefited from CPB’s efforts in the early 1990′s to add more conservative voices to public broadcasting. Pack used to work for the US Information Agency, Washington’s propaganda agency. As did former and present heads of CPB.
JOURNALISTS PROTEST HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE
More critics are speaking out against government efforts to manage media coverage of a likely war. Editor and Publisher interviews veteran NY Times correspondent Chris Hedges who says he:
“believes only a small percentage of reporters truly want to cover war and the rest “just want to be hotel-room warriors, don’t want to get anywhere near the fighting.” The New York Times staffer adds: “The 10 percent that tries to get out will be stomped on. We saw that with Doug Struck, the Washington Post correspondent, when he tried to investigate civilian casualties in Afghanistan, by the U.S. military. He was made to lie down with a gun pointed to his head.”
Some journalists are speaking out more actively — in Pakistan. A newspaper there reports from Lahore that: “The country’s first ‘peace march’ staged by journalists against war was held here on Tuesday to express solidarity with the Iraqi people…. The march organized by the LPC and began at 4pm saw protesters shouting anti-war slogans ‘oil not blood’ and ‘US go back.’ …In England a colleague at the BBC passes along word that ‘The BBC World Service NUJ Branch is appalled by the BBC’s unprecedented decision to sack two journalists in the Arabic Service on Wednesday 19th February 2003, following a secret “Star Chamber” hearing at which no defense was permitted.’”
YOUR COMMENTS FLOW IN
Wadri Peter writes from Sweden: “It is a great opportunity writing to you. I Am a Ugandan student studying global electronic (cyber) journalism at stockholm university. tomorrow friday the class will hold a seminar on alternative media as the way forward, i see this page as an interesting one to the class and this will definitely be the main stop…,hope we shall be able to get updates from you.
Dr, Megan Boler writes from the People’s Republic of Vermont: “Dear Danny Schechter, I am a professor of Education and Media Studies, and I frequently make use of your website and organization’s resources. I am writing in hopes that you might be willing to glance at our new website Critical Media Literacy in Times of War
http://www.tandl.vt.edu/Foundations/mediaproject/
This site reflects six months of labor to create an interactive Flash 6 site engaging users to critically examine how the media covers US foreign policy in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan.”
DISSECTOR ROCKS OUT
I am going to be speaking/rockin on some of these issues later today at 3 at the Media and Entertainment Summit organized by Steve Zuckerman at the Le Bar Bat, 311 W 57th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues, Northside of street. For more see
www.globalentertainmentnetwork.com/schedule.htm
Polar Levine, aka Polarity l, editor of the Media Channel affiliated popcultmedia site will be performing with his new band at the Summit on Sunday at 7pm. Be there or be square. Yesterday I was at the launch Press conference at the new Musicians United to Win Without War press conference. Lou Reed, David Byrne, and Roseanne Cash joined Russell Simmons and Ben Chavis of the Hip Hop Action Summit to pledge a major effort to mobilize artists against the war. For more information, see Moveon.org/musiciansunited. One disclosure: some cable outlets are refusing to carry an anti-war commercial with rapmeister Simmons. The reason: the images are too graphic.
NOW, DONT YOU FEEL BETTER?
As the weekend approaches we can all relax because the government de-elevated the terror alert. It was orange. It is back to Yellow. Yellow is considered elevated so the de-elevation may have resulted in an elevation. And it’s not even April Fools Day. The satirical Onion has been caught short because its new issue is still in orange mode, reporting with tongue in cheek:
“WASHINGTON, DC — As an additional reminder that the U.S. is on high alert for terrorist attacks, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge announced Tuesday that Orange Alert klaxons will blare 24 hours a day in all major cities.
“These 130-decibel sirens, which, beginning Friday, will scream all day and night in the nation’s 50 largest metro areas, will serve as a helpful reminder to citizens to stay on the lookout for suspicious activity and be ready for emergency action,” Ridge said. “Please note, though, that this is merely a precautionary measure, so go about your lives as normal.”
“The sirens, Ridge said, will be strategically positioned throughout each city and will be audible within a three-mile radius. The noise will be loud enough to render conversation impossible within a 200-yard range.
“Some may find their normal sleep patterns disrupted, but it’s a small price to pay to ensure our collective awareness of the heightened danger,” Ridge said. “The key to preventing terrorist attacks is to have the threat constantly on your mind but still remain calm and act normal.”
Is it real or is it Memorex? Share your comments on all of these issues with me by writing dissector@mediachannel.org
See the whole Post / →
Proper Or Propaganda Or Both?
February 27th, 2003 - by: danny
*DISSECTING THE RATHER INTERVIEW
*THE DUMPING OF DONAHUE
*VIRTUAL MARCH FLOODS DC
*A NOT SO BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
A SPECIAL FAREWELL
PBS Kids Show host Fred Rogers has left the neighborhood, as my friend Marc puts it. His was an honest voice and will be missed by the millions he soothed.
DISSECTING THE DAN MAN
Years ago, before Saddam became the devil incarnate, that role was played by the man who now stands accused of promoting him: Dan Rather. The far right has had a long hate-hate relationship with the iconic CBS anchor. Back in the early 80s, Southern fundamentalists threatened to buy CBS just to fire him. So, it was no surprise this morning when FOX news aimed its not so big guns at him and kicked him around a bit more, to suggest that his interview with Mr Evil For Every Season was not what it appeared to be.
WHITE HOUSE DEMANDS AIRTIME
First, we had Ari Fleisher in the White House suggesting that CBS should have offered “equal time”–as if the President goes out of his way to insure that his remarks are regularly balanced.
The Guardian reported: “‘This seems odd they wouldn’t let the White House have a voice,’ Ari Fleischer, President George Bush’s spokesman, told reporters yesterday, hours before CBS broadcast the Iraqi leader’s meeting with the veteran US news anchor Dan Rather. Mr Fleischer said CBS had refused to give a right of reply unless it came from Mr Bush in person, an offer the administration spurned ‘in the name of not making a moral equivalence between a dictator and a democracy.’
“But the network denied the charge, saying it had only refused an offer to have Mr Fleischer appear intermittently throughout the broadcast to counter President Saddam’s remarks.”
FOX CLARK BAITS RATHER
Fox’s question of the day asked if the interview was “Proper or Propaganda?” Their bombshell is that Rather & Co relied on former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark as his fixer. There was even the suggestion that had we been at war, and had Rather been a CIA asset, he would be ok to take out Saddam.
Earlier, the Moonie-owned Washington Times asked if Rather had been “duped” in scoring what the Hollywood Reporter called “the news scoop of the year.” They questioned its uniqueness in a put-down posing as news piece, “Mr. Rather’s interview is not as rare as it may seem: ABC’s Peter Jennings and NBC’s Tom Brokaw also tried to reach Saddam. All three were outfoxed by former British Labor leader and peace activist Tony Benn, who interviewed Saddam for Arab Television three weeks ago.”
A troubling similarity between these two interviews caught their ever vigilant eye: “Mr. Benn described Saddam as “courteous and forthcoming.” Mr. Rather also used personal observations, calling Saddam “a tall man…He walked a little stiffly. I think that may be because of these reports he has a bad back. But he was very calm.”
GUY TALK
Is that grounds for more character assassination, innuendo and intimations of treason? For his part, Rather, who is doing interviews about his interview on every show that will have him (He’s on CNN’s Larry King tonight) is happy about one thing. Bruce Willis, who was subbing for David Letterman last night asked such profound questions like “What kind of a GUY is he?” and wondered why Saddam called him “Mr. Rather.” Without missing a beat, Mr. Rather retorted that he was happy he hadn’t called him Dan because he would in a world of trouble because the right would suggest that thee was familiarity there. Actually Rather interviewed Saddam before and in the previous interview Saddam also sought out a TV debate with the American president – so that was not news!
There was an awful lot of pyschologizing by the US news networks about Saddam. No one wanted to deal with his political points. ABC News ran a story about his troubled childhood. In an interview on a “crackling cell phone” Rather came off less as a reporter and more as a shrink when he told the New York Observer:
“You can’t be around him and not understand that the key to him, his whole id, is survival,” said Mr. Rather, who last interviewed Mr. Hussein in 1990, right after Iraq invaded Kuwait. “He sees himself as that proverbial ultimate survivor: Whatever happens, he’s going to survive. When he talks, he’s a combination of sometimes the lion and sometimes the fox — but always with survival at the forefront of his mind.”
SHINKS WANTED
This is not new. In my book, News Dissector, I write about the frequent use of ‘the couch,” at CBS–which frequently prefers pop psychologizing to political analysis. I wrote: “If we are looking for pyschological motives here, why not turn the camera around? Rather has puzzled many an anchor-watcher over the years with his own strange lapses of behavior over the years.
What’s it all about Dan?
WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
The early reports on Rather’s interview claimed that Saddam was insisting he would not destroy the missiles that the Hans Blix demands he agree to by Saturday. When I watched the interview, it seemed like he was waffling on the issue — and not ruling it out. Stratfor.com which follows all this closely says that impression is wrong:
“Reliable Stratfor sources within the Russian government say Hussein indeed has promised to cooperate with the inspectors’ demands –including that Baghdad scrap its al Samoud 2 missile program by March 1, an announcement that sources expect to be forthcoming within days.
“The importance of the meeting stretches much further, however. Sources say the Iraqi leader has agreed to a proposal by Russian President Vladimir Putin — previously discussed between Russian, French and German leaders — that Baghdad formally invite U.N. peacekeepers within the next 10 days or so to back up weapons inspectors. This, sources say, would show the world that Iraq will be unconditionally disarmed under strict and fully enforceable U.N. deadlines, with peacekeepers staying on in Iraq until the task is complete.”
If true, this is a bombshell that no one in the US media has picked up.
CRONKITE’S VIEW OF ALL THIS
Dan Rather, at age 70 is as much of a lion in the news business as the people he interviews. Note that CBS relaxed its retirement rules when it came to Rather while enforcing its policy of forcing retirement at age 65 for Walter Cronkite, the newscaster who most Americans still trust the most. Mediachannel advisor Cronkite shared his view on most of today’s TV network news “shows” with the Observer:
‘There’s too much inside-the-paper stuff: your pocketbook and mine, your health and mine, your garbage pail and mine. All of that is perhaps valuable material, but it doesn’t belong in a very crowded, or should-be-crowded, evening newscast. That’s where we should be getting the news.”
By the way, he thinks the nets may be out of the news biz before you know it: “I think it’s highly possible that they will drop news on the traditional networks. Perhaps when the percentage of cable homes has gotten a little bit higher.” Incidentally while Cronkite was pushed out, Don Hewitt, producer of 60 Minutes won a contract commitment until age 90.
Ramsey Clark’s role in helping reporters get access to Iraq is not new either. In l991, independent journalist Jon Alpert, then contributing regularly to NBC News, snuck into Iraq with Ramsey’s help and shot some powerful stories about civilian casualties of the first Gulf War. For his trouble, he was fired by then NBC President Michael Gartner because he had gone on Ramsey Clark trip. The piece never ran. Gartner claims he never would even watch it. Jon gave the story to Globalvision which got it aired on MTV for whom we were then functioning as Gulf War Bureau because the rest of the channel was covering the “Rock in Rio” festival.
(If you had a choice of going to Brazil or Baghdad, where would you go?)
DUMPING DONAHUE
For its part, NBC says it is stepping up its Iraq war coverage on its cable affiliate MSNBC–which featured more Rather-bashing on the disgusting Don Imus morning show. What’s worse is that MSNBC is dumping its lone liberal talk show host Phil Donahue–who after six months is being axed to make way for more run of the mill war coverage. Six months ago, his program began by asking if the US was going to make war on Iraq. Yes, his “ratings” were lower than his competitors, but as he noted Fox had three years to build ratings for Bill O’Reilly while he was only given six months.
Phil Donahue, whose show was actually #1 on the channel, has said that MSNBC was too quick to pull the trigger and that it might be trying to “out-fox Fox” with conservative voices. Fox gloated about this comment, this morning with an banner graphic that said “OUTFOXED” Ha Ha!
Rick Ellis who writes for AllyourTV.com says that the real reason for Donahue’s departure is his politics, not his ratings: “While Donahue does badly trail both O’Reilly and CNN’s Connie Chung in the ratings, those numbers have improved in recent weeks. So much so, that the program is the top-rated show on MSNBC, beating even thehighly promoted Hardball With Chris Matthews.
“Although Donahue didn’t know it at the time, his fate was sealed a number of weeks ago after NBC News executives received the results of a study commissioned to provide guidance on the future of the news channel.
“That report–shared with me by an NBC news insider–gives an excruciatingly painful assessment of the channel and its programming. Some of recommendations, such as dropping the “America’s News Channel,” have already been implemented. But the harshest criticism was leveled at Donahue, whom the authors of the study described as “a tired, left-wing liberal out of touch with the current marketplace.”The study went on to claim that Donahue presented a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war……He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration’s motives.”
The report went on to outline a possible nightmare scenario where the show becomes “a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.”
Meanwhile, chief Fox O’Reilly was trashed by a reporter in Florida who accused him of ripping off his reporting. Jim Romanesko reports that the Tampa Tribune’sDaniel Ruth says
“Bill O’Reilly “has essentially ripped off eight years of reporting (on Prof. Sami Al-Arian) by The Tampa Tribune’s Michael Fechter while claiming to be some sort of moralist arbiter of professional ethics.” He adds: “This guy claiming to be a standard bearer of intellectual honesty is like Heidi Fleiss pretending to be a spokeswoman for virginity.”
THE VITUAL MARCH VIRTUALLY REPORTED
I was hoping to find out last night how “the virtual march on Washington” went. That was the effort to flood legislators with faxes emails and calls to urge them not to support war, and to stick with UN inspections. I didn’t even see it covered. The organizers say it was a big success:
“The outpouring of support for tough inspections to disarm Saddam Hussein, and against an invasion and occupation of Iraq got through loud and clear, said former Congressman Tom Andrews, National Director of Win Without War…’Well over one million phone calls were made in just eight hours by people from every state in the country. Every Senator’s office and the White House switchboard received at least two and often more calls per minute. Many callers had to settle for busy signals,’ he added.”
The antiwar protest is certainly affecting the Administration’s rhetoric. The President’s speech last night before the American Enterprise Institute (“The mother of all conservative groups, as Charlie Rose called it last night) justified war as the road to peace — and, of course, democracy in Iraq and the Middle East. He mildly criticized Israel–making noises about A Palestinian State as he did last June before dropping the issue until now.
(In what may have been a linked signal, Ariel Sharon dumped hard liner Benjamin Netanyahu as his foreign minister. [ed note: He dumped him because he doesn't trust him.])
Bush’s speech was about his “vision” for the people in Iraq. His dream may become Afghanistan’s nightmare, as that country’s US imposed leader, Hamid Karzai, lobbies the White House today to urge that aid to his government not be cut back, as is likely, once the invasion of Iraq begins. The NY Times reports meanwhile that there is no sign of Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar…The New Yorker previewed the Administration’s plans, where a key planner, Stephen Carbone, admits what his boss doesn’t: “Things can also go badly.”
THE COVERAGE OF THOSE TERRORIST THREATS
The Media Lens group in England which monitors coverage there has noted a link between war coverage and reporting on sudden threats at home: “The ringing of Heathrow with tanks that preceded the latest report by Hans Blix, and the peace march, was said to be in response to increased terrorist ‘chatter’ warning intelligence services of an impending attack. The media failed to explore the one question that might have shed light on the credibility of these claims: did French and German intelligence services also report increased ‘chatter’”? Instead, the media obediently focused on the heightened ‘orange’ state of alert in that other founding member of the ‘coalition of the willing’ – the US.
“The media also somehow failed to notice that the threat suddenly vanished into thin air. The Guardian/Observer website records 37 mentions of articles containing the words ‘Heathrow and threat’ (as of February 23). The words ‘Gatwick and threat’ record 8 mentions. There is not one record of a news report mentioning a threat to Heathrow or Gatwick airports after February 14, the day of the Blix report and the day before the marches. Earlier that week, there had been a flood of reports with titles like, ‘Soldiers drafted in to increase Heathrow security’ (February 11), ‘UK on missile terror alert’ (February 12), ‘Minister – troop deployment is no stunt’ (February 12), ‘Huge hunt for missile smugglers’ (February 13), and so on.
“The media failed to notice that all of this came to an abrupt end for no discernible reason. No one dared suggest that the end of the crisis might have had more to do with the impact of a high-stakes propaganda tactic on the tourist industry, than it did on the negation of any threat.”
NOT SO EMBEDDED
US journalists are finally criticizing Pentagon rules on war coverage. Unfortunately, I had to go outside the country to discover this report in today’s Guardian:
“Senior US war reporters have launched a scathing attack on new rules issued by the Pentagon detailing how the media will be allowed to cover any conflict in Iraq. Veteran US war correspondents say that while the rules appear to offer unprecedented freedom to report the facts, on closer scrutiny the US military could enforce draconian restrictions on coverage of any operations in the region.
The Hartford Courant features a story on Media Channel affiliate Between the Lines on Bridgeport, Ct’s WPKN radio. John Jurgenson writes:
“In a mongrel studio at Bridgeport’s WPKN-FM, Scott Harris and his production crew compete for space with old televisions, record players, cardboard crates and even suitcases. For more than 10 years, this clubhouse of grass-roots radio has been the home of a weekly half-hour newsmagazine meant to provide “a platform for individuals and organizations generally ignored or marginalized in mainstream media.”
“Between the Lines,” created in 1991 by Harris and co-producer Denise Manzari as a response to the Gulf War, could soon mark another anniversary of sorts: the onset of a second war with Iraq. To its producers, the show’s mission is just as critical during this historical refrain. “Then, like now, the voices of dissent were being drowned out,” Harris said.
FCC MEETS IN RICHMOND
The FCC is holding a public hearing today in Richmond, Va to discuss its regulatory practices. The Center for the Creative Community will be testifying:
“A new programming oligopoly controlled by five media conglomerates has destroyed competition and eliminated voices and diversity of viewpoints in television, Jonathan Rintels, Executive Director of the Center for the Creative Community will testify…”The FCC must take action to restore competition and voices to television. Research shows many Americans receive their information regarding democracy, politics, news, values, history, and culture from television entertainment programming. Thus, the stakes for our nation are far higher than whether we will all be doomed to a future of bland television. At stake are America’s democracy, culture, and economy,” said Rintels.
CALL NEWS DESKS
Ian Brand writes about one way to encourage better news coverage of protests. “During the last protest on Feb 15, I brought the same sign I brought to DC in October. It says the following in large bold letters:
“ATTENTION CELL PHONE USERS!!
“PLEASE CALL THE NEW YORK TIMES!!(Times phone #)
“ASK THEM: DO YOU INTEND TO COVER THIS HISTORIC RALLY?AND ALSO: WILL YOU PUT IT ON THE FRONT PAGE?
“TELL THEM HOW MANY OF US SHOWED? PHONE NOW!!BE OUR THOUSANDTH CALLER!!
“As in October, the response was powerful. Many people called The Times. In DC, the person at the National desk said several hundred people had phoned in. I had three or four people calling at once. The same was true on F15….. We know that many people complained about the poor coverage–from many quarters including a FAIR media bulletin–and the Times was forced to write a more accurate story 3 days later.
“I believe many people felt empowered by this simple (on the ground) action. People always scream about the skewed numbers and the misinformation, but few people actually communicate their outrage to the media outlets in question.”
OOPS
David Traynier happily corrects an error commited in haste about allegations against A British TV personality: “Just as a point of clarification, Matthew Kelly is not (and to my knowledge never has been) a news anchor. He is a ‘celebrity’ host of various light entertainment shows which go out on our ITV network. He also does some stage work in pantomimes.”
A TOLSTOY MOMENT
Thanks Ian and to all who write and support us. We will have PayPal in place soon, as has been suggested, to seek donations to bring the staff back and end our current hiatus. My final thought this morning comes to us from the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy who wrote in 1896:
“The killed will be covered with earth and lime, and once more all the crowd of deluded men will be led on and on till those who have devised the project weary of it, or till those who thought to find it profitable receive their spoil. And so once more men will be made savage, fierce and brutal, and love will wane in the world… And so once more the men who reaped profit from it all will assert with assurance that since there has been a war there must needs have been one, and that other wars must follow, and they will again prepare future generations for a continuance of slaughter, depraving them from their childhood.”
Thanks for being here — and please tell you friends and colleagues about Mediachannel.org.
Funny how fast word spreads. After being interviewed on the BBC World Service and written up on the BBC Online site, an Atlanta radio station called for an interview. I loved that he BBC listed Mediachannel.org’s URL along with that of the State Department and Iraqi presidency. Share your comments by writing: dissector@mediachannel.org
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The Virtual March Is On
February 26th, 2003 - by: danny
*WEAPON OF MASS COMMUNICATION
*THE BUSH-HUSSEIN “DEBATE”
*PRESS THE PRESS?
Here we go again with more than you want but less than you need. Question: are you marching virtually today? This is the day the internet gets its test as a weapon of mass communication as anti-war groups mobilize to bombard the offices of Washington legislators and policymakers with faxes, emails and phone calls. Here’s what activists are planning:
THE NOT SO SECRET PLAN
“Every Senate office will receive a call every minute from a constituent, as they receive a simultaneous flood of faxes and e-mail. Hundreds of thousands of people from across the country will send the collective message: Don’t Attack Iraq. Every Senate switchboard will be lit up throughout the day with our message — a powerful reminder of the breadth and depth of opposition to a war in Iraq. And on that day, “antiwar rooms” in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles will highlight the day’s progress for the national media, while local media can visit the “antiwar room” online to monitor this constituent march throughout the day. It will also be a day to make our peace sentiments as visible as possible with signs and buttons, billboards, etc.”
I was surprised to see this protest highlighted this morning on CNN, a sign that some media outlets here are beginning to acknowledge that the anti-war movement exists, even if their spokespeople are still not interviewed with any regularity on news programs. There is a slight shift underway in the press — and by activists urging more protest against the press.
MEDIA QUESTIONS WAR, UNDERPLAYS PROTEST
PR Watch reports: A new survey by Editor & Publisher magazine shows that “the growing rift at the United Nations and massive antiwar demonstrations around the globe appear to have had an impact. E&P now finds that a majority of top papers oppose any attack on Iraq without broad international support… Some that once reluctantly accepted a quick war for different reasons are now calling for any invasion to be backed by a stronger world coalition or with the full support of the United Nations Security Council — a noteworthy condition at a time when the U.N. appears deeply fractured. Thirteen papers now occupy this middle ground, meaning that almost two-third’s of the total sample oppose any war for the time being.”
USA TODAY is picking up this story as Peter Johnson interviews Editor and Publisher chief Greg Mitchell: ‘The press woefully underplayed the anti-war movement until recently. Now coverage is growing, of the large marches at least.” Robert Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Affairs says it’s tough gauging public opinion. ”The media are better covering events than ideas,” he tells Johnson. ”You can see what people think from the polls, but you can’t really see what drives them unless you see people marching in the street. There’s a difference between ‘opposition’ and ‘an opposition.’”
GOING ON– OR AFTER MEDIA?
Some activists are arguing there is a need for more pressure on the media. Editor Lydia Sargent of Zmagazine says “We have to go after the media. For years activists have been complaining about and critiquing mainstream media. Even while making these critiques, many seem surprised, even upset, by the way our events and politics are covered in the very media we have long been describing as incapable, institutionally and ideologically, of ever giving our agenda any kind of legitimacy and credence, much less coverage–as if we don’t believe our own analysis.
“We forget at times that mainstream media (when not informing elites) is to (quote Chomsky) “keep[ing] the rabble in line. [It] make[s] sure that we are atoms of consumption, obedient tools of production, isolated from one another, lacking any concept of a decent human life. We are to be spectators in a political system run by elites blaming ourselves and each other for what’s wrong….”
“So it is time to direct more of our protests toward the media. What we want is for mainstream media to include peace and justice programming, prepared by the peace and justice movement, in their daily reports. If they do not agree to this demand, we picket their offices, occupy them if necessary, and shut them down.”
RATHER RULES (FOR THE NIGHT)
Dan Rather’s interview with Saddam Hussein, set to air tonight, is getting lots of media buzz, FOX NEWS called it “Dan and the Dictator” while the NY Post-–that other Murdoch outlet — reveals that it was shot by Iraqi TV and not CBS, so there! (For security reasons, it is said–after that phony TV crew killed a pro-US Afghan leader back in 2001.) I hate to tell you news fans that having a US outlet shoot the interview doesn’t mean that we get to see it all. There’s a little thing called editing — and political criteria often influence that. As a network veteran, I have been there and done that.
I have now learned that Saddam’s offer to debate President Bush was deadly serious, with Iraq’s Mr. H. even suggesting that Dan Rather moderate. Rather backed off by saying he has enough problems. The White House rejected the offer amidst reports that President Bush wants to kill the evil one, not to talk with him. The Commander in Chief has repoprtedly authorized an assassination of Hussein. Hence my use of the term “deadly” serious. Sometimes, I wonder if these two shouldn’t just settle this like a man in the way that Hamilton handled Burr with a shootout. (ed. note: that was the other way around. Burr nailed Hamilton.) The spot is marked up on Boulevard East in Weehawken, with a great view of the Empire State.
CBS: GLOATING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK
The Independent says the clear winner in the Rather-Hussein face off is….envelope, please…CBS, writing: “In the hyper-competitive multimillion-dollar world of America’s superstar newscasters – usually far better known than the politicians, movie stars and celebrities they interview – such scoops are known as ‘gets.’
“They come in varying shades of fame or notoriety. O J Simpson, the President of Russia, Monica Lewinsky, the universally admired Vaclav Havel or the disgraced former California congressman Gary Condit – all human beings are equal before their maker, and when they are potential ‘gets’ for the prime-time news magazine shows on US television.
“And right now ‘gets’ don’t get bigger than Saddam Hussein. Assuming CBS gets the tape in time, the choice segments will be aired tonight opposite what was previously seen as the scoop of the season, the interview with Robert Blake, Hollywood B-lister and accused wife-killer, by ABC’s indefatigable Barbara Walters. A true connoisseur of American television might wonder what the difference is, in terms of luring the punters, between a film star accused of one murder and a foreign ruler who is known to have murdered millions. Was it not Stalin who said that ‘one death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic’? But in this land of the 15-minute sensation, President Saddam is the exception.”
REFERENCING WALTER C
The fact that Iraqi TV shot the interview is the reason that you have not seen clips on all the news shows. CBS gets the exclusive — I am sure a bargaining point. Interesting also is that the Independent refers to Rather as the “man who sits in legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite’s chair.” At a times like this, a little more Cronkite is in order. How about that CBS?
The New York Times had its own angle on the Hussein interview, putting it in a cultural context: “The appearance of Mr. Hussein in the midst of it makes for a truly eclectic, if not peculiar, mix. His interview is sandwiched between an episode of “Star Search” and an interview with Robert Chambers, the ‘preppy murderer.’ABC News’s “20/20,” unable to round up any intriguing foreign despots of its own, is going later in the evening with Robert Blake, the has-been actor accused of killing his wife.
“The nation may be cruising toward one of those moments of cultural humiliation when the world compares the number of people who watch the Hussein interview with the 40 million who last week watched Joe Millionaire pick wholesome Zora over Sarah, the presumed gold-digger.”
COMEDY CHANNEL BONANZA
The very idea of a Bush-Hussein debate is also more grist for the comedy mill. I am not sure what the Comedy Channel is planning but over in the UK, Tim Dowling — I believe, in the Guardian –imagines what that could be like:
“Tony Blair, moderator: Welcome to the first televised debate between GeorgeW Bush and Saddam Hussein, live from United Nations headquarters in NewYork. We will begin with a brief opening statement from each of you.Bush: First of all I would just like to welcome my evil friend to the UN, one of the great American institutions for the propulsion of freedom throughout the world.
“Saddam: Thank you, Great Satan. I hope that in today’s debate we may find some common ground between the Iraqi people’s commitment to peace and human progress and America’s desire to destroy the Middle East.
“Bush: Do I answer that?
“Blair: No. The first question is quite simply this: do you have any links with al-Qaeda?
“Bush: I do not.
“Blair: The question is for President Saddam.
Saddam: As I told Mr Tony Benn clearly and simply, if I had links with al-Qaida and I enjoyed those links then I would not be ashamed to tell the world, but since I am ashamed to tell the world of this, it follows that I have no such links.
“Bush: Neither do I.
“Blair: The second question is for Mr Bush. Mr Bush, if America and Iraq were to go to war tomorrow, who would win?”…And on it goes.
MEDIA COVERAGE TOUCHING MINDS
The news reporting on the war’s build up continues, with more reports of military personnel shipping out, floating around on ships–as in the case of Turkey where 90% of the population is said to oppose US troops on their soil and where the Parliament is still debating (or being bought) as the case might be. The New York Times’ Eric Shmitt reports
‘Turkey Seems Set to Let 60,000 G.I.’s Use Bases for War At the same time, the U.S. Army’s top general said the military force for postwar Iraq could total several hundredthousand.” Globalvision News Network correspondent Adam McDonnel writes from Istanbul that men and materiel have already landed.
“USA Today’s (a headline) and yesterday’s NY Times reports on Turkey have specifically avoided the fact that the U.S. has been unloading armaments illegally for the last week in Iskenderun. Today CNN International broadcast a remarkable shot of one of the US military ships that is docked in Iskenderun. It was an extreme closeup since, if they had shown any more, it would have shown the hundreds of military vehicles that have already been unloaded. The commentary accompanying the shot also suggested that the armaments were still waiting offshore. The reportage in the Times and on CNN is, from my viewpoint, scandalous and highly misleading.”
MEDIA COVERAGE TOUCHING NERVES
On the print side, Jim Romanescu reports this morning on the dissatisfaction of some Washington Post readers with stories that name military units and personnel as if that is giving aid and comfort to the enemy, (Remember many of those who live in the Beltway work for the military,.”
Thomas Ricks’ story about U.S. forces hunting for weapon sites in Iraq, setting up a communications network and seeking defectors from Iraqi military units “not surprisingly drew complaints from many readers who said they were ‘aghast,’ ‘appalled’ and ‘incensed,’ among other descriptions, that The Post would publish such a story,” says Michael Getler. Ricks tells the omsbud: “I understand readers’ concerns. I think we should try to speak better to those concerns in stories like this,” but sometimes “that can be difficult to do.”
AND TOUCHING WALLETS
Magazines including Newsweek and US News and World Report are planning advertising free sections for their war coverage. Yahoo reports Princess Diana’s Ex-Lover James Hewitt is suing Fox News for more than $1 million for allegedly breaking a deal to hire him as a war correspondent. The prospect of war is leading to a unique kind of “trading between broadcast and print outlets. E&P reports that the Cox Newspapers are agreeing “to swap some of its reporters’ military embedding slots for newspaper stories from CNN staffers.”
CRACKING DOWN ON THE PRESS
Final note on anti-war news coverage. More than ten days after the anti-war march here in NY, the press is finally talking about how some members of the press were mistreated by the New York Police. Cynthia Cotts reports in the Village Voice:
“Mayor Bloomberg may love the way the NYPD handled the February 15 anti-war rally, but how do photographers who covered the rally rate the NYPD? Lensmen expect a certain amount of roughing up at rallies, even a broken lens or two, but some are calling this one too rough. Photogs from Britain and Maine felt disrespected and the Daily News complained that police mistreated two of its staff photographers. At times, police denied photographers access, forcing them into some areas and out of others, particularly when arrests were under way. Some cops viewed anyone with a camera as a target for verbal or physical aggression.
“There is a smoking gun behind these allegations: photos of police pushing a Daily News photographer, taken by New York-based freelance photographer Rob Bennett. See VillageVoice.com for some of these non-satellite photos.”
LOST AND FOUND
Meanwhile Iraq appears to be making progress on finding new weapons with Hans Blix, chief UN inspector calling these are “new positive” steps. Yesterday I had lunch with a top news personality who confirmed for me that the US has great deal of trouble tracking all of its weapons, including weapons of mass destruction. My partner Rory O’Connor told us about his research for a book on nukes that found vast amounts of inventory — including uranium–unaccounted for because it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. This is by far worse than my perennial efforts to find my glasses–which always go missing at the wrong time.
TRIAL BY MEDIA
In our media news, there’s some soul searching underway in England about the treatment of a news anchor accused and cleared of sexual abuse charge. An editorial in the Independent argues:
“We should not tolerate the injustice of trial by media. Matthew Kelly is hardly the first celebrity to have seen his reputation damaged by the excesses of the tabloid press and its equivalents in the broadcast media, but his case still raises some important, if familiar, questions about the reporting of serious allegations of sexual abuse.
“In fact, Mr Kelly, released without charge on Monday, may count himself lucky, insofar as his employers, Granada TV, have indicated that he can keep his job. That is an outcome that many of his peers, their careers shredded after similar allegations… ”
The Guardian reported yesterday in Britain that “A group of leading British academics are calling on members of the UK parliament to block changes to cross-media ownership laws that would allow Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp to take control of the country’s channel Five. The communications bill would clear the way for foreign companies to acquire UK broadcasters for the first time and relaxes a host of other cross-media ownership rules.”
WEAR A FLOWER IN YOUR HAIR
In San Francisco, the Examiner, an old Hearst daily, is now to be offered for free. E&P reports:
“In a story about itself, the paper said its new strategy ‘follows an innovative publishing model that has proven successful in Philadelphia and Boston, following in the European tradition of free newspapers in urban centers.’… The once-mighty Examiner lost its battle for parity with the larger San Francisco Chronicle in 2000, when Hearst bought the Chronicle and sold the Examiner to a family that runs free papers in the San Francisco area.
TKO: JACK DOWNS RUDY:
Last night I hopped down to the National Arts Club for journalist Jack Newfield’s latest book party for the release (by For Nation Books) of Fully Rudy. Here at last, after years of deifying the former Mayor of the city he used to call the greatest on earth, is the information TIME magazine glossed over when they named him “Person of the Year.”
Newfield is fair but tough, and calls him a “C+ Mayor who has become a A+ myth.” Jack was saluted for his “fidelity to the truth” and praised for his skill at spotting “the bogus.” In his talk, he called Rudy a bully who misrepresented the true spirit of New York. (“He was the opposite of what New York City means to me,” and lambasted Rudy as a “moralist with a mistress.”
I liked his publisher’s description of his home study as “Dickensian” for all of its clutter — I can identify. The source of some amusement: Three people from the New York Sun “covered” the launch, hunting for gossip in a decidedly leftward leaning but all too humorless and straight crowd. The Sun suggested that each anti-war demonstrator on February 15th be flanked by two cops so they could all be prosecuted for treason. Earlier they editorialized against putting fluoride in the drinking water.
EMAIL: FIGHT BACK
In the email, in response to my invitation for more volunteers, an activist –a David out to slay the media Goliath–writes in to encourage all of us to become more media-active:
“i would suggest . . .Inject a little activism! I know you have been against this in the past, however, when you are pushed to the wall you have to start pushing back. Danny, you have an ARMY of affiliates, and you are respected by everybody in the media democracy movement. Launch a campaign for open media – be LOUD!! As MLK said “NOW IS THE TIME!” It is more evident than ever how biased and narrow minded our media is. We need to stand up and fight. Fight, danny, FIGHT! Think of a battle plan. Create an outreach program to YOUR 1000 troops (affiliates) – rally them – then we can milk the internet for everything it’s worth (and it’s worth a lot), and build up from there. also, put on some little events – conferences / workshops / spoken word / etc.. You know where i am coming from. Public Events = great marketing. There is a lot of exciting things happening now. Look at the quick success of the antiwar movement, the virtual march on washington, the poets against the war. With your affiliates you are siting on a gold mine of passion and commitment. AWAKE the masses!
“It takes a spectacle to beat a spectacle. ”
I have never been accused of being too tepid before….Ummmm….
PENPAL UGES PAYPAL
Nick writes to say “I enjoy your blog on a daily basis. It’s a great antidote to mainstream media bilge” and then offers a suggestion we have already acted upon:” allow people to contribute to your organization via Paypal. It wouldn’t require much effort and there are a very large number of people with Paypal accounts who feel more comfortable contributing through the Paypal mechanism as they would rather not fill out yet-another-credit-card-form on the Internet – especially since we hear about web sites being broken into and credit card numbers being stolen on a daily basis. (How’s that for a run-on sentence! :-) I for one would welcome it and would contribute.”
Thank you for your suggestion. We have already joined Paypal, and I hope to have a button up on the site later today. ( I want our tech people to make sure I don’t screw up.) Thanks for being here, and tuning in. Help us spread the word about the column. Circulate it to your friends and enemies. Help us keep Mediachannel channeling. Write to me, Danny Schechter, your news dissector: dissector@mediachannel.org
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
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