BBC Chief Blasts Us War Coverage

April 24th, 2003 - by: danny

**SHOCK ROCKS BBC

**US MEDIA TARGETS MIDDLE EAST

**BECHTEL BACKGROUND

Just I was wallowing in the thrill of victory as more wanted Iraqis experience the agony of defeat, just as I thought it was safe to eat French food again-as I did last night with fava beans on the side. Shades of silence of the lambs–word comes that secretary of State Powell intends to “punish” France. Sorry Colin, the food has already been recycled. And then there was this morning’s shocker coming from the land of coalition cronies and Blair Ba’athists: Our TV System is under attack.

BBC: SHOCK, NO AWE

A new front in the media war erupted across the Atlantic when the “topper” (to use a Varietyism) of the BBC opened up on American television. Embroiled in some criticism in the home counties for less than objective war coverage, Greg Dyke is shifting attention across the seas. And in this case, hitting his mark in a gutsy manner that we have yet to hear from most of his US counterparts. The Guardian reports:

“BBC director general Greg Dyke has delivered a stinging rebuke to the US media over its â€˜unquestioning’ coverage of the war in Iraq and warned the government against allowing the UK media to become â€˜Americanised.’

“Mr. Dyke said he was â€˜shocked’ to hear that the US radio giant Clear Channel had organized pro-war rallies in the US, and urged the government to ensure new media laws did not allow US media companies to undermine the impartiality of the British media.

“‘We are genuinely shocked when we discover that the largest radio group in the United States was using its airwaves to organise pro-war rallies. We are even more shocked to discover that the same group wants to become a big player in radio in the UK when it is deregulated later this year,’ Mr Dyke said.

“Mr Dyke singled out Fox for particular criticism over its pro-Bush stance, which helped the Rupert Murdoch-owned broadcaster to oust CNN in the US to become the most popular news network.

“Commercial pressures may tempt others to follow the Fox News formula of gung-ho patriotism, but for the BBC this would be a terrible mistake. If, over time, we lost the trust of our audiences, there is no point in the BBC,” he said in a speech delivered at Goldsmiths College in London today.”

DANGER IN THE HOMELAND”

Hear Hear. Dyke referenced a communications bill now in Parliament that would open the door to a US media invasion. In this country, new media laws are being shaped by the FCC under the control of Colin Powell’s son Michael. That agency will be holding public hearings in San Francisco in two days, on Saturday April 26, at City Hall, 10 Am to 4PM. The Media Alliance and other groups are mobilizing a large turnout and protests. It is expected that these ‘regulators” will vote to deregulate.

Even as the BBC blasts US broadcasting, a US government TV venture is good to go in the Middle East. It’s run by a man who comes out of Infinity Broadcasting, the radio monopoly owned by Viacom and known for the wit and wisdom of Howard Stern. Again, it is a British newspaper we must turn to for a report on an American Media venture:

“Washington’s battle to win public support in the Arab world has begun in earnest with the first broadcasts of what officials say will become a 24-hour satellite television network aimed at changing minds throughout the region by American-style morning chat-shows, sports, news and children’s programs.

“Iraq and the World, the prototype channel being beamed into the country from a US air force plane, began showing American evening news bulletins this week. A full-service version should be broadcasting 24 hours a day to 22 countries in the Middle East by the end of the year, Mr [Norman] Pattiz, chairman of Westwood One, said. Faces familiar to US audiences, including Dan Rather of CBS and Tom Brokaw of ABC, are appearing with their words translated into Arabic.

“We don’t do propaganda,” he insisted.”

GIVE ME THE PICTURES, I WILL GIVE YOU THE WAR

At the start of the Spanish American War, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst reportedly said to a staff photographer: “Give me the pictures, I’ll give you the war.” That comment was thought to have ushered in the era of the “yellow” (ie sensationalized) press. Clearly, for the media at least, war is good business. That suggests at the same time, that conflicts and tensions will be pumped up through press coverage.

Already, new media layoffs are in the offing, with temporary employees brought into to assist with war “coverage” being dispatched to the unemployment lines. Ponder the implications of this report from the LA Times: “Cable news viewing continued to decline last week, with the combined audience for Fox News, CNN and MSNBC slipping over 30% from the previous week.”

If wars take time to organize, watch for more sensational stories to boost ratings.

As for time to organize, Ted Koppel let loose a factoid last night of interest. He noted that the US Army started its war plans for Iraq last June. That came up in a discussion with Andrew Natsios who runs the Agency for International Development, the government arm tasked with helping the poorer countries of the world. He is now in charge of the $1.7 BILLION dollar reconstruction effort in Iraq.

This is the agency that gave the biggest contract to Bechtel. Ted was asking why there had been no competitive bidding and why the cost plus contract. The AID Administrator explained how it takes time to draw up the documents outlining the scope of work. He revealed that work started last September, while Washington wonks were still publicly saying no decision had been made. While the public was being fed a line of lies, the agencies were planning the future destruction and reconstruction of another country.

WHAT IS BECHTEL?

As for Bechtel, its full corporate history was not stripped bare for all to see. Jim Ridgeway does that this week in the Village Voice. “The main instrument of the U.S. in Iraq is not the Pentagon, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or the Army Corps of Engineers, but the Bechtel Group. The giant international engineering outfit has won a contract worth up to $680 million that gives the company a leading role in rebuilding Iraq, a job that eventually may cost $100 billion.

“Bechtel maintains close ties with politicians and the government. It is the 17th largest defense contractor, with $1.03 billion in Defense Department deals. (The firm’s total revenues are $11.6 billion.) It gave $1.3 million in campaign contributions during the 1999-2000 cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Some of Bechtel’s government connections are well-known: Jack Sheehan, a vice president, is on the Defense Policy Board, which advises Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Riley Bechtel, the company chairman, is on the President’s Export Council. Other connections are not so well-known. Former Bechtel executive Ross Connelly is chief operating officer of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the government office that insures speculative business ventures in unsafe parts of the world.

“Both Reagan’s secretary of defense, Caspar Weinberger, and Reagan’s secretary of state, George Shultz, came from Bechtel. Shultz is currently a director. Reagan sent Rumsfeld to Iraq as his special envoy during the early 1980s to encourage Saddam in Iraq’s war with Iran. According to memos uncovered by the National Security Archives, Rumsfeld may also have been upholding Shultz’s private interests in Bechtel by using his visits to lobby for an oil pipeline Bechtel wanted to build from Iraq to the Gulf of Aqaba. In the end, Saddam refused to go for the pipeline.

MEDIA MAN IMPLICATED IN LOOTING

If this is not a form of looting, what is? Yet it is not being covered as such. Instead reports are dribbling in that US soldiers and even media employees had sticky fingers in Iraqi treasures. AP reports:

“WASHINGTON — Members of the news media and U.S. soldiers are being investigated for taking art, artifacts, weapons and cash from Iraq, with criminal charges already brought in one case, federal officials said Wednesday.

“At least 15 paintings, gold-plated firearms, ornamental knives, Iraqi government bonds and other items have been seized at airports in Washington, Boston and London in the last week, according to the bureaus of Customs and Border Protection and of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“So far, only Benjamin James Johnson, who worked as an engineer for Fox News Channel, has been charged. But officials said more charges could be brought and more seizures of stolen items are expected in what is being dubbed “Operation Iraqi Heritage.”

ROBERT FISK WATCHED IT BURN

Robert Fisk, the Independent journalist, was asked about this subject by Amy Goodman on the Democracy Now radio program. His response in part:

“We claim that we want to preserve the national heritage of the Iraqi people, and yet my own count of government buildings burning in Baghdad before I left was 158, of which the only buildings protected by the United States army and the marines were the Ministry of Interior, which has the intelligence corps of Iraq and the Ministry of Oil, and I needn’t say anything else about that. Every other ministry was burning. Even the Ministry of Higher Education/Computer Science was burning. And in some cases American marines were sitting on the wall next to the ministries watching them burn.

“The Computer Science Minister actually talked to the marine, Corporal Tinaha, in fact, I actually called his fiancee to tell her he was safe and well. So the Americans have allowed the entire core and infrastructure of the next government of Iraq to be destroyed, keeping only the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Oil. That tells it’s own story. On top of that I was one of the first journalists to walk in to the National Archaeological Museum and the National Library of Archives with all the Ottoman and state archives and the Koranic Library of the Ministry of Religious Endowment and all were burned. Petrol was poured on these documentations and they were all burned in 3000 degrees of heat.

“Ironically, with all that irony, I managed to rescue 26 pages of the Ottoman documentation, the Ottoman library. Documents of Ottoman armies, camel thieves, letters from the sheriff Hussein of Mecca to Ali Pasha (Ottoman ruler of Baghdad) and when I got to the Jordanian border the Jordanian customs authorities stole these documents from me and refused to even give me a receipt for them, a shattering comment I’m afraid to say on the Arab world but particularly on the American occupation of Baghdad.

“After the Koranic Library was set on fire I raced to the headquarters of the Third Marine Force Division in Baghdad and I said there is this massive Koranic Library on fire and I said what can you do? And under the Geneva Conventions the US Occupation Forces have a moral, whatever occupations forces there are, and they happen to be American, have a legal duty to protect documents and various embassies. There was a young officer who got on the radio and said “there was some kind of Biblical library on fire,” biblical for heavens sake, and I gave him a map of the exact locations, the collaterals on the locations to the marines and nobody went there, and all the Korans were burned, Korans going back to the 16th Century totally burned.”

HANS BLIX SPEAKSMeanwhile Fisk’s newspaper is reporting today: “For the first time since the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, confronted the Americans openly yesterday, accusing the Bush administration of lacking credibility in its efforts to hunt down Iraq’s banned weapons.

“The Council’s members sparred openly over the role of the UN in identifying weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And Mr Blix, who could now be the biggest obstacle to the removal of sanctions, which George Bush is seeking, rubbed salt in the wounds. London and Washington had built the case for invading Iraq on “very, very shaky” evidence, he said. He referred to documents alleging that Iraq had imported uranium for nuclear weapons from Niger that he later revealed to have been faked.

“I think it’s been one of the disturbing elements that so much of the intelligence on which the capitals built their case seemed to have been shaky,” he said.

WARNINGS OF THE TIMES

Reading the New York Times today, one is confronted with two warning stories, from right to left, side by side. The first is a warning to Iran not to interfere in Iraq because apparently only Washington has that right. Says one more unknown and unidentified “Senior” Aministration official â€˜It’s clear we have to step in a little more forcefully.” To the right of this article is another reporting on warnings to Iraqi politicians against stepping into the power vacuum.

He warned that no one challenging American authority (note no use of the term coalition here) would be subject in the press. Also on page one is a story about the fate of Afghan detainees still sweltering in the prison camp in Cuba. CNN’s Aaron Brown quipped last night that this is not a story we have been hearing about. (No shit, Sherlock!) There was no mention on page one of the children in the camp. The Australian Broadcasting company featured this Reuters story more prominently:

LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND (thanks mcm)

“Children held at Camp X-ray: US admits

“The US military has revealed it is holding juveniles at its high-security prison for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, known as Camp X-ray.

“The commander of the joint task force at Guantanamo, Major General Geoffrey Miller, says more than one child under the age of 16 is at the detention centre.

“However, Maj. Gen Miller has revealed little more about their welfare. Maj Gen Miller says the US is holding â€˜juvenile enemy combatants’ at the center, confirming rumours of children being held.

THREATS AGAINST PYONYANG

Talks continue in Beijing today over those North Korean nuclear plants. North Korea appealed to the US for a more positive attitude. That attitude revealed itself up two days ago in the Australian press:

“The Pentagon has produced detailed plans to bomb North Korea’s nuclear plant at Yongbyon if the communist rogue state goes ahead with reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods that would yield it enough plutonium for half a dozen nuclear weapons within six months.

“According to well-informed Canberra sources close to US thinking, the elaborate Pentagon plan also involves a US strike against North Korean heavy artillery nestled into the hills above the border with South Korea. The artillery directly threatens the giant city of Seoul, as well as about 17,000 US troops stationed just south of the Demilitarised Zone.

MEDIA DISTORTS PALESTINIAN DISPUTE

There was another suicide bombing in Israel today even as US pressure forced Yasser Arafat to make concessions to his new Prime Minister who wants a US approved security chief in the cabinet. In much of the media, this conflict has been presented as a personality battle between an old war horse and a modernizing moderate. Not true says Uri Avnery in the pages of Ha’aretz who challenges the media frame.

“The clash between Abu-1 and Abu-2 – Abu-Amar v. Abu-Mazen – is not a personal matter, as it is presented by journalists in Israel and all over the world. Of course, the egos of the two personalities do play a role, as in all political fights. But the controversy itself goes much deeper. It reflects the unique situation of the Palestinian people.

“An upper-class Palestinian defined it this week on Israeli television as â€˜the move from the culture of revolution to the culture of a state.’ Meaning: the Palestinian war of liberation has come to an end, and now the time has come to put the affairs of state in order. Therefore, Yasser Arafat (Abu-Amar), who represents the first, must go and Mahmud Abbas (Abu-Mazen), who represents the second, must take over.

“No description could be further from reality. The Palestinian war of liberation is now at its height. Perhaps it has never been at a more critical stage. The Palestinians are faced with existential threats: ethnic cleansing (called in Israel “transfer”) or imprisonment in powerless, Bantustan-style enclaves.

“How has this illusion – that the national struggle is over and that the time has come to turn to administrative matters – arisen?”

You can read Ha’aretz on line for more.

ISRAELIS NAB ITALIAN JOURNALIST, ACTIVIST

Meanwhile, the International Solidarity Movement reports:

“ISM coordinator Osama Qashoo and an Italian journalist, Thomaso Besavi, were snatched yesterday,Tuesday April 22 at approximately 7:00 pm, by Israeli soldiers while in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nur Shams, where the Israeli Army had surrounded the camp and were reportedly detaining a group of Palestinian women and beating a 15-year-old boy.

“Osama and Thomaso both had cameras and were attempting to document Israeli military abuse of Palestinian civilians when they were threatened with arrest and then thrown into a military jeep. Cameras are a danger to the Israeli military image and various efforts have been made to restrict journalists’ access to Palestinian areas and to keep out international peace and human rights workers.”

SARS COVERAGE ALARMIST, MALARIA COVERAGE NON-EXISTENT

The other big story on the air is about SARS, the mysterious virus out of the East.

A media debate is surfacing about alarmist reports. The Washington Times to its credit notes “News Reports Abroad Spur Panic About SARS”

SARS has been referred to as “killer flu,” “deadly virus” and “mystery illness” among journalists tempting to treat it like an anthrax attack or ebola scare. While SARS is in the news, you will note that AIDS and Malaria which kill many more is not. The Herald in Zimbabwe reported today-one day ahead of Africa Malaria Day on which I will write tomorrow:

“The World Health Organisation’s Southern Africa Malaria Control Program based in Harare has placed Zimbabwe and Mozambique on high alert for risk of increased malaria transmission and possible epidemics within the next few weeks.

“Cyclones and floods ravaged the country recently. These disasters also follow the drought, which has created favorable conditions for malaria outbreaks and possible epidemics. It is disturbing that every year there has been an increase in the number of reported cases of malaria. More than 2 million cases of malaria are reported every year. The statistics clearly show that Zimbabwe is not winning its battle against malaria.”

NBC TO MEDIA CHANNEL: YOU GOT IT WRONG

Yesterday, I had a call from an NBC publicist complaining about a story I ran about the Today’s Show alleged treatment of actor Tim Robbins The story reported he had been blacked out just as he was criticizing US policy. As it turns out, I mis-attributed the story to the New York Times. I must have confused some emails and apologize to the General Electric Company and the Sulzberger family and our readers for any distress caused by this mistake. The NBC person insists that I got the facts wrong too. I hadn’t watched the show and must admit that having produced talk shows, I know that’s sometimes automatic commercial breaks up cut guests as a matter of course.

So a more benign explanation is possible. I wrote the veteran TV producer who sent me the item in the first place while I toured the Western provinces to pump my new book. He was not persuaded by NBC’s response and wrote:

“I’ll make a copy of the vhs tape, and you can screen it and decide for yourself. I think you’ll find it will give you PLENTY to say. ” Ok so let’s go to the video tape as a NY sportscaster says. Full report to come. We will be seeing you.

Now that we know that NBC is paying attention, perhaps they can respond to Ethan Young, who complains from Portland Oregon:

“I think it would be appropriate to say that the model-government â€˜West Wing’ has been driven off the air of NBC by the broadcast of Blazer games in Portland, OR, for two weeks now. The local TV guide (which arrives in the Sunday Oregonian) still registers the show, but only some of the game and an excruciatingly drawn-out 1/2-hour post-game show and analysis reminiscent of the channel’s TV news’ previous coverage of Iraq complete the coup. Hmmm. A conscious blow to the reasoned person’s morale?

MEDIA IN THE AMERICAS

On the media front, we learn from today’s NY Times that The F.B.I. has opened an internal investigation into its agents’ secret seizure of documents on international terrorism from a news organization.”

Narco news Network advises:

“Two new reports on Narco News today, one from Venezuela, another from Brazil, are both about the subject of Media, but the kinds of Media they report on could not be more distinct.

“Adriana Veloso reports from Southeastern Brazil on the tremendous influence of a few large television and media companies in this country and documents how, again and again, from news programs to nighttime soap operas, they just can’t (or won’t) get the drug issue right…

“Meanwhile, from Caracas, Luis GÃ³mez brings you Part II of his interview with Venezuela’s fastest and most accurate news agency – Aporrea.org – which, it may surprise some readers to discover, beats the Commercial Press daily precisely because it has no profit motive. See http://www.narconews.com

CNN ON THE MEDIA

PR Spin reports: “The media watchdog FAIR/Extra! has studied the guest list of CNN’s Reliable Sources to see how many critical voices were heard on the program that claims to “turn a critical lens on the media.” Covering one year of weekly programs, the FAIR study found that Reliable Sources strongly favored mainstream media insiders and right-leaning pundits. In addition, female critics were significantly underrepresented, and ethnic minority voices were almost non-existent.”

DEAD: THE LAUGH TRACK INVENTOR

Final comment also from Oregon. Da’ud X Mohammed writes:

“Ari Fleischer’s quote of the day: re â€˜no outsider’ should interfere with Iraq’s democracy? “We have made clear to Iran that we would oppose any outside organization’s interference in Iraq, interfering with their road to democracy.”

Did you hear about the guy who invented the â€˜laugh track’ died? No joke!

Another day, another lack of a dollar. Your support for Mediachannel remains urgent. Our alert status is high yellow. Check out Pay Pal on our front page. Contributions to the Global Center, our sponsoring 501 c 3 are tax deductible. Write to us at 1600 Broadway suite 700, New York, New York.

Write to me at dissector@mediachannel.org.

The News Dissector