At least in New York City, the land of ground zero, THE WAR ON TERROR has been displaced in the tabloids by a local political war as New York’s Mayor Giuliani makes it clear that he wants to stay on the job he legally must leave January 1. He is looking to make deals with other candidates. It is not as much of slam dunk for Rudy as I thought it would be the other day, but some accommodation is likely. No politician wants to lock horns with the man who for many has finally become a MENSH, according to many press reports. I liked one insightful comment about the current situation which is obviously relevant also for media folks. “Its going to need politicians who think outside the box,” he said, “who think outside the old way in which we used to practice politics. That all came to me last night, that I should start thinking that way too.”

“…OUTSIDE THE BOX”….

The front page of the New York Times went outside of its box today, and finally discovered what we have been reporting since the attack — that people in other lands are skeptical of US intentions. Early on in this crisis, I suggested that the real target for the US counter attack is Sadam’s Iraq, not the Taliban’s Afghanistan, to whom the US offered some carrots the other way, hinting at more foreign aid if they play ball in turning over the “prime suspect.”

Robert Fisk, the Independent in London’s maverick but always professional reporter is still raising questions about what Bush’s real game plan is, questions that US media needs to investigate more sharply. “…is Mr bin Laden merely chapter one of our new Middle Eastern adventure,to be broadened later to include Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, thedestruction of the Lebanese Hezbollah, the humbling of Syria, thehumiliation of Iran, the reimposition of yet another fraudulent “peaceprocess” between Israel and the Palestinians?”

“If this seems fanciful, you should listen to what’s coming out of Washingtonand Tel Aviv. While The New York Times Pentagon sources are suggesting thatSaddam may be chapter two, the Israelis are trying to set up Lebanon - the”centre of international terror” according to Israeli prime minister ArielSharon - for a bombing run or two, along with Yasser Arafat’s little garbagetip down in Gaza where the Israelis have discovered, mirabile dictu, a “binLaden cell”.”

A VIEW FROM ISRAEL

Nitay Artenstein, a journalist on a leading Hebrew newspaper in Israel writes to report that the Israeli press is not probing the war’s goals too deeply: “Truthfully? I think the Israeli media has nothing to be proud of regardingits coverage of the attacks and their aftermath. All of the news publishedhere were directly or indirectly taken from AP, Reuters, the New York Timesand the Washington Post. There is something important to understand in thisaspect: Hebrew papers don’t make much money, being written in a languagespoken by only five million people. As a result of this and of the commonIsraeli’s lack of interest about what happens abroad, Israel’s three majornewspapers allocate very little funds for sending reporters abroad. Thus, oninternational stories like this one, those papers don’t have much to doexcept take what they can from the American media. And that’s why our localpress has the same faults on coverage as does the press in the US.

“This means inundating the reader with the smallest details while ignoringthe more important and problematic questions, such as what were the motivesfor the attack. It means cooperating with every spin the White House putsout - I think the most obvious example was when the USS Roosevelt embarkedtowards the Middle East. The papers here published pictures smeared across awhole sheet, gave huge headlines (such as ‘Bush: A Declaration of War onTerror’), without asking the really important questions: Who in the world isthat carrier going to fight? Why isn’t the president saying whom he plans toattack? Could it be that there is no clear target, only the will to make alot of noise so the citizens of America would still think Bush didn’t letthe attacks go by without a radical response?”

AND WHAT ABOUT THE OIL CONNECTION? WHY SO FEW REPORTS?

Yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle carried a piece by Frank Vivano arguing that oil is at the center of this new war, reinforcing my belief that the Oil of Iraq is of more interest to military planners than the rubble in Kabul. Karen Talbot explains in an e-mail about an issue that has been under covered, to say the least:

“Energy future rides on U.S. War: Conflict centered inworld’s oil patch,” (by Frank Viviano) zeros in on the crux of what is goingon when he says, “the hidden stakes in the war against terrorism can besummed up in a single word: oil.”

“He points out that “the map of terrorist sanctuaries and targets in theMiddle East and Central Asia is also a map of the world’s principal energysources…Rather than a simple confrontation between Islam and the West[these energy sources] will be the primary flash point of global conflictfor decades to come…”

“You cannot discuss the violence in this region outside the contest of oil,”says Vakhtang Kolbaya, deputy chairman of the parliament in the republic ofGeorgia. “Its at the heart of the problem.”

“It is inevitable that the war against terrorism will be seen by many as awar on behalf of America’s Chevron, ExxonMobil and Arco; France’sTotalFinaElf; British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell and other mulrinationalgiants which have hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in theregion. There is no avoiding such a linkage or the rising tide of anger itwill produce in developing nations already convinced that they are victimsof a conspiratorial collaboration between global capital and U.S. militarymight,” says Viviano.

THAT PALESTINAN STORY AND CNN, AGAIN

As mediachannel readers know, we have refuted the rumor that CNN used l991 footage of Palestinians cheering rather than current footage. That accusation has been retracted by the person who first raised it, and denied by CNN.But now there is a ne controversy about the same footage raised by a German TV show and newspaper, as reported by someone called Joergan on an Indy Media Site.

“In a recent statement CNN insisted that the famous footage was shot on the day of the WTC blast. Meanwhile, German reporters of the prestigious “Panorama” TV magazine investigated how the scenes were shot. What they found out was amazing. On German TV they aired, supposedly for the first time, parts of the entire 4-minute footage not previously shown.

“It became clear that a person was animating a couple of children to cheer in front of the camera. The woman cheering was offered a candy toact cheerful. She later said she was shocked that her pictures were shown in the context of the terrorist attacks. She had no idea what they were for.A total view of the scene shows a street largely full of at best apathic people doing business as usual. Only a handful of people standing in front of the camera are celebrating.

“You can see the video online onhttp://www.ndrtv.de/panorama/sendung/index.html The link is below the second picture and in German. But you can still see the pictures in the report. Forward to 7 minutes 45 seconds and watch it until the end.

“Furthermore, the highly regarded German magazine “Der Spiegel” has had an article on this. The article shows the picture of the woman getting candy and another one people showing more people in the background of the cheering kids. These people are passing by as usual.” Click Below for the article–in German.

This sounds strangely like the controversy about ITN covrage of that camp in Bosnia over omitted footage which became the subject of a law in London. The court ruled for ITN. Let’s see how CNN responds.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE US “HOME LANDS”

Happily, more and more Media Channel readers are sending in comments based on their own media monitoring. Jon Fairbanks comments on my News Dissector column this week suggsting a conenction between FCC proposals to deregulate the networks and the scope and tone of their coverage: “Did you notice that the govt. gave approval to the AOL-TWmerger during the middle of the 2000 election debacle? Thatthe 35% rule would be overturned during the current mega-story would be consistent. Distract and destroy. BTW, another item approved during Election Aftermath 2000was the foreign income tax credit. It allows certain large corporationsto pay no taxes on a large percentage of foreign income. Includedon the lucky list were Boeing and Monsanto.”

ANYONE REMEMBER FLORIDA?

As readers of this weblog may recall I am also directing an investigative film about what really happened in Florida during nor should it be. But a new development may be a troubling casualty of this crisis, a related development involving the results of the major media’s long awaited recount of the showdown in the Sunshine state which has now been put on hold. (Bear in mind any recount that doesn’t count the 180,000 votes that were voided or uncounted in Florida may in itself be questionable) Seth Mnookin wrote this account. Sorry, Seth, it was sent via e-mail, and I don’t know where it appeared.

“The much-anticipated “recount” of almost 200,000 disputed Florida ballots from the presidential election — commissioned by an unprecedented consortium of major news organizations — has been put on indefinite hold because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, journalists involved in the effort said on Monday. The material was to be released to the participating news organizations a week ago Monday and would have been embargoed until yesterday.

Several people involved said the attacks raised two significant problems: a sudden lack of resources to analyze the painstakingly collected data about the ballots and, just as centrally, a queasy sense that now is not the right time to publish information that could well question the legitimacy of the nation’s commander in chief.

“….Asked whether a reluctance to question the legitimacy of President Bush was a factor in putting the ballot project on hold, John Broder, a New York Times reporter and member of the steering committee overseeing the analysis, said, “I imagine that individual news organizations have had that discussion internally.” Broder, who didn’t want to comment more on the situation, would say only, “I think the data’s ready, but we’re not. We’ll publish when we’re ready.”

TWO OTHER ITEMS

l. Lets be careful about how UNICEF’s study on dead children in Iraq is reported. That study covered more than the impact of US sanctions. See http://home.att.net/~drew.hamre/docUNICEF.htm

2. Finally, thanks to SDS for sending along word that will intrigue all media junkies: EbAY is auctioning off “THE WAR OF NETWORKS TV BOARD GAME. See Link Below.

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