My media sermon this morning begins with a psalm from the Book of Card, an utterance by the White House Chief of Staff , Andrew Card, who sounds like Noam Chomsky with a revelation reported prominently on the front page of today’s New York Times, the “newspaper of record.”

Quote:

“The early days of any battle introduce what’s called the fog of war, and we’re still looking through that fog to find the truth.”

Card is talking about the Anthrax menace, which has shut down the US Supreme Court building has been found at l8 locations now in and around Washington. This weekend, the Washington Post carried a report by its biggest gun , the Watergate investigator turned beltway insider, Bob Woodward, which confirmed speculation that the FBI now believes this threat is of domestic origin . Yesterday’s Observer published in London but citing Washington sources one-upped that report by suggesting that homegrown neo-Nazi’s were among the prime suspects. That story has not received much domestic pick up.

ATTACKING IRAQ

Last night, ABC’s Brian Ross reported a piece describing a that potentially weapons grade variant of the Big A that allegedly could only come from Iraq. The implication: get Saddam. In fact, a journalist from another network told me that Ross was inaccurate since the same component had been used in the USSR, and the US bio war programs. Once again selective information seems to be driving investigations which remain undependable, thanks, perhaps, to the “fog” that Mr. Card complains about. 60 Minutes sent Leslie Stahl to Iraq where that country’s Vice President Tariq Aziz denied any Iraqi role in anthrax. So did Iraq’s chief Biowar expert. Taziz’s plea to the USA was: “Leave us Alone.”

To contradict this view, Stahl turned to former chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler of Australia who said he was lying about Iraq’s weapons program. He did acknowledge another of Aziz’s charges as a “problem,” namely that the inspections are politically one sided with Israel not having its secret weapons programs scrutinized. What I missed in the report were the views of Scott Ritter, the former US military officer who was Butler’s main on the ground inspector in Iraq, and who has published articles contradicting his ex-boss’s claims and absolving Iraq of complicity in these attacks even though he hates Hussein. What a tangled web! This tangled web seems to be pointing to a new front in the terror war, especially as frustrations in Afghanistan mount, with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw admitting yesterday that the war may be “indefinite.” USA Today reports today that the US wants to establish a military base there.

What to believe? Canada’s CBC carried a frontline TV report last night from Nothern Alliance held territory. Commanders went on camera to criticize the US bombing campaign as ineffective, charging that the attacks on Kabul are totally counterproductive. This morning’s New York Times says the opposite, quoting Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in its lead article as claiming that the air-war is “on track” and that coordination is smoother with the Northern Alliance.” Who to believe? As the war against the Taliban goes into its fourth week, we barely hear much about the goals of the mission: to get the terrorists. Ironically, Tony Blair’s pit bull Jack Straw is blasting British journalists for demanding too much information about the military campaign and not emphasizing “why we are there.” Are the goals morphing? As for the hunt for Bin Laden, Rumsfeld repeated that it is a difficult task, once again counseling patience. To be fair to the Times, they do report on the 13 new civilians killed in another bomb accident, and that so-called “rebel” leaders are “baffled” by the US bombing targets. But they play that story way back in the B section which today falls behind the sports section. More New Yorkers undoubtedly want to read about the mistakes of the Bronx Bombers last night in Phoenix where the Yankees dropped the second game of the (sic) “World Series” (in which only Americans take part.)

“IT’S LIKE DEFEATING THE MAFIA BY ATTACKING SICILY”

So says Ghada Karmi, an academic and leader of the UK’s Palestinian Community, writing on the BBC website: “Countering terrorism is a job for civilian security services, intelligence gathering, tackling money-laundering, freezing assets and policing borders. Throwing bombs at it is like trying to defeat the Mafia by attacking Sicily. This is an unprecedented situation and it requires an unconventional response. The US needs to show imagination and mature statesmanship in handling it. That means an immediate end to the bombing, and a close working liaison with the UN.”

AT LAST: CNN DISCOVERS THE REFUGEE PROBLEM

Who is CNN correspondent Carol Lin? Whoever she is, she’s great because she finally managed to get CNN away from the worshipful looks at US weapons systems to reporting on that part of this conflict that will kill the most innocents: the refugee crisis. Her report this morning from the Pakistan border showed the desperation of the situation, the growing flood of refugees, the lack of facilities, the inadequate UN response so far, and ethnic conflicts among the Afghan’s pouring out of the kill zone. Her report was informative and compassionate. An hour later I read a NY Times report that offered an unintended ironic counterpoint. As Pakistan, whose intelligence agencies are totally connected to the Taliban and the terrorists, as the same front page reports this morning, turns back refugees, so do others. “For now, the nation’s door remains closed to refugees including women fleeing the Taliban, Iraqis fleeing the regime of Saddam Hussein, children escaping war in Sierra Leone.” What nation, you ask would do that? Answer: The United States. 20,000 people who have been cleared to come here from disease prone refugee camps are now in limbo. The golden door that Emma Lazarus sings about in an inscription on the Statue of Liberty is temporarily — or indefinitely?-closed.

D or C? DRUGS, DRUGS, DRUGS

No sooner was Cipro in that it may be out, because the government is revising its pharmaceutical prescription to those exposed to anthrax. A “D” drug is replacing the “C” drug. Experts have now shifted their advice, recommending “doxycycline” as now anti-anthrax drug of choice because “it has fewer side effects than Cipro.” Now, they tell us. Two weeks ago, I reported on a story that someone at one of the networks told me about a staffer given Cipro who then collapsed on a subway platform. Clearly, there are serious side effects. Why wasn’t the media looking more closely at them? Yesterday one health official called the widespread sale of Cipro a “clinical trial.” Huh? Are all these people just being used as scapegoats? That thought is as scary as the Anthrax threat.

Meanwhile, media critic Laura Flanders points to an aspect of the Cipro story that has gone virtual uncovered. She does so in the form of a letter to Tommy Thompson, the Secretary of Healh and Human Services”

“The newspapers all seem very excited. You got Bayer to give you acut price on their famous anti-anthrax drug, Cipro. Bayer has agreedto sell the administration 100 million tablets at 95 cents a piece,instead of their usual $4.67 a pill. Congress will only be payingBayer $95 million, instead of almost half a billion dollars. That’sgreat!

“I did have one question. It’s about India. Last week, the governmentof India offered to give the United States $1 million worth ofgeneric Cipro as a gift to help us with the anthrax scare. Thatwould buy some 10 million tablets in India, where RanbaxyPharmaceuticals sells their version of the same antibiotic foraround 10 cents a pill. Ten million tablets could treat more than833,000 people absolutely free! Wouldn’t that be helpful?

The Indian government’s offer did not receive much media attention.” No, it hasn’t!

if you are an Anthrax Info junkie, here’s a neat information source with a curious name: RAMBO — the “Research Association of Medical and Biological Organizations.” Click below.

TWO VIEWS ON GOVERNMENT NEWS MANAGEMENT

Yesterday, I was on Larry Bensky’s Sunday Salon program on KPFA, the Pacifica station in Berkeley which issued an appeal for financial support in a full page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle after discovering that the Pacifica Foundation had not been paying the stations’s bills and that the station was in danger of being yanked off the air. On air, we talked about government media strategies. Larry’s other guest was Jacqueline E. Sharkey, a well informed University of Arizona journalism professor who has written on the way the media was used the Gulf War and is being subjected to the same playbook in this one. She has written about her findings on Tom Paine.com. Here’s an excerpt:

“The techniques used by the government to limit and shape news coverage — which have included prohibiting access to military operations and releasing misleading data about U.S. successes and casualties — bring up issues that go far beyond the obvious need to balance military secrecy requirements with the public’s right to know. This information-control program has distorted accounts of what occurred during the military operations in Grenada, Panama and the Persian Gulf, has led to false perceptions about the operations’ short- and long-term impact on these regions and on U.S. policy, and has threatened the historical record.” For more read, her book, and click the full article below.

Media Critic Mark Crispin Miller is also writing about this. He claims the editors of Mother Jones “mutilated” a recent piece of his, and sent along the original. Here’s a taste:

“This White House wants to dominate all thinking, all discussion, and isusing the new war to do the job on every front. Such repressiveness wasevident in Ari Fleischer’s not-too-subtle warning that “Americans shouldwatch what they say” (and in the deletion of that bit from the officialtranscript); in Bush’s move to limit Congress’s access to classifiedintelligence (because a leak, he said, had jeopardized the lives of UStroops-although that leak was unrelated to the US military action); inColin Powell’s blunt campaign to shut down Al Jazeera, the only independentTV network in the Arab world; in John Ashcroft’s recent statement urgingfederal agencies to turn down FOIA requests whenever possible. And we alsonotice the peculiar stealthiness of this regime in the sly doggedness withwhich they keep on trying to sneak all their pet projects-ANWAR drilling,”missile defense,” further media deregulation, still more tax cuts for thevery rich, etc.-through a frazzled and distracted Congress. They try tocarry out that mission under cover of catastrophe because the mission isunpopular-which is, of course, precisely why the White House doesn’t wantthe people knowing anything about it. Such is the usual m.o. of this mostsecretive administration, which-let’s not forget-is now in power becausetheir operatives prevented us from knowing just how we, the people, reallyvoted.”

MURDOCH LOSES ONE

The government’s media managers still have nothing on the private sector. Perhaps that’s why we can all breathe a sigh of momentary relief amidst reports that Rupert Murdoch was not successful in acquiring the Echo Star satellite which carries the Dish Network. Dish houses Free Speech TV and World Link, two independent and critical channels who might have lost their access with Rupert’s at the helm. His latest avaricious bid was partially financed by fellow moguls Bill Gates and John Malone, who Al Gore once called “The Darth Vader” of cable. Murdoch, not a man to publicly emote, was reportedly pissed off big time.

The Independent reports today: “Rupert Murdoch appeared to wreck his ambition of completing a global broadcasting empire by angrily turning his back on negotiations this weekend to take control of DirecTV, America’s largest satellite television provider.For more than 15 months, Mr Murdoch has been locked in talks with General Motors to acquire its Hughes Electronics division, the current owner of DirecTV. He has been frustrated by competition from Colorado based EchoStar Communications. General Motors backed off from a promise to make its choice finally on Saturday and wanted to wait two more days. The fresh delay prompted Mr Murdoch to pull out of the talks. “We have no option but to withdraw immediately our fully negotiated and financed proposal,” Mr Murdoch said. “Hughes would have been an excellent strategic fit for our global platforms, and we are disappointed with the Board’s inaction in the face of an as-yet unfinanced counter proposal,” he added.” Silent rejoicing was heard worldwide.

AND, BACK IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR, LOO WOES AT THE BBC

Also from the Independent, this crucial media news:

“All along the corridors of the BBC’s Westminster offices, executives andjournalists have been eyeing each others’ rears. ‘’It all began,'’ saysan insider, ‘’when word got out that someone had complained that thewooden loo seats were too small.'’

“The age, sex and seniority of the big-bottomed complainant are shroudedin mystery. But management clearly takes the issue seriously and hasreplaced all of the toilet seats at the BBC’s luxurious offices oppositethe Houses of Parliament with larger white, plastic seats.

“Unfortunately however, the new seats are now causing friction in thenewsroom. ‘’I'm thinking of complaining that they are too large,'’ saysthe insider, who did not want to reveal her identity.

“Earlier this year, the BBC’s occupation health unit published a bookletinstructing managers, producers and others to ‘’ensure you sit on thecheeks of your bottom'’ in order to avoid stress. The latestdevelopments in the BBC lavatories are said, however, to be unrelated tothis health advice.”

JOIN OUR MEDIA MONITORING NETWORK

As we all know, what goes up, comes down, and what goes in, comes out. And so it goes. Another week is underway here in Times Square. I will be back tomorrow with more but I am off for a few days on one of those “foreign assignments” later in the week, and may miss a dissection or two. Feedback and items welcome. Write: Dissector@mediachannel.org