The Taliban showed up on CNN and through CNN in my living room this morning with a one man press conference with a one line message: We Are Still Here. Scotching reports that the Turbaned terrors are about to give up what they claim are four provinces still under their control, they vow to fight on, say they have no idea where the man they call Sheik Osama bin Laden and AL Queda are, say they staged disciplined strategic withdrawals from Kabul and other cities denounce the US for attacking them, claim 4000 civilian deaths, and vow to win with the help of “Almighty Allah.”

And all of this before my first coffee. Their spokesman, young, self assured and quiet in his responses, speaking with a weapon in partial view behind him, said that the Taliban will not take part in the political conference slated to take place in Berlin because it will fail as other attempts by outsiders to promote unity between the various factions and warlords have over twenty years. All of this happened at 6 A.M. U.S. Time.

CNN SPEAKS FOR THE PENTAGON

CNN then took us to the Pentagon for a response. But since no one was apparently up so early to appear on camera, CNN’s own correspondent explained what the Pentagon would have said had a spokesperson been there. This is a new moment in news. We now have correspondent’s explaining what people would say, so why bother cover them at all. CNN can just interpret each side’s views which makes newsgathering itself disposable,

ANTHRAX ALERT (AGAIN)

There is another inexplicable case of inhalation anthrax this morning. A 94 year old woman who has nothing to do with post offices, Congressional offices or media offices. She is in hospital and it is serious. No one knows yet. An informative background report on anthrax by John Donvan on ABC’s Nightline last night was no help in figuring out this mystery, except to show what poor coordination on this issue exists between US government agencies and the US research center at Ft. Detrick, Maryland which had for years been working on weaponizing anthrax, a covert program which may still be underway. The New York Times this morning reports that anthrax was not just in the mail, but could be ordered through the mail. Check what they have JUST discovered:

“In Utah, a Government Hater Sells a Germ-Warfare Book

“A Nebraska entrepreneur has been selling copies of hisself-published book which includes directions for making”mail-delivered” anthrax.

WITH THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE AT THE WALDORF

From the latest news in the world, we move on to some news from the world of news. Almost the entire NY based US media elite assembled last night for the llth Annual International Press Freedom Awards dinner at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel. This annual ritual is a fundraiser for the Committee To Protect Journalists, now marking its 20th year in the business of safeguarding media freedom which means for them insuring that journalists around the world can work freely, which many cannot. The event feels like a meeting of the central committee of Media Inc. and attracts the biggest names in the business, with two network news anchors NBC’s Tom Brokaw and CBS’ Dan Rather on hand as MC’s with a supporting cast including Veteran NT Times and Philadelphia Inquirer editor Gene Roberts, Anthony Lewis of Times, and Walter Cronkite seen in a video although he was in the house live and in person.

The dinner was a bit more somber than usual since 7 journalists have died in the last few weeks in Afghanistan (although remarkably their names were not read or pictures shown.) Brokaw was more restrained in his usually hysterically funny jibes at his colleagues (although he open with a promise to move events quickly because the 60 Minutes table was under a curfew) He asked for a pause for a moment of silence. Dan Rather, his voice booming authoritatively one-upped him on the patriotic index with a call for silence for everyone that died on 9/ll and the US military in harms way. Proper respect was shown.

FUNDING: NO PROBLEM…..

Special respect greeted this year’s dinner chairman Bob Pittman, the radio DJ turned MTV guru and now AOL TimeWarner heavyweight who corraled $1,185,000 from his corporate colleagues which include Bloomberg, Merill Lynch, The New York Times Companyu, Reuters, Vivendi Universal, Coca Cola , Lexis Nexis and of course AOL Time Warner. It was announced that Pittman himself have a not so shabby $250,000 while the Knight Foundation added a cool $3.1 million to their coffers. Wow!

I was as happy for CPJ which was founded by five non-corporate journos including my friends Michael Massing and Judith Moses, and struggled as a human right group in the wilderness for years until the media corporations took up their cause, perhaps as an insurance policy for their own journalists “in the field”, and also because media execs do identify with the higher principles of the profession even if the companies they run violate them every day.

At he same time, as I look at our own bank book here at Mediachannel, I know how much we need that kind of support for our work as a sort of de- facto Committee to Protect JournalISM. Journalism itself is as much at risk as some of the people who labor in its vineyards. When you are a critical voice in the media, and of the media, corporate largesse is much more difficult to attract, although it was fun to hang out for a few minutes with the high and mighty, including CNN’s new boss man Walter Isaacson who reminded me that he use to listen to my news dissections on WBCN in Boston when he was at Harvard. (I am not sure that hey had much affect.) I was especially happy to connect with our advisor Walter Cronkite who repeated one of his favorite and famous axioms, as he was leaving to me and Jessie Jackson with whom I was talking , the one about “the duty of journalists is to be skeptical so that the people don’t become cynical.”

HONORING BRAVE JOURNALISTS

The dinner honored four brave journalists who deserved the recognition although, as in years past, their moment in this US media sun is unlikely to be followed by exposure in the media itself as in having their stories told and followed up. I was among a handful of journalists there to cover the event. They stuck us up in the balcony under the watchful eye of a small security army, fed us cold sandwiches and made no attempt permit access to the people they were honoring. Strange, that a media organization treats the media interested in telling their story this way. This has been a contradiction within CPJ for years. Anyway, I was there, did cover, and don’t really need the gold plated pens that Lexis Nexis dispensed as party favors to the paying guests.

The ceremony itself was, as it is every year moving as journalists who one reads about gets to have say outside their own countries, I cheered them on including Mazen Dama who risks his life and limbs every day covering the conflict on the ground in the West bank town of Hebron where he has been shot and attacked by the Israeli Army, settlers, and the Palestinian Authority. We heard about Jiang Weiping from China who won a 9 year jail sentence, not a prize, for his investigative reports on corruption in China. We met Geoff Nyarota, the gutsy editor of Zimbabwe’s Daily News, the country’s only independent daily newspaper which has been bombed and harassed by the Mugabe regime, (Mediachannl.org offers a special section of the media issue in Zimbabwe.) But the most moving speech, perhaps because it was the most relevant too our own media situation came from Horacio Verbitsky, an investigative reporter from Argentina who is known as ‘el perro’ of the dog in his own country for relentlessly pursuing stories. He was honored for his role in exposing horrific human rights abuses during he days of the military junta.

Verbitsky spoke of the pain his country went through and then turned to the pains we are going through suggesting that Argentina’s descent into dictatorship when its military felt threatened by terrorists might be relevant to the US. He was low-key about it, but noted that the government became terrorists in he process and presided over the disappearance of freedom. He called on us not to let this happen here, in a climate of fear and insecurity, and to defend civil liberties and press freedoms. He won a standing ovation.

SUPPORT INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM BY PRACTICING IT

Next to address these issues was another awardee, Retied New York Times editor Joe Llelyveld, who rose from a great foreign correspondent in places like South Africa to the helm of that paper. I always respected him, especially after he let us reprint one of his speeches on Mediachannel. Last night, he began with a personal muse that led him into an expression of his worries about the government’s refusal to release information about people who have been detained. “We don’t know who they are,” and, sadly, the paper’s current management doesn’t seem to be trying to hard to find out. “It is our duty, he said to find out what is really going on, to uncover what is being withheld.” He won applause for that and applause from me for adding, “If we support independent journalism in other lands, we have to practice it at home.” He also called on news organizations that have abandoned foreign reporting to beef up their capacity to cover the world. He reminded all those in attendance, by then drooling for the food that yet to be served, that journalism is there not to serve governments, but truth. Afterwards, I asked Lewis Lapham, the always brilliant editor of Harpers’ what he thought of the usually moderate middle of the road ex-Timesman as a fierce social critic. He was dismissive. “Oh come on Danny,” was all he said. “I liked the Argentinian.”

Afterwards I ran into an old friend who is now a high level flack at CBS, who said he was very uncomfortable with all such pronouncements, and though that it was attitudes like his, the praise for the man from the Pampas, and an off-handed reference by Brokaw to the “patriotism police,” showed just how out of touch the media is with the legitimate fears of the majority of Americans in a country at war. He spoke about his personal worries about Anthrax threats and thought that all hand wringing about people in detention were exaggerated given the dangers. “And I am a left wing guy, Danny.” Unfortunately he may be right about the mood of the country. A recent Gallup poll reports that a large majority of Americans think he media is putting the military at risk and is not patriotic enough. Many Americans are quite happy NOT to know what is going on.

A DEBATE WITH JESSE J

Just as I was winding up for a hallway debate, while he fingered the cigar he was just dying to light up, along comes the Reverend Jesse Jackson who I then provoked into joining our small fray. Jesse was on fire as usual, charging that the media was using the flag as blind fold, and not reporting on the conflict fully or for that matter, the war at home as in really explaining the large transfer of wealth underway via tax breaks for big corporations disguised as an economic stimulus package. When my friend said that Ashcroft have been focused on foreign affairs and may not be able to pay attention to certain domestic concerns, the Reverend countered, ” he has two eyes, don’t he?”

Jesse was totally contemptuous of the mealy mouthed tone of the evening which did not feature one direct, outspoken critical comment about President Bush or his policies which is, in his view, devastating a country, supporting drug lords called the Northern Alliance and failing so far to find bin Laden who he called, “The Cave Man.” My CBS friend was no match for his verbal firepower, but he agreed with me that most of the media is not doing its job. “there was hypocrisy in there tonight, hypocrisy.” Who am I to even try to one up a wordsmith in a class of his own.

THREATS TO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

On this theme of the threat to freedom of expression and dissent, look at this item from nominally liberal Massachusetts, my old stomping ground”

“School officials are being asked to justify a recent speech given by peace activist HowardZinn at Newton North High School in which he equated the U.S. military strikes inAfghanistan with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“The controversial historian and former Boston University professor stressed that the U.S.bombing raids aimed at toppling the Taliban and hunting down fugitive terror boss Osamabin Laden were killing children and innocent civilians.

““The terrorists of Sept. 11 did a horrible thing to us, so we do terrible things to the peopleof Afghanistan. That is immoral and puts us on the same level as a terrorist,'’ Zinn wasquoted as saying in a report in the school newspaper.

“Parents questioned exposing young teens to Zinn’s opinions. “It’s unbelievable what this guy did,'’ said Tom Mountain, a parent of three Newton students who are not yet in high school. “It’s horrifying. He told these things to an entire school audience of kids 13 to 17 who don’t know any better.'’

FROM BOSTON TO MIAMI: THE THOUGHT POLICE AT WORK

From the Miami Herald: “When terror struck America on Sept. 11, a University of Miami medicaltechnician who was turning 22 that day said aloud, “Some birthdaygift from Osama bin Laden!'’

“Mohammad Rahat says he made the remark “in a sarcastic way.'’ But it caused enough of a stir that the university fired him — an actionthat Rahat blames not only on his politically charged words, whichalso criticized U.S. foreign policy, but on his citizenship: Iranian.

“If the same thing had occurred with someone of a differentbackground, it would have resulted in a different outcome,'’ Rahatsaid Thursday outside his former job site on UM’s Jackson MemorialHospital campus. “This was discrimination.'’

ANOTHER NATION HEARD FROM

I am happy to learn that the Mediachannel’s global reach is spreadiing. This just in from R.J.Manecksha on the other side of the world: “Please keep on writing Your articles are thought provoking and is essential reading for me. CNN and articles from mainstream media have been consigned to the trash can. This mail is from Penang,Malaysia,a country most Americans would regard as a terrorist resort thanks to CNN.”

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans. Best wishes to all those promoting a Thanksgiving Grace, an interfaith effort to promote healing througg prayer, meditation and the singing of Paul Robeson’s Great Song, “The House I Live In.” I will be with my family tomorrow so if this column is not updated, you will understand. Also, have a look at my regular News Dissector analyis. This week I look at the recent media recount of the Presidential Election. As the new Harper’s Index points out, it was supposed to have been released 9/24. The next day, a Media Consortium member, The New York Times, declared its results “utterly irrelevent. This line then follows:

“Number of consortium members that ran a news story on their decision to delay publcizing the results indefinately: O.”

Give us your feedback. Write dissector@mediachannel.org Finally, here is a gift, a thought for the holidays from the late great US journalist H.L.Mencken:”After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.”