AXIS OF EVIL:* MEDIA ACCOUNTABILITY*YOUR LETTERS

Who is in your “Axis of Evil”?

Are you one of the protesters preparing to challenge what you consider the evil empire? It is the World Economic Forum.

If you are part of the Forum in-group, you probably include the protesters themselves. If you were on the air at Fox News in the six am hour this morning, you spoke of the evil one as “the bad guys” in the way that cops talk about perps.

And if you were a Fox viewer, and one of the few who got through on the phones, you regurgitated what you had just heard on — where else? — Fox News. “It’s Iraq.”

Why should we bring down SAD-DAMN? Because he kicked out the inspectors, Caller Two, they kicked out the inspectors!

Caller Three: They kicked out the inspectors!

I felt like I was back in elementary school, responding in rote to what the teacher demanded we recite: the Pledge of Allegiance.

The problem is that these viewers–and their numbers are growing since FOX upped CNN in the ratings–are pledging allegiance to Rupert Murdoch and the worldview he stands for–whether they know it or not.

LETTING THE FACTS GET IN THE WAY

Let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good crusade in-the-making. A few minutes before I remote-controlled to FOX, I watched a CNN report reminding viewers that the UN pulled the inspectors out and that they were not, in fact, kicked out.

Why did the inspectors leave? Because the US and Britain were planning to bomb Baghdad again, and they didn’t want their people hurt. So, no, kids, there was no kicking. In fact, Chief Inspector Scott Ritter (I quoted him in this space last week) wrote a piece in the Christian Science Monitor counseling against the growing frenzy to kick some butt over there. Once a super-hawk, this former US military man is far more contrite and informed all the blowhards who have never been there to tangle with Iraqis.

Last night, Charlie Rose on “liberal” PBS presented yet another advocator of attacks on Iraq, without representing an opposing point of view. The Iraq-attack advocate was the author of an anti-terrorist tract calling for Sadaam’s liquidation as the ONLY way to protect us from terrorism.

Charlie kept asking for evidence of Sadaam’s responsibility for 9/11, and she kept alluding to conspiracies and speculation, with a few-well grounded fears based on what came out through federal prosecutions of terrorists.

This author’s axis of evil revolves around convicted terrorist Ramzi Yusef–if that is who he is, since no one is even sure of his name. Charlie let drop that only one journalist got to interview him: Raghida Dergham, a columnist for Al-Hayat, a Lebanese newspaper, who is based in New York.

As it turns out, just before I tuned in, I was with Raghda, one of the sharpest voices in the Arab media who turns up occasionally as a sound byte or guest on a news show and complains about how poorly the US media responds to the current crisis when it comes to any in depth international news. More about that in a sec.

But first, back to that “AXIS OF EVIL.”

“STOOODPID?”

Over in Iraq, an official, not the TOP banana, but a military-looking dude, called our President’s call to arms “Stupid.” (Doesn’t he know them’s fighting words in Texas?) Referring to some countries like North Korea and Iran–with whom the United States has publicly attempted a rapprochement–he said “Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since Sept. 11. But we know their true nature.”

In his speech, he warned he would not allow the “world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most dangerous weapons” He argued that Iraq, Iran, North Korea and their “terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil.”

Most of the American media played up the axis of evil line, cheerleading for the expansion of the terror war. Last night, Nightline dropped in on the Philippines to measure the debate over US troops there. Over in the non-Islamic non-Republic of Britain, The Guardian, this morning, is not quite as concise in its appraisal of the expanding war as was the one-word wielding Iraqi official, but they were no less apoplectic.

This is Western criticism–the type that seems to be an endangered species in most of US medialand–looks like:

“EXPLOITING” SEPTEMBER 11

“A tendency among politicians to exploit the September 11 tragedy has been apparent from the very first. In Israel, Russia and China, governments were quick to use America’s agony to justify the unjustifiable in Palestine, Chechnya and in Xinjiang. Pakistan’s ostracized regime found in September 11 a return route to international acceptance. Its archrival India, in its turn, used one crisis to dramatize another, in Kashmir. From Tehran to Khartoum to Harare, political leaders climbed aboard the anti-terrorism bandwagon with a view to domestic advantage as well as Washington’s aid and approbation. Even Tony Blair’s post-September 11 empathy- offensive was not totally devoid of similar calculations. Such is the inevitable way, perhaps, of a hard-hearted, cynical world. But when George Bush, president of the very nation that was targeted, follows suit and begins to exploit and manipulate the September 11 tragedy for political advantage, alarm bells must ring out loud. Yet this is exactly what Mr. Bush’s first State of the Union address unabashedly set out to do. All US policy, both international and domestic, is now framed in terms of last autumn’s emergency; all measures, however partisan and divisive, are justified in the name of patriotic unity and solidarity; all misgiving and dissent must be overridden for the sake of America’s “just cause.”

Mr. Bush, in his black-and-white way, has clearly convinced himself that in what he calls the “decisive decade in the history of liberty,” his duty, mission and calling is to direct the triumph of good over evil at home and abroad. “America will lead by defending liberty and justice because they are right and true and unchanging for all people everywhere,” he declared. This is a premise fortified by falsehoods and underpinned by a delusion.”http://www.guardian.co.uk/

DEADLINE FOR DANIEL PEARL?

Today is a deadline of sorts for Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been kidnapped and humiliated by crazies in Pakistan. His wife, 6 months pregnant, has placed faith in a “dialogue” with those who hold them, praying that conversation and negotiation might work. The kidnappers are demanding that all US journalists leave Pakistan. They say Pearl was working for Israel–which is nonsense. One of the deeper reasons for all of this has been the lack of dialogue between cultures and peoples over many years. Dialogue, as a matter of fact, goes contrary to US policy– which prefers hard line confrontation. Let us hope he is freed.

AN INDIAN VIEW: AL QUADA STILL AT IT

Writing for India’s Telka.com (via the new Globalvision News Network (gvnews.net)) Zafar Agha writes “Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar may be running for their lives, but their supporters in Pakistan are still active and working against the Americans. If there ever was any doubt about the Al Qaeda still being active, the National Movement for Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty (NMRPS) has put to rest all such doubts. Allegedly, it is this unknown organization, with obvious links to Al Qaeda, that has captured Pakistan-based American journalist Daniel Pearl.

“…The Taliban story may have come to an end. But the anti-US wave sweeping across the Muslim countries still survives. The American journalist’s mysterious disappearance from Pakistan leaves little doubt that the threat of terrorism is far from over and that Americans remain a soft target for Islamic terrorists all over the world. The only difference, in the aftermath of September 11, is that they have lost state support.”

‘PIECE’ IN AFGHANISTAN

As Afghanistan’s President Karzai shows off his couture in Washington, New York and London, thanking and begging for aid at every stop, back in his homeland, security is, shall we say, shaky with 30 plus new deaths and counting. The warlords are warring again in Gardez as they have for many many years. Today’s chilling New York Times quote of the day shows that peace in that country is spelled piece or pieces.

“I’ll send in heavy armor. I’ll send in multiple rocketslaunchers, I’ll fire and fire and fire, all night and allday, until I bring this to a finish.”

PADSHA KHAN ZADRAN, is one of two warlords whose forces clashed on Wednesday in Gardez, Afghanist

SUSTAINABILITY REPORTHere in New York yesterday, I was hop scotching to media related events. For lunch, I was over at Ted Kheel and Leslie Hoffman’s Carriage House for the release of a new report by Sustainability (with offices in NY and London on the role of the media in Corporate Social Responsibility.)

The Mediachannel’s help was solicited for this report which we highlight this week. Among its conclusions–get this: “Key media institutions are amongst the least transparent and accountable organizations in the world.”

WOW! Please read their findings, showing how coverage of important issues like climate and the ozone layer peak when there are summits or controversies but then go uncovered for years. The hole in the ozone layer, for example, has expanded six times, while the coverage has shrunk by roughly the same amount.

Speaking at the event, Sustainability’s John Elkington called the media a “carrier and a barrier” when it comes to coverage and urged more scrutiny of the media. Robert Thompson of London’s Financial Times, a paper that–to its credit–covers these issues, told the audience, “You need to push the media” to get more coverage of complex issues. “It rides on momentum,” he acknowledged.

Sustainability’s work, new to the US, needs more exposure and support. The fact that a big PR firm like Ketchum is behind it, or at least getting it out, will help it get attention–but I didn’t see too many reporters on hand to cover their findings. No TV cameras. No radio outlets. No surprise there.

JIHAD AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Later in the day, there was a late start up at Columbia for the Reuters Forum. They featured a debate on “Jihad Vs. McWorld: The clash between Fundamentalism and the Secular World.” Unfortunately, there were no fundamentalists on the panel–which included the aforementioned Raghida Dergham, an Arab. The only Fundamentalists there were those who demand that, fundamentally, journalists on all sides must be more accurate than ideological. Stephen Jukes, a very smart editor of Reuters America, Ambassador Edward S. Walker of the Middle East Institute were panelists, and, in the moderator’s chair, sat Author-professor Benjamin Barber who, thank you, plugged the Mediachannel as a source of missing info.

I don’t have time right now to get into all the issues, Israel being the most emotional for this Upper West Side crowd. When he was on the record, journalist Jukes, whose org funded the forum, did criticize many American journalists for “loosing their way” after September 11–although he did also say he respects the US press more than the outlets he grew up with in the UK. He is disgusted by the entertainment orientation of US TV news, and was caustic in his comments on much of the US coverage. He acknowledged, in a response to questions, that it is very hard to remain balanced in Middle East coverage, pointing out, for example that any journalist who covered an Israeli settlers funeral would be killed and hence when you see one side mourning, and not the other, it is because the media is barred by settlers and threatened as well.

Raghida Dergam took on the Arafat-baiters in the room with one rather interesting fact that I hadn’t heard before. First, despite the press saying, over and over that Arafat turned down an Israeli offer at Camp David, no one has yet produced one piece of paper which defined what that offer is. According her, even president Clinton says that the key turn down occurred NOT at Camp David but later at Taba in Egypt, where both sides were putting some flesh on the bones of an agreement.

But by then, she explained, Sharon had been elected by the Israelis and the moment for peace had passed. The larger point to me is that, if true, her account shows how simplification can be misleading. Clearly we need better reporting here, not a constant recycling of half-truths by any side.

JOURNALISTS “OFF THE RECORD”

After the Forum, the participants tagging along with me, schnorrer that I am, sent for a dinner at the Faculty Club with Knight Bagheot Fellows, journalists with fellowships for intellectually retooling and well- funded R&R for a year on Morningside Heights.

One of the participants insisted that this be off the record, so I can’t tell you who was there and who said what without ruffling some feathers.

(It is funny how journalists always want to go off the record when they talk about what is really going on in the business. Fear and loathing, as the good Gonzo Dr Thompson put it, still reigns in the newsroom and no one wants to be quoted out of school. I disagree with this survival impulse, but hey, maybe that’s why they are making the big bucks and I am sniping from my foxhole.)

Mea Culpa, aside, the anonymous back and forth was very enlightening because it went after all sides, Arab and American for checkbook journalism (Al Jazeera sold its Osama videos to broadcasters) and rumor-mongering.

No one in the room knew, for example, just where the frequently cited rumor that 4000 Jews were warned to stay away from the World Trade Center on September 11 originated. No one could cite the source! Overall, the evening was a tasty and filling bull session of the type I used to have as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, and one I expect to be part of for the next few days at the World Eco Forum that starts today.

It just reaffirmed for me the importance of being as detailed as we can be in our reporting and critiques. Also, it underscored how important it is for journalists to challenge and be challenged. Thank you Ben and Raghida for letting me tag along, and thank you Reuters for making it happen.

IN THE MAIL: ON AIDS….

From Geneva re: my News Dissector column on media coverage of AIDS on the Mediachannel home page. “I spend days in and out trying to figure out how we can get the media interested in covering the AIDS situation in Africa. How do we get the President of the United States to include the children in Africa in his plea for every child in America to give one dollar to help the children of Afghanistan? I have concluded that the only way that we can do this is to pay for the airtime because they are not going to cover it otherwise. So, these young people should be helped. We will keep them in our prayers. Thank you for thought provoking commentary. Mia

AND THE DEBATE ON ARAFAT CONTINUES

Writes Lawrence Houghteling: “I hope at least the canapés are good at the Waldorf -I fear for your sanity if you have to listen to too many hours of Davos-speak. Thanks for your remarks on Monday about Arafat. I’mwriting in case you’re taking a poll - I want to besure to be counted. I’m with you. Arafat IS a disappointment, of course. Basically a piece of shit.Tom Friedman is at least right about that (though I think he was way wrong 18 months ago when he told us that Barak was ready to make real peace and Arafat waswhat was keeping the New Jerusalem from coming to pass.)

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians (or, rather -let’s be fair about this - too many Israelis and Palestinians) are reacting out of tribal, primitive emotions.

“Barak went farther than he’d expected to at Camp David, but he was still offering (and gracelessly - he wouldn’t even face Arafat and treat him like a man, from what I hear) a series of tiny Bantustans separated by Israeli checkpoints and highways on which the settlers can whiz into their jobs in the big citywhile the Palestinians on the other side of the barbedwire wait in endless roadblocks.

“Also, anyone who blames Arafat for failing to make the Palestinian Authority into a modern, economically robust, politically sophisticated, viable semi-state should have his or her head examined right away.Also, anyone who imagines that Sharon would be willingto make a peace that any real Palestinian leader, evenif he were of the caliber of Nelson Mandela or Mohandas Gandhi, could sell to his people, should buy that classy inter-borough bridge I was telling you about a while ago.

“The tragic thing is that on both sides there are thosewho could make a peace, but we are watching the hardliners foreclose that option.

“I wish that someone - you could do it, I know - wouldwrite the future history of Israel/Palestine as it isbeing created by the terror bombers of Hamas and thesuperioristic cynics of the Israeli army and government.

” Write it all. Year by year, the increasing nastiness,the dehumanizing of The Enemy insisted upon by thecrapagandists on both sides and [sic] acceded to by craven Peace Lovers on both sides. The bombings and evictions and assassinations and (best of all, I chortle tothink of it) the everlasting humiliation of the weak and innocent. And you would end it, of course, with the inevitable nuclear conflagration and theannihilation of both peoples - as well as a few million of their neighbors.”

AND AN ARAB VIEW

Meanwhile on the Arab-Jewish Peace Group List Serve, Fadil Adeeb also comments on the get- Arafat line being echoed by, among others, NY TIMES op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman: “By the way, I saw little in Friedman’s piece this morning to commend it, just the same old blame-Arafat-for-the-failure-of-peace-negotiations stuff that’s been mouthed so much in the mainstream press in this country that it passes for gospel, but just doesn’t add up. There’s a lot that of legitimate criticism that can be leveled at Arafat, …that Palestinians across the spectrum harbor for many different reasons. But that Arafat’s been unprepared and unwilling to make peace with Israel on reasonable terms just doesn’t ring true. If anything, in retrospect it would seem that he was too ready to rely on the good faith of the Israeli government to arrive at a decent agreement and was therefore persuaded to sign onto Oslo, against the prophetic advice of others who believed it was too prone to exploitation by the more powerful party.”

This debate continues. Please remember, our focus must be on the media coverage, not on the issues or we will be here all day and I am already getting criticized, not unfairly, for going on too long about just about everything. Set an example for me: keep your letters short but keep them coming. Write dissector@mediacannel.org. As chance would have it, yesterday I bumped into a columnist for the Istanbul newspaper Milliyet and told him about my report earlier this week on the upcoming trial of Noam Chomsky’s publisher in that country. He knew all about it, and had written about it himself. I am sending him my piece in hopes that the people of Turkey to get to read about our concerns.