OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW: The Media Year That Was

Danny Schechter
News Dissector

December 30 2002: At year’s end, a summing up is in order, a looking back, a projecting forward–you know the drill. Every network assigns someone to create a master reel with the hottest video and most poignant moments, usually brought to a close with a collage of well known personalities and politicians who bit the big one and are no more set to teary music. In that moment, news becomes nostalgia and the present belongs to history.

As regular readers know, your news dissector has been here every day with collage of my own, usually drawn from the news not in the news, or not in the news yet or news half told. My focus has been and remains on the media system as well as its products in an ongoing effort to understand how it is we have so much information available and yet know so little about what is really going on.

ALTERING AND ILLUMINATING OUR TIMES

I keep hearing a refrain from a song that I played on the radio years ago, a lyric that went “all the news just repeats itself like some forgotten dream that we once knew” I don’t remember the song, but I am still singing it. Truth to tell, I am not a cynic, not a skeptic, and not even a know-it-all. I am just trying to keep track of all the tracks I am riding.

“What kind of a year has it been?” I hear Ed Murrow’s voice this time: “A year like all years, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times, except you are there.”

We were here, all right, even though most of the time, who wanted to be? The only word that comes to mind to sum it up is “bleak.”

It started, if you recall last Christmas when the war on terror seemed almost won. Remember when US planes were pounding the Tora Bora Mountains and Geraldo thought he had Osama bin Laden on the run or in the sight of his gun? It was not to be.

Then, we heard about all the prisoners we had taken (well really, not that many), most notably that pathetic gen-xer from California, John Walker Lindh, and a few hundred Taliban in turbans and Arab Afghans, and we never did get their names, did we? Soon they were disappeared down the memory hole, without much scrutiny, as and put in deep freeze in the heat of Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, a land we denounced for years for its human rights abuses.

That was then. A year later, the Washington Post is reporting:

“U.S. Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations:

‘Stress and Duress’ Tactics Used on Terrorism Suspects Held in Secret Overseas Facilities:

“Those who refuse to cooperate inside this secret CIA interrogation center are sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles, according to intelligence specialists familiar with CIA interrogation methods. At times they are held in awkward, painful positions and deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights–subject to what are known as ’stress and duress’ techniques.”

Any reason to think these tactics are not used in Cuba? Who knows? We can’t get access. Three of those prisoners were released months later because they seemed truly to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.Could be “we” are too.

A YEAR AGO

What a difference a year makes. Last January, when President Bush had his unhappy encounter with a pretzel, he would add the phrase “Axis of Evil” to our lexicon. Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl was captured and decapitated after being forced to “confess” he was a Jew, all of it recorded on tape for media consumption. Who is watching that tape today? You will recall that we reported on his prior request, turned down by his own newspaper, to provide him with security training. The jobless rate went up and many big companies began to fall: Enron, Anderson, Global Crossing, KMart. In Israel, suicide bombings erupted and a long and still continuing cycle of endless retaliation was unleashed.

I was at the Sundance Film Festival in January showing our film, We are Family. I was feeling hopeful.

FEBRUARY’S MIDDLE EAST MADNESS

By February, I reported on the ongoing debate over media coverage of the Middle East.

Feb 9:”Yesterday I cited a CNN report from Israel about another Sharon-directed attack on the West Bank. CNN’s coverage is infuriating conservative supporters of Israel, as evidenced by this commentary by Aaron Klein in World Net Daily.com after he witnessed a terrorist incident and then watched the coverage of it:

“The CNN correspondent reminds her viewers of the ‘Israeli occupation, which creates despair in the territories that many say leads to such suicide attacks.’ I just witnessed the systematic murder of civilians simply for shopping or going to a restaurant, or waiting for a bus. The absolute gall of some CNN journalist to compare this tragedy to the preemptive killing of a terrorist responsible for the deaths of at least 10 Israelis and who was reportedly in the middle of planning still more attacks. Pardon me, Miss CNN, but if Israeli intelligence learns the whereabouts of amember of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front or whatever other terrorist organization-of-the-day, who is actively engaged in the planning of civilian murders and who is not being restrained by the Palestinian Authority despite numerous ceasefires and other agreements, then Israel has the responsibility to ensure that the terrorist is stopped at all costs”

A CONFLICT WITHOUT END, A DEBATE WITHOUT END

On the other side, FAIR issued an action alert criticizing NPR for reporting that “all was quiet” when Palestinians were being killed. The Independent’s Robert Fisk claims that reporters are being intimidated in fear of being denounced as antisemitic if they are critical of the Israeli government. He argued last April that most media is slanted against Palestinian aspirations.

‘Yet we are to believe that it is the corrupt, Parkinson’s-haunted Yasser Arafat who is to blame for the war. He will not ‘control’ his people. He is chastized by George Bush while his people are bestialized by the Israeli leadership. Rafael Eytan, the former Israeli chief of staff, used to talk of the Palestinians as ‘cockroaches in a glass jar’. Menachem Begin called them ‘two-legged beasts.’ Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual head of the Shas party, called them ’serpents’. In August last year, Ehud Barak called them ‘crocodiles’. Last month, the Israeli tourism minister, Rehavem Zeevi, called Arafat a ’scorpion. Even the South African regime never called the blacks by such vile names.’”

While it may be that these leaders have used these terms at times, this can be misleading because a majority of the Israeli people continue to tell pollsters that they favor a peaceful resolution. Hurtful remarks are heard on all sides. Palestinians often do not make distinctions between defenders of Israeli policy and all Jews, while some fundamentalist clerics in Palestine teach children that Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs. This sounds like -and often is-heard as ugly antisemitism by Jews who believe deeply that this conflict is driven by racism not againstIsrael as a state but Jews as a people. This dehumanization process hardens attitudes and hatreds. Everyone feels victimized and often is.

(*Context and Dissection: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is a mostly senile cleric who, among other heinous behavioral attitudes, condones wife and child beating and is held partly responsible by most Israelis for the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Rafael Eytan is a disgraced and corrupt former “hero.” Rahavem Zeevi was murdered in downtown Jerusalem by terrorists, the first Israeli cabinet minister to be assassinated. Menachem Begin died believing his life’s work was a failure and Ehud Barak was not reelected by the Israeli people. Yasser Arafat cancelled his promised elections and suicide bombing continues. So does retaliation and the destruction of homes, along with the curfews, border closings and rock throwings)

My editor, a child of Holocaust survivors, is constantly chiding me for trying to be balanced on this debate. She can only write her anguish on these issues in CAPITAL LETTERS

“THE ISSUE HERE IS RESPONSIBILITY. WHEN A PARENT WHO STRAPS A BOMB ON A CHILD BLAMES IT ON THE ISRAELIS, IN AMERICA, HE WOULD BE LOCKED UP FOR CHILD ABUSE. I DO NOT SEE ANYWHERE IN THE ARAB PSYCHE THE NOTION THAT ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR CURBING ONE’S TEMPER, FOR WATCHING ONE’S WORDS, FOR BEING MORAL, FOR TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS, FOR BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAY YOU RESPOND WHEN YOUR BUTTONS ARE PUNCHED.”

I can hear Palestinians as they bury so many of their own children, making the same point about Israelis. Some Israelis refer to all Palestinians as Arabs or terrorists or worse, often branding many of their critics as terrorists or antisemites. They fail to acknowledge the effects of an occupation that has gone on for more than three decades. They accept little responsibility for the crimes and abuses of their government or army.

HEARING ONLY YOUR OWN VOICE

Both sides often only listen to their own side in a discourse that is as frozen, politicized and polarized as is the political situation. It is like people who only want to watch or read media outlets that uncritically reinforce their worldview. Every time anyone makes a point, someone else makes a counterpoint to cancel it out. There are few voices respected on all sides. Unfortunately, most of the news coverage does little to separate out the issues, to acknowledge the legitimate fears of Israelis and Jews worldwide who worry about the unmistakable rise in antisemitism. Too few Jews and Israelis and Arabs are willing to dialogue or negotiate modalities of justice and coexistence.

What has changed on this front in the past year? Only the body count? The misery goes on, along with the propaganda posing as news escalating into standoff with almost no hope on any horizon. Bleak! As for other obscenities, the Enron hearings were also underway in February, Colin Powell was calling for “regime change” and there was an Olympic skating scandal. Milosovic’s trial begins. I forget what Valentine’s Day was like.

THE IDES OF MARCH

As the ides of March descended, we watched Haile Berry cry at the Oscars, the families of 8 Americans killed in Afghanistan cry at their funerals and more Palestinian and Israelis than ever bawling with rage. Arafat’s HQ was invaded. The UN passed a resolution calling for a Palestinian State. No one was paying much attention. When was the last time you heard mention of that resolution?

On March 11, I noted: “Media outlets love to mark anniversaries. Here in New York, the six-month anniversary of the attacks of September 11th is an occasion to recycle all the footage, and assess what progress has been made, especially on the security front. Special Reports are everywhere from the front page of the Daily News to the documentaries tonight on MSNBC and CBS. The Wall Trade Center will fall again, and again, the heroism of that time will be stressed. In the News, veteran newspaperman Pete Hamill invokes the anarchist Joe Hill, saying “Don’t mourn, organize, not to rally workers as it was intended, but to call for rebuilding. Reconstruction is being sold as THE way to honor the dead.”

In Rome, the Pope, not be outdone when it come to referencing the big “E ” blames a “Mystery of Evil” for the spreading sex scandal in the Catholic Church. Your news dissector’s blog was telling you about a new breakthrough in science from Wired: Researchers have developedtechnology that can project a beam of sound so narrow that only one person can hear it. “Directed” audio sounds like it’s coming from right in front of you even when transmitted from a few hundred meters away. Inventors of the new “ventriloquist” technology say it could provide an added dimension to entertainment. The military, however, is investigating using it to confuse opponents or even inflict pain.

Milton Berle died, along with the Queen Mother. Uncle Milty was the Queen Mother of American TV.

APRIL SHOWERS

Along comes April. More mayhem in the Middle East. The big news in our media world was the $54 billion write-off by AOLTimeWarner, the largest quarterly loss in US history, a clear sign that the media moguls had it wrong in their world of bigger is better and synergy is next to godliness. Once again, the shareholders who bought the hype paid the price

I continued tracking the follies of journalists, finding in France’s Le Monde Diplomatique, a piece by Meron Benvenisti questioning when the media and policy wonks will realize the horror and futility of this war.

“Nobody can predict when the moment will come and all the experts and commentators will start competing over who was the first to expose the failure, the misguided strategy, the uselessness, the illusions, the political stupidity, the surrender to vengeance and the ruthlessness - the real price of the current operation. But the manipulators should not delude themselves: That moment will come. Will it arrive when the scenes of destruction in Jenin are finally revealed? Or when it becomes clear to everyone that the operation ‘to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure’ only increased the terror? Or when it turns out that the reoccupation of the Palestinian territories as the buffer zones requires longer and longer reserve service? Or will the sobering up occur when Israel becomes a ‘rogue state’ in the eyes of the entire world, or will it happen when the economic situation deteriorates into an even worse crisis?

“When the time comes, and the curtain is pulled away from this phony patriotism, it will turn out that the fifth Israel-Palestine war (after the Arab Revolt, the 1948 war, the Lebanon war, and the first Intifada) will truly have been another battle in the war of independence, but not Israel’s, as Ariel Sharon claims, but that of the Palestinians. And nobody, neither side, will win that war,because in conflicts between communities there are no victors, only losers. All that will remain will be the horrific memories, the profound hatred, the calls for vengeance, and the bitter taste of missed opportunities, since it almost, almost could have been different.”

During that month I visited the Taos Talking Picture Festival and heard one of my heroes, film maker Haskell Wexler, speak about how working people in the movie and TV industry are treated by the studios they work for. “Many work 20 hours a day and have no life besides work” he said referring to the long hours put in by the crews who make HBO’s Sex in the City. The audience cheered when he quipped, “For the crew of Sex in the City, there is no sex in the city.”

EVEN GOT THE MONTH OF MAY

May 2002: We were on terrorist alert that month. It was not so mellow yellow, whatever that means. Few of us knew what it meant or what to do about it if we did. May was the month when India and Pakistan threatened each other with nuclear weapons, and Chandra Levy’s body was found in Rock Creek Park. Moment of Zen: Ozzy Osbourne met George W. Bush.

Adelphia went down, and finally East Timor went up to become an Independent state. On May 10, USA TODAY reported: “ANTHRAX WAS FROM BIO DEFENSE LAB, STUDY SAYS:Science Magazine is out with a study that confirms that the anthrax that terrorized America was not cooked by Saddam, or sprinkled on out shores by the twins of terror, Omar and Osama.

In May, anthrax target, Dan Rather was interviewed on BBC’s News night where he criticized US media collusion with the government, attacked censorship, revealed self-censorship in which he implicated himself. The story made Page One in every London daily but was not picked up in any US newspaper save the LA Times that played it as a quote in the Calendar section b. Here is one Ratherism from that interview as it appeared in my blog:

“Limiting access, limiting information to cover the backsides of those who are in charge of the war is extremely dangerous and cannot and should not be accepted. And I am sorry to say that, up to and including the moment of this interview, that overwhelmingly it has been accepted by the American people. And the current administration revels in that, they relish that, and they take refuge in that.”

JUNE WAS BURSTING OUT ALL OVER

June was bursting out all over with Martha Stewart’s image transformed from America’s sweetheart intto a slimy inside trader. There was talk of preemptive strikes on the president’s lips that we were all watching, and Hamid Karzai, dressed to the nines, was proclaimed Afghanistan’s President. It was WorldCom’s turn to go public with billions in transgressions and the finger of blame moved from Osama to Saddam with the sudden “discovery” of weapons of mass destruction. It was clarly the time for the start of act two in the War Without End. Meanwhile I was in Germany. I got to Berlin soon after Bush left, and wrote: “I flew in on the footsteps of mein president, Herr GW Bush, who was greeted with protests.

Writing in TIME’s International edition, Josef Joffe, the editor of the German weekly Die Zeit, summed up feelings this way: “They (the Americans) throw their weight around. They don’t respect neither treaties nor traditions. They bestride the world as if it were the Rose Garden of the White House-all theirs.”

He cites the activist response, singling out the funniest poster. “Peace for the World, Pretzels for Bush.” Funny isn’t it, how an American magazine carries this viewpoint in its European edition but not in the USA as if Americans have to be kept from how their allies really see them.

Bush survived Germany but it doesn’t appear as if his visit won any hearts and minds the way Kennedy’s or even Reagan’s had. Explains Joffe–who compares Bush to the mythic Gulliver amidst the Lilliputians: “In its Glory Days, US diplomacy was a lot smarter; today the US is more prone to rend than to mend the international fabric.”

Berlin’s left-wing newspaper published an empty front page to signal its view that Bush had nothing to say.

SUMMER IS A COMIN IN

July was the month when stocks descended, miners stuck in a Pennsylvania mine battled to stay alive, John Walker Lindh was pressured to plead guilty to stay alive, and the Red Sox’s Ted Williams tried to find new life after death through cryogenics. And 40 civilians and the vice president of the US republic of Kabul also died; the former as a result of a US bombing, the latter at the hands of an assassin. WorldCom declared bankruptcy and the Pope for the first time declared his concerns about sex between priests and their flock.

The New York Times finally began to investigate what really happened nine months earlier at the World Trade Center. I wrote: “First there is the page one report that puts the brilliance of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in perspective in terms of his administration’s handling of the World Trade Center catastrophe. He was, as we all recall, pictured as the City’s savior and the hero among heroes. Now, we have confirmed for all to read on page one that the city on his watch was not ready for a prime time disaster.

Reports the Times:

“A six-month examination by The Times found that the rescuers’ ability to save themselves and others was hobbled by technical difficulties, a history of tribal feuding and management lapses that have been part of the emergency response culture in New York City and other regions for years.”

DOG DAZE

In the dog days of August, Maryland officials were still trying to kill the Chinese snake-headed fish that was multiplying in its ponds. I went to South Africa where US officials were successfully killing off the resolve of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. The environmental issues raised there were covered in depth around the world. The US media gave most of its coverage to Colin Powell’s visit, during which he was booed. The pattern of coverage was confirmed. The US media does not cover the world, only the US role in it.

On the corporate crime front, indictments came down in the case of the founder of Imclone, two WorldCom-ers were charged with lying, and US airways flew intro bankruptcy court. At month’s end, my new book Media Wars came out to offer a collection of dissections and other commentary on media coverage since 9/11.

ANOTHER 9/11

September 11: we commemorated the first anniversary of 9/11. My film, We are Family, got picked up the Trio Channel. The alert status went to orange for two weeks. The White House started making Iraq its only issue du jour and the media leapt in to drive the point home. Schroder won in Germany. Bush did not congratulate him. Tyco was in trouble.

OCTOBER AROUND THE BELTWAY

It was the month of the sniper, the sniper, the sniper. Was anything else covered? Oh yes, the Moscow theater massacre by Russian soldiers liberating hostages held by Chechens. It reminded me of that US lieutenant in Vietnam: “We dstroyed the village inorder to save it.”

THANKSGIVING

November: More Iraq-o-phobia sets in. The UN inspectors steal the limelight. Baghad welcomes them back. Al Qaeda strikes in Kenya. Kissinger named to lead 9/11 probe. He accepts but soon quits as others probe his company’s clients/ Carter wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Falwell condemns the Prophet Mohammad as a terrorist.

HOLIDAY CHEER

December: More ‘all the Iraq all the time.’ This is the month in which which Saddam ostensibly declared his weapons. Before the document reaches Washington, the Administration intercepts the document and declares it flawed. Soon, as we tired of imagess of scurrying inspectors and no smoking guns, North Korea briefly becomes the new country to hate by year’s end. United and Conseco seek bankruptcy protection, unemployment rises, unemployment benefits cut. Trent Lott falls, along with a year’s end total of 325 scandal-tinged priests and one Cardinal named Law. ABC’s Roone Arledge who left us was consecrated by his faithful — and much of the media– as a media saint. Phil Berrigan earned that designation.

BRACE YOURSELF

So sayonara 2002: good riddance to old rubbish; out with the old and in with the new. Of course, we start the New Year with trepidation about what’s next — a likely war, intensifying repression and a culture riddled with so much despair.

What will be in the media next year-but more, importantly, about what will happen to the media. The NY Times buried the warning in a business piece: “Media companies could face a tumultuous year as the Federal Communications Commission introduces proposals to unshackle the largest broadcasters and telecommunications conglomerates from restraints that have limited growth.” “Limited growth?” Huh?

“Television networks like CNN will try to prepare for a war against Iraq, and capitalize on it.” Ah, yes! And so media capitalism marches on into 2003. Ask yourself: for all our techno-saavy, I-Pods and Tivos, channels and choices — is our media better or worse? Are we learning more or understanding less? And if your answer is in the negative, what are you prepared to do about it?

What did I leave out? I could go on, but I will give you a break before we are all broke and broken. What does it all mean? A lot less and much more than it appears. My gratitude goes out at year’s end to all of the Globalvisioneers and Mediachannelers who helped me bring this column to you every day–and to all of you who have waded through it, and have written to tell me you find it useful.Special thanks to those who have sent checks and kind notes. For the last time in 2002, I am Danny Schechter, your news dissector saying:

ADELANTE. Onward.

Happy News Year. Please email me: dissector@mediachannel.org