* WAR CLOUDS OVER CNN
* THE ANONYMOUS JOURNALISM OF THE NY TIMES
* NORMAN SOLOMON’S ANNUAL MEDIA PRIZES

“WAR!”

That is a fighting word, and if CNN is to be believed, the North Koreans are saying to the US: impose sanctions on us and that means war. CNN.com picks up the story as its lead as well

” N. KOREA: SANCTIONS WOULD BE ‘WAR’”

“North Korea kept up its anti-U.S. rhetoric today, saying that economicsanctions against the communist regime would amount to an act of war. TheUnited States, South Korea and Japan have opened trilateral talks on NorthKorea’s decision to resume its nuclear program.”

CNN’s CLINCHER: “WE HAVE TO ADMIT”

That sounded pretty serious, but then CNN trotted out its Sr International Editor David Clinch in white shirt and tie. The network has been using reporters and editors on air to tell us what is coming up in the news, what they are “following” etc. Needless to say such producers make cheaper on air talent and give the viewers a sense that real news gathering is going on. So with coffee cup in hand, I listen to Clinch’s clincher. “Well, Carol, sometimes we have to admit we don’t know what is going on.” Those words should be emblazoned on the screen and nominated for the Orwell Newsspeak award. Sometimes?

CNN has been busy purging its senior journalists, supposedly to make way for younger (and, let us admit, cheaper) talent. So say goodbye to news veterans Garrick Utley and Bruce Morton and other real journos. Explained the Daily News when it broke this story: “The moves are the latest sign of a shift at CNN under chairman Walter Isaacson away from longer think pieces and investigative reporting by veteran broadcasters, toward snappy live reports, marquee-name anchors, and younger reporters, insiders said.”

Why are they doing this? The News says because of competition from Fox which leads CNN to become more like Fox, as in the bad driving out what once seemed so much better. “The AOL Time Warner-owned network is under fierce pressure from Fox News Channel, the brash Rupert Murdoch-owned net that has toppled CNN in the ratings. “The quality of our reporting has not changed and will not change,” said a CNN flackster.

SELF SATISFACTION

All the while some at CNN seem smug and self satisfied. That is why media critic Norman Solomon gives a “Self Satisfaction” media prize to CNN anchor Jack Cafferty explaining: “On CNN’s “American Morning” program Aug. 5, Cafferty mixed candor with exemplary media arrogance: “This is a commercial enterprise. This is not PBS. We’re not here as a public service. We’re here to make money. We sell advertising, and we do it on the premise that people are going to watch. If you don’t cover the miners because you want to do a story about a debt crisis in Brazil at the time everybody else is covering the miners, then Citibank calls up and says, ‘You know what? We’re not renewing the commercial contract.’ I mean it’s a business.”

SABC MAY DUMP CNN

Maybe not really a news business, at least that’s what some in South Africa believe according to a Global Information Network report: “The South Africa BroadcastingCorporation (SABC) announced that it may switch it news servicefrom American-based CNN to Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, the PersianGulf news network, said SABC spokesman Ihron Rensburg late last month. Rensburg said, “The key objective is to provide our audiencewith a range of perspectives and news events.” He added that “nodecision has been taken yet.” (Meanwhile the Palestinian police have busted an Al Jazeera correspondent. Our report says: “At around 2 A.M. Monday 6 January 2003, members of the Palestinian Intelligence broke into the Al Jazeera Space Channel’s office in Gaza and detained its correspondent, Saif ad-Din Shahin. Eyewitnesses said the security officials who carried out the arrest did not show any warrant from the General Prosecution office to authorize their action. Shahin has been kept in the Intelligence Headquarters in the as-Sudanyeh area, north to Gaza City.”)

THE NY TIMES DOWNPLAYS KOREA

While CNN was talking war from North Korea this morning, a war that they admit they can’t be sure of, the New York Times says President Bush is trying to downplay the crisis. Would he be doing this if a real war was on the verge? Reports the Times:

“Bush Welcomes Slower Approach to North Korea”

“The White House sought to defuse the confrontation withNorth Korea, only one of a number of issues facing the president.”

Q: WHAT HAS THE UN FOUND IN IRAQ? A: “ZILCH”

Meanwhile, most Americans tell pollsters that they consider Iraq a greater threat than North Korea., perhaps because they hear so much more about that threat. So far the UN has been unable to confirm its suspected horde of weapons even as more US troops are flown to the region. The head of the UN’s Atomic Agency says: “NO SMOKING GUN. (Fox tells us for what it is worth, “he went school with Geraldo” ) Aha! The Guardian reported this same story on New Year’s day: “UN inspection teams in Iraq have found “zilch” so far, but have had little help from intelligence agencies to guide them in their hunt for illicit weapons, one of the inspectors said yesterday. “If our goal is to catch them with their pants down, we are definitely losing,” the inspector told an American newspaper. “We haven’t found an iota of concealed material yet.” This was not mentioned when CNN showed footage today of inspectors flying around Iraq in helicopters.

Last night, I was startled to see Saddam Hussein himself on CSPAN, giving a speech to mark an Iraqi holiday. It was rather dense with him reading, dare I say, droning on with many references to believers, Allah., and history. It was hard to follow, with a poor English voice over, only two camera angles and no teleprompters. Don’t those guys know the value of a media advisor? They are not just losing the propaganda war. They don’t know how to fight it. The Chinese news agency may have decoded the speech better than I reporting that “President Saddam Hussein accused U.N. inspectors of engaging in “intelligence work” instead of searching for suspected nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.”

ANONYMOUS JOURNALISM

Yesterday I told you about a New Times report on Washington’s plans to invade and occupy Iraq. Today, Tom Englehardt who does Tom’ Dispatch.com comments on the journalistic technique behind this scoop: “You could tell instantly how important it is, because the many references to sources are fabulously, succulently anonymous, in the fashion of only the most significant insider journalism. (”One of Mr. Bush’s top advisors,” “one senior official,” “an official close to Mr. Bush,” “a senior Pentagon official,” “administration officials who have been developing [the proposals] for several months” — these are the Hellfire missiles of journalistic sourcing.) In addition, Sanger and Dao actually quote from “administration documents” — from the President’s lips to my mouth to this piece of paper to you. You can’t ask for better”

“The piece should be studied carefully for many reasons, but here’s something I, at least, find of great interest: While our media may largely have avoided the issue of oil and Iraq, it turns out that all those senior officials and officials “close” to Bush haven’t. The “delicate question” of “how to deal with Iraq’s oil reserves,” also referred to by one senior official as “the patrimony of the Iraqi people,” turns out to involve grabbing the oil fields before Saddam can torch them, using Iraqi oil to pay for reconstruction (and assumedly the occupation as well), and deciding how, once in control of the oil, to relate to OPEC –”who would represent occupied Iraq at the organization’s meetings” — or even whether to relate to OPEC.”See TomDispatch.com

THE “STUPID” ECONOMY

President Bush speaks out on the economy tonight and the Administration is out in full force “explaining” i.e.-selling the economic stimulus plan that will cut stock dividend taxes for the rich and give unemployed people a couple of bucks. What do we really know about the state of the economy? AP reported the other day: “The Bush administration has dropped the government’s monthly report on mass layoffs, which also had been eliminated when President Bush’s father was in office. The report by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded layoffs of 50 or more workers regardless of duration. The last report was issued on Christmas Eve with November’s figures showing that U.S. companies laid off more than 240,000 workers in 2,150 mass layoffs.”

MEDIA SCANDAL ROCKS POLAND

For those of you who have been to see Roman Polanski’s new film the pianist, listen up. A scandal involving one of the principals in the film could, the Independent in London reports today, bring down the Polish government. AP reports: “Prosecutors questioned a leading Polish newspaper editor Monday about allegations that afilm producer who helped make Steven Spielberg’s Oscar winner «Schindler’s List» solicited a US$17.5 million bribe to lobby the government for favorable media laws.

“The allegations against Lew Rywin, who also co-produced Roman Polanski’s «The Pianist,» were published last month by the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, which reported he approached its chief editor with the offer last July claiming he represented Prime Minister Leszek Miller.

“Rywin has refused to comment on the bribery allegation. But Miller, speaking on Polish state radio Monday, called it «grotesque» and false.

“Warsaw prosecutors began their investigation Monday by questioning Gazeta chief editor Adam Michnik, a communist-era dissident and leading critic of media-lawchanges drafted by the current left-leaning government.

“Private media have protested the bill, saying it would strengthen the monopoly of state television with restrictions on private ownership of television and radiostations.”

WANTED: BETTER COVERAGE OF LATIN AMERICA

I would love to see more in-depth coverage of what’s happening in Venezuela and Brazil. All we see from Caracas are pictures of peopling calling for the ouster of Hugo Chavez with little explanation of who these people are and what the issues and interests are. In Brazil., a new left of center government is making some dramatic shifts in policy as the Guardian reports:”Brazil’s new leftwing president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, signaled the seriousness of his fight against poverty yesterday when he delayed an important arms deal so that he could spend the money on an anti-hunger campaign.”

THE IN BOX: “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THE NEW YORK TIMES?”

That’s the question Shebar Windstone poses in an e-mail to the weblog: “What the hell is wrong with the NY Times? For a while I thought it was my changing interests or standards, but then I became convinced that the paper is simply deteriorating. Aside from a couple of investigations into local/state scandals, such as facilities housing/imprisoning the mentally ill, it’s become little more than a shill for the Bush/Pentagon imperium, major corporations & a few minor small businesses with well-connected owners, a reprint service for their press releases. There have been some major stories (e.g., US government programs collecting fetuses & corpses from countries around the world without parental knowledge & permission to test for radiation, Chinese pressure on airlines to deny air travel to the Dalai Lama & Falun Gong supporters) that it never covered, many others that it got to so late that they were hardly news any more. The Times was one of my motivations for moving to New York in the late 1970s, because it was so much cheaper here than in California, but now it hardly seems worth the time to read for free online. Maybe I miss a few stories because reading online takes longer on my slow computer & connection, but I don’t think there’s much to miss. If I continue to visit it daily, that’s only to see what kinds of propaganda & pap New Yorkers are being fed (force-fed? spoon-fed?).

“The Washington Post seems to have gotten better, comparatively speaking, except that it crashes my browser more often than the Times. So while to some degree the NY Times may reflect the deterioration of news coverage nationwide, I wonder just what the old lady’s problem might be. BBC News seems to be going downhill fast in a similar way — &, budgetary problems aside, I wonder if it’s only coincidental that these are the two countries where governments are pushing hardest for Bush’s war against Iraq & Islam? ” READERS-Do you agree? Disagree? Let us know.

MEDIA DARWINISM

As for the Times, the NY Post reports that editor Howell Raines is marrying a “Polish Public Relations princess Another media sighting on P6: Geraldo vacationing in the Bahamas. For our final comment this AM, we return to Norman Solomon’s P-U counter Pulitzer prizes. He gives a media tycoon the Media Darwinism award:

“As a longtime media tycoon now at the top of the Vivendi Universal conglomerate, Barry Diller isn’t shy about depicting his success as part of an upward evolutionary spiral. “Media is going to continue its trend of consolidation, which mirrors the ongoing globalization,” Diller told the Los Angeles Times in March. “This is a natural law. It is inevitable.”

Hopefully, and just as inevitably, your news dissector will be back tomorrow with more on the media and the mishigas. Share your items and comments. Write: Dissector@mediachannel.org