*ITS OFFICIAL: SADDAM IS #1

*PHIL DONAHUE DUCT TAPED

*WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT CABLE TV?

Move over Dan Rather, and let another Dan sit behind the desk. I am sure you need a rest after that exhausting round of TV interviews hyping your big interview with that SH, the baddie from Baghdad. We may be racing towards war, but, hat’s off. You won the big war for CBS. The EYE network, as insiders call it, can claim victory, Yes, folks, SADDAM HUSSEIN was #1 in the ratings, and beat out Barbara, the beast, Baretta and the rest of the boobs on the tubes.

When the New York Times reports it, it must be true:

“Hussein Grabs Top Sweeps-Week Ratings in His Prime-Time Debut”Saddam Hussein drew 18 million viewers to CBS on Wednesday night, but some media critics thought Dan Rather was too soft.”

NETWORKS FEAR MONEY WOES

There was no reaction from Saddam, whose “Showdown Iraq” series threatens to become the longest and bloodiest program on the air. As one network cracks open the champagne, high anxiety haunts TV cable newsland. James Welborn explains why on TomPaine.com:

“If and when the bombs start raining down there won’t be any shortage of viewers for either network. What will be in short supply, however, are advertisers. And no advertisers, of course, means no profits.

“According to The New York Times, “Executives of the 24-hour cable news channels — CNN, Fox News and MSNBC — said they expected to suspend all advertising for at least the first few days of a war. Paul Rittenberg, the senior vice president of advertising for Fox News, said the network usually brought in about $1 million in advertising a day. But executives at all three channels said they expected at least a few advertisers to return within weeks, especially if the war ended quickly.

“But that model is predicated on what happened last time around, when the war in Iraq was over almost as quickly as it began. If the new war becomes a protracted affair, the cable news channels could suffer irreparable financial harm. Evidently, none of the sponsors are all that excited about cutting away from a shot of bloody carnage to bring you a warm, fuzzy message about their latest product.”

WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION

As we reported yesterday, despite the impression circulated by Dan Rather that Iraq would not destroy its illegal long-range missiles, he will. That deal was done. Of course the US is glossing over Iraq’s claim that the missiles could not overfly proscribed limits when outfitted with guidance systems and nose cones. This issue is not only technical. It’s all about scoring political power points.. It seems like the UN Security Council is deadlocked over what to do, with the Russians now threatening to veto the proposed new US-British resolution. I watched a CBC report showing how the non-permanent members are being lobbied, wooed, and probably bought. South Africa’s Mail and Guardian reports that some of the non-permanent members may be caving to the pressure. “Angola, Mexico and Pakistan showed signs of buckling when each of their governments issued statements indicating a softening of their previous opposition to the war option.”

(Ed. note: There is growing evidence, cited by Debka, that Iraq’s nuclear weapons were moved to the Bekaa Valley months ago and aimed at the heart of the only democracy in the Middle East.)

“The Foreign Office minister Lady Amos pressed the US-British line at a meeting with the Angolan president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who also received phone calls from the President George Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, the secretary of state, Colin Powell, and the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.

“Although the Angolan government officially denied that there was any change, its foreign minister, Joa Miranda, adopted a noticeably more hawkish tone. Pointing out that Luanda clinched peace via a 27-year civil war, he said: “Angola believes it is possible to wage war to achieve world peace.”

huh?

WHO VETOES THE MOST?

On the question of vetoes, Noam Chomsky has a new booklet out from 7 Stories Press called Power and Terror with his views on many issues including the UN. He opines: “From the 1960s until today, the United States is far in the lead in vetoing resolutions, Britain is second, France is a distant third and the Russians are fourth. It is exactly the opposite of the standard picture.” His statement implicitly indicts most media coverage which is, after all, responsible presenting that “standard picture.”

DEFECTOR SPEAKS

As for weapons, what is real and what’s not? Norman Solomon is reporting that an interview with an Iraqi defector — one of “ours” until recently — is being glossed over in most of the news we see. “You gotta hand it to America’s mass media: When war hangs in the balance, they sure know how to bury a story.

“After devoting thousands of network hours and oceans of ink to stories about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq, major U.S. news outlets did little but yawn in the days after the March 3 issue of Newsweek published an exclusive report on the subject – a piece headlined “The Defector’s Secrets.”

“It’s hard to imagine how any journalist on the war beat could read the article’s lead without doing a double take: ‘Hussein Kamel, the highest-ranking Iraqi official ever to defect from Saddam Hussein’s inner circle, told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N. inspectors in the summer of 1995 that after the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them.’

“The article was written by Newsweek national security correspondent John Barry, who has been with the magazine since 1985. After following the Iraq weapons story for a dozen years, he draws on in-depth knowledge – in stark contrast to the stenographic approach taken by most journalists on the beat, who seem content to relay the pronouncements coming out of Washington and the United Nations.

“‘I think the whole issue of Iraq’s weaponry has become steadily more impacted and complicated over the years,’Barry told me in a Feb. 26 interview. ‘People often have trouble making sense out of the twists and turns of the arguments.’ And, Barry added, ‘what’s reported as “fact” provided by the U.S. government or the U.N. is in many cases mere “supposition.”‘”

WAR IN THE AIR AND ON THE GROUND

The United States continues to ring Iraq with warplanes and weapons. There was more bombing in the South and the North today, supposedly to enforce no fly zones. Defense Department war booster Paul Wolfowitz was on CSPAN yesterday, testifying on the Administration’s latest request for more, more, more moolah. You couldn’t help feel that you were being taken into a heart of darkness and delusion. It was as if he was singing “When the Saints Go Marching in” as he painted a picture of Iraqis cheering on the bombers and waiting for their liberation. He claims that once war begins, 40 countries will be on Washington’s welcome wagon.

What does it look like on the ground in Iraq? Most of the TV coverage in the US comes from Baghdad, where reporters do stand-ups, usually to relay whatever the Iraqi government is saying and usually why it is flawed. Independent journalist John Ross is traveling around in the countryside. He reports in part:

“The heat here, they say, will fry the brains of the invading army, and because the brains of the U.S. barbarians are now embodied by killer computers, their machines of war will slow and discalibrate, and the 3,000 missiles Bush brags he will drill down upon us in an unprecedented 48-hour blitzkrieg are not guaranteed to kiss their targets with any precision. Above all, this is not good news for my new neighbors here.

“Everywhere I travel, the war is in the air. In Mosul 200 miles to the north where the desert climbs into the cold mountain rain, if the experience of 1991 is any teacher, a bloodbath seems inevitable as U.S. proxy Kurds and Turkish troops (if their Parliament greenlights their participation) will go at it with the Iraqi army, trapping the civilian population in a deadly squeeze…”

GERALDO ARRIVES

Speaking of the Turks, their parliament decides this weekend if all the US troops can base there. It looks like the pols want a taste of the big bucks the military has snagged. But don’t worry, folks, we will now find out exactly what’s going on because Fox News’ GERALDO is in place and on the case.

US journalist Tom Goltz reports from Instanbul: “Geraldo Riviera of Fox News Fame is already down in the eastern Mediterranean (and last I looked, still Turkish) port of Iskenderun, gleefully counting US Army tanks and trucks as they off-load for the so-called Northern Front. And hey, if Geraldo says Gulf War Two is a certain thing, I guess it must be…

“Now, I do not know with whom Geraldo and the rest of the imported hack-pack have been chatting over the past few weeks, but I myself have been glued to Turkish television, channel-surfing through talk shows, discussion groups and key-player interviews, and what I have been seeing is a proud nation of 70 million with a state-building history reaching back almost 1,000 years being completely stripped, once and for all, of any delusions that it will ever again have any real autonomy in the brave, new world of George W and his solo-polar power planners.

ANOTHER VIEW

Our Adam McConnel of the Globalvision News Network is even more sneering:

“Unfortunately Geraldo Rivera has decided to bless Turkey with his presence for FOX News; moments ago he was interviewed live by CNN Turk. Good quote: ‘Our [FOX’s] critics exaggerate the difference between FOX and other stations.’ Geraldo, in his almost inimitably shallow style, gushed about Turkey and the relationship between Turkey and the US, never mentioning that the Turkish population is completely opposed to helping the US attack Iraq. ”

CENSORSHIP AT MSNBC AND PHIL’S FILL

Back in the USA, it now seems even more certain that Phil Donahue was bounced from MSNBC for political reasons, not because his ratings were low. Someone in the know writes confirms that there was an internal report that criticized the show’s openness to presenting war critics:

“I’m not free to talk publicly but that report, conforms with management insistence that hawks outnumber doves on Donahue — a guest list slant obvious to anyoneclosely watching.”

Phil Donahue has issued a clearly still gloves on statement which says in part: “From launch to date DONAHUE has been the highest rated program on the MSNBC primetime line up. Of that we are proud. The national ratings data also reveals that we raised the audience for our time period beyond anything that appeared at eight o’clock before us. It took almost three years for FOX to overtake CNN. We had six months. Alas, our numbers and our upward trend were, in the view of management, not good enough or fast enough. My wish for the people who replace us is a longer time in the ring and a more patient management team loudly cheering on from the corner. This is the only way for a Cable host on MSNBC to have any chance of being a contender.

“We were hoping to break through the noisy drums of war on Cable and become a responsible platform for dissenters as well as Administration supporters. The New York Times op-ed page features a variety of views regarding the Bush war on Iraq, including regular columnists who have been quite critical of the Administration’s foreign policy team. MSNBC’s voice should be no less diverse. The hiring of Mike Savage, Dick Armey and Joe Scarborough suggest a strategy to out-Fox FOX.”

PUBLIC COMPLAINS, MEDIA WANTS MORE POWER

Whats behind all of this? Could NBC’s interests in winning rule changes that could boost its business from the FCC have anything to do with this? Yesterday, as AP reports, more people spoke out against mounting media concentration at a public hearing in Richmond Va. ”

“RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Critics of efforts to overhaul media ownership rules said Thursday that weakened government restrictions will lead to more mergers and a few large companies controlling what people read, hear and watch.

“Representatives of newspapers and television networks disagreed, saying that decades-old ownership rules are outdated in today’s world of satellite broadcasts, cable television and the Internet….”

“Both sides made their pleas to the Federal Communications Commission, which moved out of Washington for a day to get opinions on its review of six ownership rules. The FCC is expected to make its decision in May….”

BET AIRS RIGHTWING ISRAELI INFOMERCIAL

Speaking of cable, Jeffrey Blankfort is circulating an email about what’s happening at VIACOM: “This was forwarded to me tonight and is an indication of what happens when Black Entertainment Television is taken over by Viacom whose ownerSumner Redstone was recently described in the New York Times as the world’s biggest media owner. Not only has he eliminated BET’s news program, he is now running evangelical Christian infomercials for Israel. Viacom also owns CBS, whose president, Leslie Moonves is the great nephew of David Ben-Gurion, but that’s just a purecoincidence.”The email explains: “I did notice that BET (Black Entertainment TV) is airing a commercial by a group called Wings of an Eagle, wherein Former PrimeMinister… Benjamin Netanyahu is soliciting Americans to send money to an Israeli fund to assist Jews to migrate to their “homeland” Israel. They can donate $350 for one person, $700 for a couple or $1400 for an entire family. Moreover, the commercial (which is a quasi short film) explains that it is the duty of all Christians to save these Jews fromThe Palestinian terrorists (yes, they used the word terrorists).”

CAN CABLE TV BE CHANGED?

What can be done about cable TV? Is a more diverse, more liberal channel even possible? Salon editor David Talbott says he tried. Lawd, did he try:

“From time to time Salon has thought about launching a cable TV show. It seems like a natural leap — we have a stable of smart political and cultural commentators who know how to banter and entertain on camera. And God knows the chat channels could use a regular dose of strong, articulate progressive voices to balance the fire-breathers on the right and the cautious centrists often presented as the liberal alternatives. Plus, Salon doesn’t just chatter, we break news stories that create buzz. But whenever we engage with the cable TV gatekeepers, we never get beyond Step 1.

“When Walter Isaacson took over CNN two years ago, I thought we had a shot. I was an acquaintance of his and I knew he read Salon — he even poached our media critic when he was running Time magazine. But when I contacted Isaacson about exploring the possibility of a Salon-produced show for his network, his reply was vague and noncommittal. Not long after, it was reported that the new CNN chief was making a run at Rush Limbaugh, in what turned out to be a futile attempt to outfox Fox.

“Salon’s efforts to stir up interest at MSNBC also proved fruitless. When I called MSNBC chief Erik Sorensen, his assistant said he would get back to me. That was in December. Earlier this week Sorensen announced he was firing the network’s sole liberal host, Phil Donahue, who admittedly seemed lost in the new TV environment, but who enjoyed the highest ratings on the struggling network…

“Ironically, the only cable news operation interested in meeting with Salon was Fox, liberals’ favorite media whipping boy. Fox’s top news executives sat down with a team from Salon in their Manhattan offices late last year, a meeting enlivened midway by the entrance of Fox’s chatty, roly-poly dark lord, Roger Ailes himself. Now here was a man so supremely confident in his domination of talk-TV that he could grant a meeting to the enemy and graciously consider the counterintuitive notion of giving Salon a slot in his lineup, cheek by jowl with O’Reilly and Hannity and Hume….Ailes told us — every show in his lineup was “kicking the competition’s ass” and he was not about to mess with success by opening a hole for Salon. Though he didn’t say it, there was also a clear implication that a regular dose of Salon might be too much for his audience, which Ailes described as age “55 to dead, like me” (he left out white and intolerant). Years earlier, when hunting for a liberal punching bag to pair with Sean Hannity, Ailes had tried out a tough Salon writer. He apparently punched back so effectively in his audition that Fox picked bespectacled milquetoast Alan Colmes instead. Fox likes its liberals soft and chewy, the better to eat them, my dear…”

PUBLIC BROADCASTER ADDS GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDIST

Conservatives are also moving into positions in public television. Current, the public broadcasting paper, reports that Michael Pack has become the new senior VP of Television programming at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which funds PBS and NPR and other public broadcasting. Pack is described as “among the filmmakers who benefited from CPB’s efforts in the early 1990’s to add more conservative voices to public broadcasting. Pack used to work for the US Information Agency, Washington’s propaganda agency. As did former and present heads of CPB.

JOURNALISTS PROTEST HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE

More critics are speaking out against government efforts to manage media coverage of a likely war. Editor and Publisher interviews veteran NY Times correspondent Chris Hedges who says he:

“believes only a small percentage of reporters truly want to cover war and the rest “just want to be hotel-room warriors, don’t want to get anywhere near the fighting.” The New York Times staffer adds: “The 10 percent that tries to get out will be stomped on. We saw that with Doug Struck, the Washington Post correspondent, when he tried to investigate civilian casualties in Afghanistan, by the U.S. military. He was made to lie down with a gun pointed to his head.”

Some journalists are speaking out more actively — in Pakistan. A newspaper there reports from Lahore that: “The country’s first ‘peace march’ staged by journalists against war was held here on Tuesday to express solidarity with the Iraqi people…. The march organized by the LPC and began at 4pm saw protesters shouting anti-war slogans ‘oil not blood’ and ‘US go back.’ …In England a colleague at the BBC passes along word that ‘The BBC World Service NUJ Branch is appalled by the BBC’s unprecedented decision to sack two journalists in the Arabic Service on Wednesday 19th February 2003, following a secret “Star Chamber” hearing at which no defense was permitted.’”

YOUR COMMENTS FLOW IN

Wadri Peter writes from Sweden: “It is a great opportunity writing to you. I Am a Ugandan student studying global electronic (cyber) journalism at stockholm university. tomorrow friday the class will hold a seminar on alternative media as the way forward, i see this page as an interesting one to the class and this will definitely be the main stop…,hope we shall be able to get updates from you.

Dr, Megan Boler writes from the People’s Republic of Vermont: “Dear Danny Schechter, I am a professor of Education and Media Studies, and I frequently make use of your website and organization’s resources. I am writing in hopes that you might be willing to glance at our new website Critical Media Literacy in Times of War

http://www.tandl.vt.edu/Foundations/mediaproject/

This site reflects six months of labor to create an interactive Flash 6 site engaging users to critically examine how the media covers US foreign policy in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

DISSECTOR ROCKS OUT

I am going to be speaking/rockin on some of these issues later today at 3 at the Media and Entertainment Summit organized by Steve Zuckerman at the Le Bar Bat, 311 W 57th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues, Northside of street. For more see

www.globalentertainmentnetwork.com/schedule.htm

Polar Levine, aka Polarity l, editor of the Media Channel affiliated popcultmedia site will be performing with his new band at the Summit on Sunday at 7pm. Be there or be square. Yesterday I was at the launch Press conference at the new Musicians United to Win Without War press conference. Lou Reed, David Byrne, and Roseanne Cash joined Russell Simmons and Ben Chavis of the Hip Hop Action Summit to pledge a major effort to mobilize artists against the war. For more information, see Moveon.org/musiciansunited. One disclosure: some cable outlets are refusing to carry an anti-war commercial with rapmeister Simmons. The reason: the images are too graphic.

NOW, DONT YOU FEEL BETTER?

As the weekend approaches we can all relax because the government de-elevated the terror alert. It was orange. It is back to Yellow. Yellow is considered elevated so the de-elevation may have resulted in an elevation. And it’s not even April Fools Day. The satirical Onion has been caught short because its new issue is still in orange mode, reporting with tongue in cheek:

“WASHINGTON, DC — As an additional reminder that the U.S. is on high alert for terrorist attacks, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge announced Tuesday that Orange Alert klaxons will blare 24 hours a day in all major cities.

“These 130-decibel sirens, which, beginning Friday, will scream all day and night in the nation’s 50 largest metro areas, will serve as a helpful reminder to citizens to stay on the lookout for suspicious activity and be ready for emergency action,” Ridge said. “Please note, though, that this is merely a precautionary measure, so go about your lives as normal.”

“The sirens, Ridge said, will be strategically positioned throughout each city and will be audible within a three-mile radius. The noise will be loud enough to render conversation impossible within a 200-yard range.

“Some may find their normal sleep patterns disrupted, but it’s a small price to pay to ensure our collective awareness of the heightened danger,” Ridge said. “The key to preventing terrorist attacks is to have the threat constantly on your mind but still remain calm and act normal.”

Is it real or is it Memorex? Share your comments on all of these issues with me by writing dissector@mediachannel.org