WHO IS THE “ENEMY?”

TV GENERALS BLASTED

FOX TWITS PROTESTERS

You expect soldiers to refer to their adversaries as the enemy. But now that war term is a media term, increasingly popping up across the dial as journalists, embedded or not, can’t contain their enthusiasm for the the Battle of Baghdad. It’s as if we are moving into the final act of the movie, Act 3, the mother of all showdowns. It’s on. It’s not on yet. We ping-pong between military analysts relaying speculation as if it was received truth–all the while shedding a tear that the mighty Geraldo will not be leading the charge. It’s official: he’s out of there.

The Pentagon is getting testier by the minute in response to criticism within its own ranks, even from the regiment of military officers who have been born again as TV analysts and who make the mistake of offering opinions not cleared by the office of Rumsfeldian reality. I am sure Iraqis may see it as a “degrading” of the US consensus even as the bombs keep falling and the always “feared” Medina Division of the Republican Guard is said to have lost 2/3rds of its capacity to resist. The Pentagon is no longer wagging the dog. It is wagging the kennel.

THEIR MASTER”S VOICE

Years ago, RCA Victor had a little dog as its corporate mascot. “His master’s voice” was the motto. Today the New York Post plays that role in the media war. Along with Fox, it acts like the official rotweiler on the ideological front. Today the big news is that the news is unfair and that the TV generals have overstepped and must be spanked publicly. Gen. Richard B. Myers, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, has taken on the whiners and complainers. They are hurting the war effort he says.

The Post Ministry of Misinformation reported: “In an astonishing display of emotion at the Pentagon news briefing, the normally reserved Air Force general delivered an impassioned response to the barrage of media reports of internecine warfare at the Pentagon over whether there are enough troops on the ground in Iraq.

“Myers, who didn’t name names, said the high-profile carping that’s produced a media feeding frenzy may be “good sport inside the Beltway,” but it is “not helpful” when tens of thousands of troops are engaged in dangerous combat missions.

“My view of those reports is that they’re bogus. First of all they’re false, they’re absolutely wrong, they bear no resemblance to the truth, and it’s just harmful to our troops that are out there fighting very bravely and very courageously.” The newspaper than devoted a full page to pictures and summaries of who all the “armchair generals” are.

MILITARY, REPORTERS SWITCH ROLES

In a sense this is a delayed reaction to the phenomenon reported by Michael Ryan on Tom Paine.com where he noted that, “As the war grinds on, a strange transformation has occurred: Many of the generals have become more objective and reality-based than the journalists “embedded” with the troops. Garry Trudeau summed up the problem with [embedded] journalists perfectly in Doonesbury, when his fictional reporter Roland Burton Hedley turned to a company commander and said, “Captain, would you describe our outfit as ‘magnificent’ or ‘mythic?’” “Report it as you see it, sir,” the officer replied. “It’s possible to be objective and still be loyal to the people and organizations that you love.”

SHH

The military baiting in the media reflects the aggressive putdowns of War Secretary Rumsfeld who Matt Taibbi captures perfectly in The New York Press: “Up until last week, Donald Rumsfeld’s press conferences were the hottest ticket in Washington, and the defense secretary was somehow credited by journalists with having a “charming,” even Wildean, wit. But Rumsfeld doesn’t really make jokes; what really happens is that he occasionally explodes in outbursts of menacing, petulant impatience, and the press corps either applauds or laughs in response. For instance, Rumsfeld has a thing about being interrupted or being asked follow-up questions, and his pissy takedowns of journalists who break his “rules” are often met with warm, approving laughter. A typical exchange:

“Rumsfeld: And we can’t tell you–if you can’t tell how long it’s going to last, you sure can’t tell what it’s going to cost. But now–

“Q: But that budget was based on the war plan–

“Rumsfeld: (hissing, raising finger to mouth) Shhh! (laughter) Shhh! (laughter)”

MUGGER MUGS TV COVERAGE TOO

Even Taibbi’s conservative NY Pressmate Russ Smith, aka “Mugger,” a longtime Bush Booster, sees the pro-war TV coverage as over the top: “Maybe you saw the March 28 Pew Research Center poll showing 42 percent of Americans are suffering from “war fatigue” by watching too much television about the rapidly unfolding events in Iraq. In addition, 58 percent find the coverage “frightening.” Nevertheless, an overwhelming majority of those surveyed by Fox News claim they tune in at least two hours daily, a certain sign of masochism that one hopes will abate quickly.

“The media’s blitz of sensationalizing the Iraqi invasion–which obviously boosts ratings and sells newspapers, even more than an abducted child–is not unexpected and crosses ideological lines. But with the exception of MSNBC’s Lester Holt, I’ve lost all patience with the cable stations and just can’t stomach the sight of Aaron Brown, Shepard Smith, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Wolf Blitzer, Bill O’Reilly, Larry King, and the hundreds of retired generals and colonels who pop off with conflicting analyses.”

PROPAGANDA WAR MISFIRES

One of the leading analysts of war propaganda posing as journalism, Philip Knightly (author of “The First Casualty”) writes in the Guardian today that the “coalition’s” propaganda war is a mess. “Iraq is winning the propaganda war against the coalition. The British government admits it. David Blunkett, the home secretary, says we are regarded as the villains. The government’s spin specialist Alastair Campbell has called for a media shake-up, and in Kuwait the coalition’s Psychological Operations Tactical Group for Special Ground Forces Command (Psyops) is working on an emergency plan to regain the propaganda initiative.

“Everything has gone wrong on the propaganda front. The widespread coverage of the deaths of British servicemen at the hands of their US allies, the shooting by US troops of Iraqi women and children, horrific TV footage from al-Jazeera of Iraqi civilians killed in bombing raids on Baghdad, the contradictory statements from the military briefers, and the failure of Iraqis to turn out to welcome their “liberators” …

“But the most devastating assessment of the coalition’s propaganda failure came in a recent Russian-intercepted secret Psyops report analyzing the effectiveness of the coalition’s campaign to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. Using Iraqi TV broadcasts, intercepted radio communications, interrogations of Iraqi POWs and summaries of British and US media coverage, Psyops concluded that Iraqis were more stable and confident than they were in the last days before the war. The report said that the coalition had little time to change this attitude before what Psyops people call “a resistance ideology” developed, making an eventual coalition victory even more difficult. You have to read this one.

WHO WILL RULE IRAQ?

Meanwhile reports in the British press seem to be contadicting the pronouncement of Prime Minister Blair. Today he told Parliament that he wants the UN to run a post-war Iraq. Yesterday the Guardian reported that the US has other plans: “A disagreement has broken out at a senior level within the Bush administration over a new government that the US is secretly planning in Kuwait to rule Iraq in the immediate period after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Under the plan, the government will consist of 23 ministries, each headed by an American. Every ministry will also have four Iraqi advisers appointed by the Americans, the Guardian has learned.

“The government will take over Iraq city by city. Areas declared “liberated” by General Tommy Franks will be transferred to the temporary government under the overall control of Jay Garner, the former US general appointed to head a military occupation of Iraq….”

NEWSDAY JOURNOS FREED

Journalists in Iraq were thrilled yesterday when two Newsweek journalists who had been held by the Iraqis were released. They will hold a press conference later today. We heard about it yesterday from an excited Laurie Garret, Newsday’s great health journalist: “They have just turned up in Jordan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!We are so excited. They called and briefly reported that they are alive andwell, they were held prisoner for a week but were not harmed and werewell treated. God this is a relief–I’d started thinking of Danny Pearl.

“Thanks for all your help. We don’t know which inquiry made the difference,but the Iraqi Ministry of Information finally admitted this morning to havingMatt and Moises, and then dumped them just across the Jordanian border. Somebody’s queries prompted the action. Thank you!
Laurie”

MEDIA WORRIES

The good news about a few journalists can’t change the growing concern in media freedom circles about a pattern of hostility towards reporters. More controls are being imposed on the embedded reporters. PR week report that the Pentagon is embedding staffers among the embeds: “”They may not get as much attention as their media counterparts, but dozens of Pentagon public affairs officers are ‘embedded’ rightalongside the reporters in Iraq,” PR Week reports. “The Pentagonalso maintains the Coalition Press Information Center (CPIC) inKuwait, a base of operations for public affairs officers nottraveling with troops. A 24-hour operation designed to keep up withnews cycles in every time zone . . . one of the CPIC’s most vitalroles is to discourage ‘rogue’ journalists from venturing intodangerous areas by providing the information they might otherwiseattempt to get on their own.” The Wall Street Journal praised theDefense Department’s PR Strategy. “The embedded reporters willcontinue to be a brilliant strategy by the Pentagon–one thatshould echo in the rules of corporate communications,” theJournal’s Clark S. Judge writes.

DEHUMANIZATION: THE ORDER OF THE DAY

As for the content of the coverage, I usually quote the big city press but Pierre Tristam of the News-Journal in Florida has some brilliant insights: “…the American war effort is a study in total control, too, of a war positively dehumanized at every level: Politicians, military leaders and their media lackeys, in bed with the military rather than embedded within it, are daily producing a scripted war of advances and virtue more divorced from reality than Max’s dream in “Where the Wild Things Are.”

“News stories from the front (for the most part) are clips for the military’s “Army of One” ads–produced in a void of analytical perspective and brimming with self-important reminders of inflated secrecy (”I can’t tell you where we are,” “I can’t tell you where we’re going”). Of course not.
These reporters have not only been embedded, they’ve been captured. A picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words. In this war, a picture is worth a thousand veils. At home the networks’ anchored news streams have been closest in kind to porno movies: A little meaningless chatter sets things up, and then money shots of bomb blasts over Baghdad or the Pentagon’s latest dirty videos of things being blown up. The human and emotional cost is an afterthought. There is purpose behind the veil. When war is so positively dehumanized, the possibility of defeat is eliminated. Setbacks become narrative devices, stepping tombstones for America’s moral superiority. It is war as magical realism. But it isn’t real….”

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AT RISK

From Canada comes this report: “As the war in Iraq enters its third week, several IFEX members have raised concerns over free-expression violations committed by United States-led coalition forces, including the bombing of an Iraqi television station and the expulsion of four foreign journalists accused of being spies.

“The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières (RSF), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Press Institute (IPI), and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) have expressed alarm at the US bombing of Iraqi state television facilities on 26 March in Baghdad. Although US military officials claimed the facility was part of a command-and-control center, IPI and CPJ say the bombing could be a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

“Broadcast media are protected from attack and cannot be targeted unless they are used for military purposes. The broadcast of propaganda does not constitute a military function,” CPJ argued. The attack knocked out the Iraqi station’s 24-hour satellite channel, which broadcasts outside the country, for several hours.”

FOX BAITS MEDIA PROTESTERS

Last week there were protests in New York against the war, “die-ins” as they were called. They were reported. Largely unreported was that the protests at Rockefeller Center, home of NBC, CNN studios, and Fox were also directed against the news media. Richard Cowen fleshes that angle out in a piece carried by CommonDreams.org: “And in an unusual turn of events, the showing provoked a public display of pro-war sentiment by Fox News . . . The news ticker rimming Fox’s headquarters on Sixth Avenue wasn’t carrying war updates as the protest began. Instead, it poked fun at the demonstrators, chiding them. “War protester auditions here today … thanks for coming!” read onemessage. “Who won your right to show up here today?” another questioned.”Protesters or soldiers?” Said a third: “How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them.”

“Still another read: “Attention protesters: the Michael Moore Fan Club meetsThursday at a phone booth at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street”–a reference tothe filmmaker who denounced the war while accepting an Oscar on Sundaynight for his documentary “Bowling for Columbine.”

PROVING THE FAUX POINT

“The protesters said Fox’s sentiments only proved their point: that mediacoverage, in particular among the television networks, is so biased as to beunbelievable.

“”They’re all bad, but Fox is the absolute worst,” said Tracy Blevins, 32, aNew York City resident. “The people who report the news aren’t journalists.They just say what the government tells them to say.”

“Reached for comment Thursday afternoon, Fox spokeswoman Tracy Spector wasunaware of the messages on the news ticker and said she would look into it.Spector said the network “didn’t mean to insult anyone.”

WHAT SHOULD PROTESTS DEMAND?

What should anti-media protesters be demanding? Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy addresses this issue on Alternet.org. “The rising tide of protest against U.S. media coverage of the war should also signal the need for a new progressive strategy about the future of the media system. Recent marches across the country protesting the networks, and a new focus by Moveon.org on media issues are vitally important. But they don’t address the need to take advantage of fundamental changes taking place and alter how our media system is structured. The time is ripe, given all the activism and commitment now in place, to direct our energy towards achieving long-term positive changes for our media system.

“A major transformation that is underway is reshaping broadcasting, cable, and the Internet. The TV system in the U.S. is being reorganized because of digital technology, which should provide new opportunities for progressives to directly offer channels and program services to the vast majority of television households. But unless progressives and their allies pursue a proactive strategy, they will continue to be as marginalized as we are today.

“For more on this, tune in Friday to Bill Moyers NOW. Alternet reports that Friday’s show will “focus on proposals by the Bush FCC to end long-standing safeguards designed to promote diversity of media ownership. FCC Chair Michael Powell (son of Colin), who is pushing for this change, said last week that he believes only even larger U.S. media companies have the resources to effectively cover events like the war in Iraq. ”

ATTENTION US NETWORKS

Why not follow the example of BBC News Chief Richard Sambrook who solicits comments from viewers, and responds publicly in the Gurardian? Among the questions he is tackling: “Is the BBC biased towards the pro- or anti-war camps? Should the corporation give equal weight to claims by Iraqi and allied military and political sources? Does 24 hour news provide the full picture of what’s going on in Iraq? Does ‘embedding’ reporters with UK and US forces compromise their independence? How safe is it for journalists working in the war zone? How about it? Which US media execs have the guts to do the same? Also, Anna Kaca writes from Finland that TV channels there are raising questions about the media coverage. We hope to have more from Helsinki soon.

YOUR LETTERS: MEDIACHANNEL CALLED “TRASH”

Laura Donovan is being hassled for reading Mediachannel. “I am currently a senior at the University of Florida. On March 28, 2003, Ihad papers I downloaded from your site confiscated by Dr.Charles Williams, associate dean of the college of health and humanperformance at the University of Florida. I was sitting outside of theclassrooms in a hall. I was reading and had papers I was looking at spreadout next to me and onto a table directly next to the bench on which Ihappened to be sitting. Dr Williams, whom I have never had contact withprior to this incident, walked by and saw the papers regarding the 6 majormedia corporations and he picked them up and walked off with them. I wentafter him and confronted him. I told him I noticed that he took thosepapers and I was wondering what he did with them because they belonged tome. He said, “Those are trash and they don’t belong here”. I thenproceeded to tell him I thought that was completely inappropriate and if hewas concerned with what was trash and what was not that he should go intothe classrooms and remove the flyers put up by bars with sexually suggestivecomments and half-naked women. He laughed at me the entire time I triedtalking to him, and then asked to see my student ID. I didn’t think I hadit, and due to my increasing frustration, was unable to locate it at themoment. He told me I was trespassing and he was having me arrested. Iexplained to him that I was sitting outside of that classroom because I hada class at 155pm and that I was a student at the university. He told asecretary to call the police. I ended up walking away (after calling him acouple nasty names…I do wish I had maintained composure) because I was sofrightened by his threats. I promptly went to my professor’s class for whichI was waiting and explained the situation to him. He called the college ofhealth and human performance and spoke with Dr. Williams. My professor, DrScott Griffiths, told me that Dr Williams said he thought they were trashbecause they were sitting on the table and that someone had left them there.This was not the case nor the manner Dr. Williams explained his behavior tome.

“I plan on making an appointment with Dr Williams’ boss this week.I just wanted to let you know the type of reaction your information hasbrought about.” Any advice to Laura?. Any supporters in Flori-duh who want to help?

Communication Breakdown

Wayne Grytting sends me his American newsspeak bulletin. I liked this item: ” As people “embedded” in American culture, it’s difficult tocomprehend how Iraqis could possibly resist their own liberation. Theanswer may lie in a few overlooked cultural differences. For example, whenAmerican soldiers tore down the Iraqi flag and hoisted the Stars andStripes over the port of Umm Qasr, many Iraqis failed to appreciate thatthis was our way of saying, “We’ve come to liberate you.” A similarmisunderstanding may have occurred when the 101st Airborne Division namedtwo of its main outposts in the desert “Forward Operating Base Exxon” and”Forward Operating Base Shell.” Fortunately, neither name implies we arethere at the behest of our oil companies, says the Pentagon.”

FROM FRIENDS IN BERLIN

Dear Danny, German television is not very informative about the war, but it is not as bad as you might think. For example: Last week we saw–twice in three days–large, very interesting interviews about the US media with nobody else but–Danny Schechter. Although we never had a doubt about that, it is always good to see and to hear directly that the good old friends are fighting on the same side of the battle field as oneself… Clarita and Urs

I have been working with the musician Polarity 1 on a sound track CD for my the US edition of my book Media Wars, which is out later this week. We are also working on a Mediachannel Television program. More to share on all of that soon. In the interim we are keeping on keeping on, hoping for manna from heaven, and your continued support. Share your comments by writing: dissector@mediachannel.org