MEDIA CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS

MEDIA PEOPLE INDICT WAR COVERAGE

FCC DEAL LEAKED

Not one, not two, but ten big investment banks are finally going to have to pay for their wheeling and dealing in a settlement valued at $l.4 BILLION. The regulators, according to the NY Times, “found fault with EVERY (emphasis mine) major bank on Wall Street. Has the President spoken out about this outrage. No, he is talking about “freedom as god’s gift to every person” as he pats the US military on the back for “superb progress” in imposing “democracy” in Iraq. Meanwhile in that country, 13 protesters were shot to death when US soldiers said they were being fired on. Incidents like these are becoming a daily occurrence as the pacification of the country continues.

WAR CRIMES PROSECUTION?

Largely unreported in this country except for the Washington Times is a story that a lawyer in Belgium is preparing to bring war crimes charges against Commander Tommy Franks.

“The complaint will state that coalition forces are responsible for the indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians, the bombing of a marketplace in Baghdad, the shooting of an ambulance, and failure to prevent the mass looting of hospitals, said Jan Fermon, aBrussels-based lawyer. He is representing about 10 Iraqis who say they were victims of or eyewitnesses to atrocities committed during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mr. Fermon said the complaint will ask an investigative magistrate to look into whether indictments should be issued against Gen. Franks. If an indictment is filed against the general and other U.S. officials, they could be convicted and sentenced by a Belgian court.”

MEDIA CRIMES TRIBUNAL NEEDED

One doubts that this will go far. I would like to see an investigation of media crimes, that is how and why so many in the US media closed ranks to offer a sanitized and largely pro-government view of the war. This is an issue being addressed today by Paul Kugman in the New York Times who raises important questions: “Did the news media feel that it was unpatriotic to question the administration’s credibility? Some strange things certainly happened. For example, in September Mr. Bush cited an International Atomic Energy Agency report that he said showed that Saddam was only months from having nuclear weapons. “I don’t know what more evidence we need,” he said. In fact, the report said no such thing — and for a few hours the lead story on MSNBC’s Web site bore the headline “White House: Bush Misstated Report on Iraq.” Then the story vanished — not just from the top of the page, but from the site.

“Thanks to this pattern of loud assertions andmuted or suppressed retractions, the Americanpublic probably believes that we went to war toavert an immediate threat — just as it believesthat Saddam had something to do with Sept. 11.

“Now it’s true that the war removed an evil tyrant.But a democracy’s decisions, right or wrong, aresupposed to take place with the informed consentof its citizens. That didn’t happen this time. Andwe are a democracy — aren’t we?”

HOWARD KURTZ TURNING CRITICAL

Are we? It is significant that even mainstream media writers like Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post are beginning, now that the war is safely over, to assume a more critical tone. During the war Kurtz chided me for my criticisms during an appearance on CNN’s Moneyline. Now he is sounding like me, writing yesterday:

“They reported from the trenches, hitched rides in tanks, slogged through sandstorms, dodged enemy fire, and used whiz-bang technology to bring the war, live and unfiltered, into living rooms around the world.

“And yet, despite the investment of tens of millions of dollars and deployment of hundreds of journalists, the collective picture they produced was often blurry.

“The fog of war makes for foggy news,” said Robert Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. “War is too messy to package into sound bites and two-minute stories.”

“Now that the shooting is over, these questions hang in the air: What did the media accomplish during the most intensively and instantaneously covered war in history? Did the presence of all those journalists capture the harsh realities of war or simply breed a new generation of Scud studs? Were readers and viewers well served or deluged with confusing information? And what does it portend for coverage of future wars?”

COL. OLLIE NORTH: THE EMBEDDING WORKED

I think we can safely say that more embedding is in the cards. Last Friday night, I watched Oliver North, the Contra-convicted former national security staffer offer his last report on Fox News through a green haze of a videophone saying how happy the military and the media were with the embedding program.

As for “Ollie” as he is known on Fox, a former DEA agent who worked for him, Celerino “Cele” Castillo III, now a whistleblower, claims in a new piece on the web: “In 1974, North had to be hospitalized in Bethesda Naval Hospital afterhe was found running around naked, waving a .45 caliber pistol andbabbling incoherently. North was brought into the National Security Council staff in August 1981. His first major assignment was to draw up plans for emergency rule in case of nuclear war or national disaster. According to some reports, this plan involved the suspension of the Constitution in case of national emergency.”

WHO PAID FOR THE EMBEDS?

And what of the embeds? Were they or their news organizations charged for food etc by the military? This is a concern being raised by by Alice Cherbonnier in the Baltimore Chronicle.

“Well, here’s a question that occurred to me, and should have occurred to every journalist on the planet: Who’s paying for those embedded journalists in Iraq? And here’s another: Is there an official signed agreement between the Department of Defense and the participating news organizations that stipulates not only the allocation of costs for the “embeds” and the terms and conditions of their reporting, but also the apportionment of risks? I did a search on Google. Checked the American Journalism Review site. Searched the online archives of various mainstream news organizations. Watched for the answers to my questions in daily news reports. No results. Très curieux, I thought (readers will pardon my French).

“I persisted. Asked my intern at the graduate school of journalism at the University of Maryland College Park to ask his professors about this. Wrote an email letter of inquiry to the Society of Professional Journalists. Wrote another to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Waited. No reliable information came back–only assumptions: it was assumed the news organizations were paying their own way. For certainly, that is what journalism ethics require. This is only natural and right. If a reporter reviews a restaurant, and it turns out that the restaurant paid for the meal, how reliable would that review be? For the news to be untainted, it’s got to be free of any whiff of money passed under the table or special favors received. If somehow a conflict of interest does arise in an otherwise valid story, the journalist is duty-bound to reveal it so the public will know what hangs in the balance. I tried to content myself with this assumption, but the question still festered until, through a chance encounter, I learned what may be the answer.

“This past Saturday night, as a volunteer at a local theater, I was handing out playbills. A tall thin guy with curly hair dashed in at the last moment, still eating some rice out of a ceramic bowl. “You an emergency room doctor or what?” I wisecracked. And he joked back, “Something like that!” I rejoined, “Well, what other profession would have such a desperate deadline?” And it turned out he was a section editor at the Washington Post. “Great!,” I enthused, identifying myself as a fellow journalist. “Maybe you can answer a question that’s been bothering me. Can you tell me who’s paying for the embedded journalists?” I was expecting to hear that the news organizations are, but just wanted confirmation. But no! He said that so far the Department of Defense is footing the whole bill. He said news organizations had sought to pay their own way, but the DOD refused to accept payment–ostensibly because no price could be set because there were too many unknown expense factors involved. He said no one in the news organizations even knows how much the bill would be if they did have to pay it.”

For more: “http://baltimorechronicle.com/embedded-media_apr03.html”

THE EMBED DOCUMENT

All we could find here is this letter of agreement drafted by the Pentagon and signed by most journalists. Ted Koppel said he signed it but then ignored it:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2003/D20030210embed.pdf

NEWS PAPERS DE-EMBED

The International Freedom of Information Exchange is reporting that newspapers are pulling their embeds out. “Newspapers are pulling their reporters and photographers out of once-coveted military embedding slots in droves, choosing to bring manyPersian Gulf War II correspondents home and give others nonembeddedassignments. “They were finished,” James Smith, foreign editor of TheBoston Globe, said about his paper’s three embedded reporters, who lefttheir units last week to return to the United States. “The militaryaspects are over.” The embedding program, which once had nearly 800journalists traveling with US military units, has seen the number dropto fewer than 190 in the last three weeks, since the fall of Baghdad.”

TED KOPPEL ON MILITAINMENT

Some journalists who covered the war are speaking out — not in the media, but on college campuses. Ted Koppel was on CSPAN with Marvin Kalb who asked him if he practiced self-censorship, The response: “certainly.” Ted went on: “”Watching war on TV from a distance, is pulse-pounding entertainment That’s damn good entertainment. We need to show people the consequences of war. People die in war.”

Ashleigh Banfield of MSNBC shared her concerns during a talk at Kansas State University. Her disclosure: “As a journalist, I have been ostracized just from going on television and saying, ‘Here’s what the leaders of Hezbollah, a radical Moslem group, are telling me about what is needed to bring peace to Israel.’ And, ‘Here’s what the Lebanese are saying.’ Like it or lump it, don’t shoot the messenger, but that’s what they do.”

Just who is “they?” Presumably her bosses at MSNBC.

INVESTIGATE MEDIA DISAPPEARENCES DEMANDS PRESS GROUP

The European Journalism Center reports that- “Press rights group Reporters Without Borders accused the US DefenceDepartment and the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission ofnot taking seriously the organisation’s requests for a proper search fortwo journalists who are missing in Iraq. French cameraman Fred Nerac andLebanese interpreter Hussein Othman, both from the British televisionnetwork ITN, have been missing for the past month. Replies from both thedefense department and the commission were very inadequate and evendismissive about the journalists, according to Reporters WithoutBorders, and demonstrated no interest in investigating the case, muchless punishing those responsible for the journalists’ disappearance.”The Pentagon’s reply is couched in such generalities and platitudesthat one can easily conclude that the US Army has no intention of makingany serious enquiry into the various incidents that led to the death ofat least four journalists,” said Secretary-General Robert Menard. “Theindifference and clear lack of intent to punish those responsible forthe errors that led to their deaths — if indeed they were errors — givesan appalling image of the US-British forces . . . .

WHY WAS DANIEL PEARL KILLED?

Paul Webster reports in the Guardian: “The American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan because he uncovered links between the British terrorist Richard Reid and the Pakistani secret service, according to an investigation by the French philosopher and author Bernard-Henri Lévy.

“Lévy’s book, Who Killed Daniel Pearl?, traces the Wall Street Journal correspondent’s last investigation after he was persuaded to go to Pakistan by a London-born double agent, Omar Saeed Sheikh.”

THE TV WAR: MULLAHS VS MESSIAHS

The New York Times reports today that an Iranian TV station broadcasting into Iraq is upsetting the US forces’ occupation. Headline: “International: Iranian News Channel Makes Inroads in Iraq.” Daily reports from Tehran are flashing from the television screens of every Baghdad resident with electricity.

The US government is finally getting its Arabic language satellite TV news station up. We have heard and I have reported on its content — but not on who is producing it. Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman report this shocker:” It is being produced in a studio — Grace Digital Media — controlled by fundamentalist Christians who are rabidly pro-Israel.

That’s Grace as in “by the Grace of God.”

Grace Digital Media is controlled by a fundamentalist Christianmillionaire, Cheryl Reagan, who last year wrested control of Federal NewsService, a transcription news service, from its former owner, CortesRandell. Randell says he met Reagan at a prayer meeting, brought her in as aninvestor in Federal News Service, and then she forced him out of his owncompany.

According to its web site, Grace News Network is “dedicated totransmitting the evidence of God’s presence in the world today.”"Grace News Network will be reporting the current secular news, along withaggressive proclamations that will “change the news to reflect theKingdom of God and its purposes,” GNN proclaims.

“The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the U.S. government agencyproducing the television news broadcasts for Iraq, likes to say it is theBBC of the USA….

FCC DECISION LOOMS

On the media front in this country activists are calling for peace movements to join the fight against FCC plans to deregulate broadcasting. “The FCC is about to put vital control of media in this country in a very few hands — and quickly needs to be stopped. Under “deregulation” rules proposed by the Federal CommunicationsCommission, the already dangerous monopoly of TV and radio (and therefore of news, public thought and action) would dramatically worsen. The fivecorporations that own TV networks would be green-lighted to buy up eachother. Local TV and radio stations would be swallowed by larger companies. Local newspapers and broadcast outlets would be allowed to purchase each other.

http://www.voice4change.org/stories/showstory.asp?file=030428~cfwp.asp

THE DONE DEAL IN THE WORKS

Meanwhile the TV trade paper, TV Week, is already reporting on the shape of the deal that is being hatched: “Despite the vehement opposition of key affiliates, a Federal Communications Commission majority is expected to substantially relax the regulatory cap on how many TV stations a single company may own, sources said last week.

As it stands, the rule bars broadcasters from owning TV stations reaching more than 35 percent of the nation’s TV homes. The affiliates and the National Association of Broadcasters have been lobbying to keep the cap in place in the interests of limiting network power.

But industry and FCC sources said top GOP agency officials have been signaling that they want to raise the cap to 45 percent on June 2, when the agency is tentatively slated to vote on new media ownership restrictions.”

YOUR LETTERS

David Bernknopf writes from Atlanta: “As a former CNN Vice President, I’ve been amazed at the devolution I am witnessing on all the networks.

“It’s as if journalists have forgotten most of the time what their actual jobs are.

“The intentional sanitizing of war images, the palpable fear of being seen asunpatriotic and unwillingness to demand answers to the difficult post-9/11questions that remain is quite depressing.

As for CNN, Eason Jordan continues to dig holes for himself by notremembering that one of his jobs was actually journalist (not diplomat, notPentagon PR chief…

Anyway, keep up the good work. Only good can come from the pressure.”

Kelly Patton Brook writes: “I don’t know what I can do but thank you for letting a little (more than) a light in. Please keep me on you mailing list. I’m an artist and very sad about all that Bush and gang are up to — up front and behind our backs.”

Larry Piltz writes from Texas about an item posted yesterday: “Your friend, Jeanette, “accidentally on purpose” omitted Palestine as a specific location for ongoing ethnic cleansing (how about the slow-motion genocide as well). Like a lot of my fellow American Jews, who still fear and tremble daily from the ravages of Nazified Europe, she can handle that truth from the past but then shrinks from the current truth. NOW COUNTS TOO! Omitting Palestine, Jeanette, would be impossible to an impartial, human rights-supporting observer who loves truth and justice.”

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That’s all for now. I have another report up today on Globalvision News Network, Please check out info about our Mediachannel book MEDIA WARS. Buying one helps support our work, See above. Speaking of books, last night I joined a panel sponsored by Soft Skill Press to mark the release of Mickey Z’s new book, “The Murdering of My Years,” which challenges the myth of the American work ethic and the order that enforces it, asking the reader to understand that work as we know it is neither a natural or incontrovertible state of affairs.

See www.murderingofmyyears.com

Keep your letters and comments coming. We have a tough fight ahead to keep Mediachannel alive. Your help and support is so appreciated. Write to me at: dissector@mediachannel.org