MANUFACTURING “PROGRESS”

PENTAGON FLACK JOINS CNN

REMEMBERING EDWARD SAID

Like the little Dutch boy who was said to save his country by putting his finger in a broken dyke, the Administration is moving on a number of fronts to defuse growing criticism of its Iraq Policy. Even as another US solider is killed and three wounded in Kirkuk. As part of its not-so-rapid response, we have activity on a number of fronts. Colin Powell is calling on the Iraqis to write a Constitution within six months, so that they can take over the mess. (Reports the New York Times: “The constitution would clear the way for elections and the installation of a new leadership next year, the secretary of state said.” Critics here suggest that we just give them ours since we are not using it. None of my media colleagues points out that neither Britain nor Israel has a written constitution, yet both manage to exercise sovereignty. Clearly, this is just another stall, a maneuver to neutralize the complaints.

As part of its lobbying for $87 BILL in supplemental appropriations, the Defense Department is arranging to change the subject by flooding every home town in the USA with soldiers rotated in from Iraq for a bit of R & R. They are being flown home at government expense to take some of the edge off the charge that they are exhausted and homesick, etc. Already CNN had a reporter going live this morning from the Baltimore Washington airport for the first arrivals. Soon every media outlet will be filled with fresh, personalized portraits of the bravery of our boys, enhanced by fresh interviews and tearful family reunions.

THE CONGRESSIONAL CAPITULATION

Meanwhile L. Paul Bremer and his General Abazaid were back on Capitol Hill to sell all their ‘’progress'’ to a skeptical Congress, which will give them the money because the alternative is being defined only as “cut and run.” What Congress member wants to be accused of “loosing Iraq” the way their successors had the fear instilled by a raging right about “loosing China” or Vietnam” or fill in the blank. Listening to Democratic Congressman Ike Skelton from Missouri was to be treated to a cliché-ridden treatise of flip-flops in logic that made the head swim and the mind recoil. He loves the military, loves our boys, loves the flag but hates the policy and never points out that it is the military which is sailing this Titanic. He compared our soldiers to the colonial armies memorialized in Tennyson’s poem on the charge of the light brigade without appreciating the irony. The only phrase that was missing: “light at the end of the tunnel.”

Media coverage of all this was left to CSPAN and those who can stay awake for this unending, blatantly puffed-up propaganda exercise. I couldn’t.

FIX THE TV PICTURE: MORE EMBEDS NEEDED

“Fixing the media” is next. Ever since the war ended and the Embedded journalists returned home, the coverage in Iraq became more honest, even a tad critical. Horrors! What to do? Why, send the Embeds back. At least that’s what former Pentagon media chief Victoria Clarke says her former employers are suggesting. As USA Today’s Peter Johnson reported yesterday, “the Pentagon is ‘encouraging’ news organizations to send journalists back to Iraq. ‘It’s a simple rule, ‘ says Clarke, who resigned from her government post in June. ‘If good things are going on, you want to put a big spotlight on it. If bad things are going on, you similarly want to put a spotlight on it, because then the issue can be dealt with and you can put it behind you more quickly.’ ” (http://www.usatoday.com)

Clarke was being interviewed on CNN. But get this, her interview on air followed her job interview. Clarke is joining CNN in the latest demonstration of the media-military merger that we saw in full operation during the military invasion part of the war. You may recall that NBC hired the Pentagon spokesperson Pete Williams after the First Gulf War. CNN has hired one architect of the policy that resulted in such an orgy of patriotic correct policy that prompted kudos to the press from Dick Cheney.

THE RESULT: “LARGELY POSITIVE STORIES”

Here’s USA Today again: “During the war with Iraq, more than 600 reporters from news organizations around the world were embedded with U.S.-led coalition forces. The result: largely positive stories about our troops. But since major combat ended with a corresponding massive exodus of reporters from Iraq, coverage has turned negative, with an emphasis on ambushes and bombings, not reconstruction efforts.

There’s a link between fewer reporters and the barrage of bad news, says Torie Clarke of her new gig. It seems obvious that with conservative-leaning Fox News hammering CNN in the ratings, that CNN has hired this former conservative administration mouthpiece to add balance to a network that some have accused of leaning left. That’d make her a female Tucker Carlson, of sorts. Not true, says Clarke. “I don’t wear bowties.” She notes that “not a soul” at CNN brought up her politics before hiring her. Besides, “I’m a pretty independent thinker.”

CNN ACCUSED OF “ADVANCING PUBLIC DISCOURSE”

Clarke says she chose CNN because “I think they’re trying to advance public discourse. One of my biggest takeaways from the last two-and-a-half years is that there are really serious issues out there, and there should be serious and thoughtful debate and dialogue about them. I think we’re at a critical moment in history and the more advanced and the more substantive and the more sophisticated the public discourse, the better off we’ll all be.” Judging by her performance, I am sure you can predict what kind of “sophisticated public discourse” we can expect from this PR flack.

I reported from Washington this week on the 911 commission’s fight for documents from the White House. Although the Commission stressed how much progress is being made, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff has another view: “Despite public claims of cooperation, White House lawyers are still resisting turning over to the September 11 commission key documents, including the text of daily intelligence briefs provided to President Bush in the months before the attacks and closely held National Security Council memos on terrorism, sources familiar with the negotiations tell NEWSWEEK.

“Instead, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales has proposed a variety of alternatives designed to preserve claims that such documents are covered by ‘executive privilege’ and therefore barred from disclosure to outsiders. Among the proposals floated by Gonzales is one to allow only the commission’s two top officials, Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice-Chairman Lee Hamilton, to review the documents.” Kids, can you say Cover-Up?

WAR BETWEEN RICH AND POOR

You wouldn’t know from watching the US media that one of the biggest issues in the world in agricultural policy is the subsidies that are destroying the livelihoods of third world farmers. The BBC reported this morning that India has set up a block of 22 states, the G22, which includes China, South Africa and Brazil, to fight for fairer trade policies in the aftermath of the collapse of the WTO process. (Last night, India entered my life when I wasn’t allowed to cross the street because of all the security procedures that follow the arrival of so many heads of state. It was the presence of the Indian leader that blocked my way. (I have already gotten over it.)

Speaking of Brazil, I reported on the visit of its president, Lula, yesterday. The Mail and Guardian of South Africa reports that he has had to back down on a key agricultural measure that the US media also does not cover. “Brazil, the last big country to resist GM crops, dashed the hopes of environmentalists yesterday and gave in to pressure from the US and its own big farmers to allow them to be grown for at least a year.”

(http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?a=13&o=29672)

AND IN THIS COUNTRY?

As stories about the great gaps between rich and poor in the world are ignored, there was some news of how that gap plays out in these United States: The New York Times reports: “The gap between rich and poor more than doubled from 1979 to 2000, an analysis of government data shows. The gulf is such that the richest one per cent of Americans in 2000 had more money to spend after taxes than the bottom 40 per cent. In 1979, the wealthiest one per cent had just under half the after-tax income of the poorest 40 per cent of Americans, analysis of new data from the Congressional Budget Office shows.”

EDWARD SAID

In the aftermath of the Gulf War, I was on a media panel with Columbia University scholar Edward Said who brought to his contempt for the TV coverage the same critical intelligence that animated his life and diverse scholarship. The Palestinian scholar Edward Said died yesterday. His was a mind that ranged over many issues. He was an eloquent advocate as a critic of Israel and of corrupt practices by the Palestinian Authority. The Jewish pianist Daniel Barenboim was among those paying tribute: “He was not only at home in music, literature, philosophy, or the understanding of politics, but also he was one of those rare people who saw the connections and the parallels between different disciplines, because he had an unusual understanding of the human spirit, and of the human being, and he recognized that parallels and paradoxes are not contradictions.

“Many Israelis and Jews did not want to tolerate his criticism, not just of the present Israeli government, but of a certain mentality that he identified in Israeli thoughts and deeds — namely, the lack of empathy with the fact that the very same war of independence of Israel in 1948, which brought about the acquisition of a new identity for the Jewish part of the population, was not just a military defeat, but also a psychological catastrophe for the non-Jewish population of Palestine.”

PUTIN PAYS A CALL

They are dusting off the red carpet at Camp David for a visit by Russian president Vladimir Putin for another love-fest with President Bush. His visit was greet yesterday by an advertising barrage from one his countrymen. Not a tovarich. EJC reports: “Russian tycoon Boris Berezovski took out full-page advertisements in major US newspapers, warning Washington not to trust the Russian president. Under the headline, “Seven questions to President George Bush about his friend President Vladimir Putin,” the advertisement accuses President Putin of undermining democracy, suppressing the legislative branch, the judiciary, and the media and overseeing genocide in war-torn Chechnya. “Any person is free to choose his friends,” the advertisement read. “But friendship is based on shared values.” The ad appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

MEDIA NEWS: STOPPING CLEAR CHANNEL

US Newswire reports: “Essential Information, a public interest group, urged the FCC to deny license renewal for 63 stations owned by Clear Channel, the nation’s largest radio conglomerate. The stations are located in Washington DC, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.”

“The FCC is required by statute to deny applications for license renewal if a licensee exhibits poor character,” said Jim Donahue, project director of Essential Information. Donahue claims that Clear Channel and its subsidiaries have violated the law on 36 separate occasions over the last three years.

(http://www.essential.org/)

VIACOM TAKES A HIT

I have been telling you a lot about the mighty men of Viacom, who are said be eyeing the acquisition of New York Magazine. Yesterday, they humbly cut their profit forecast, blaming a slump in advertising. This represents a reversal of fortune of sorts since the Viacomese have been boasting about how great they were doing. Meanwhile, the whole TV industry, which always appears to give the public what it wants, clearly isn’t. MediaPost reports that “while the number of TV channels received by the average household is greater than ever, the percentage of those channels that are actually viewed has hit a new low.”

(http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsID=220073)

HILLARY CENSORED — IN CHINA

This just in: “The Peoples’ Republic of China’s state-owned Yilin Press censored passages of Senator Hillary Clinton’s book, Living History, by removing sentences or paragraphs which detail human rights issues in China, human rights activist Harry Wu and his imprisonment in China, and instances of PRC government surveillance and control. The Times reports Senator Clinton’s publisher demanded Yilin recall the censored Mandarin edition of Living History, which has already sold an estimated 200,000 copies, and that Yilin republish the book in full. “I was amazed and outraged to hear about this,” Mrs. Clinton told The New York Times, which discovered the expurgation. “They censored my book, just like they tried to censor me.” Need I point out that the Clinton Administration was far keener on doing business with China than criticizing its policies?

YOUR LETTERS TODAY: CLAIMS WITHOUT EVIDENCE

Luke John Howie writes from Australia: “I’ve been following the story of the Sheik Ahmed Yassin (Hamas leader) press conference today from the sometimes disadvantaged Australia and saw one glaring discrepancy between the news outlets I follow (10 or so among Australia, UK and USA). Most discussed the refusal of Hamas to negotiate with Israel for a truce when the basis is the terms of occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, the LA Times’ Henry Chu and Fayed abu Shammalah went one step further, claiming that ‘…negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are irrelevant to Hamas, which rejects Israel’s existence entirely’. This claim was made without any evidence being provided. In addition, other sources claimed that the press conference was held in a mosque, as Israeli forces would hesitate before attacking a holy site, whilst Chu and Shammalah claim that the site was chosen because the ‘presence of worshipers would deter an Israeli attack’. This sounds to me as though the worshipers were a human shield.

ON 911 PROBE

Lee Ferrell comments on the 911 investigation and the role of the families group that lobbied for the probe. They have to “listen” to three bereaved wives of the victims, or appear to…. Kicking them out would have revealed too much more of the truth. Sad that only such bereavement turned “activism” can even get close to the FBI/CIA, or a smidgen of news coverage. Their innocence is laudable and more deeply American than anything we’ve seen among the “talking heads” and jabbering media sources, all of them. We don’t need more “media.” We need more innocence. It is what stopped the mean-spirited war mongering “true believers” before … (anyone out there remember Eric Hoffer’s book, The True Believer?).

A MEDIACENTRIC POEM

Clay Shannon, author of the novel, The Wacky Misadventures of Warble McGorkle, sends us his poem on the role of radio today: “Thanks for your news dissectors. You might be interested in a poem I wrote which ‘covers’ (among other things) the 2004 Pres. Election.” Religious phonies and fanatics
Intoning sanctimoniously
Obvious truths
And lies
Rabid right-wing talk show hosts
Winning arguments with specious reasonings
Volume knobs, and
Plug-pulling
They make no sense
Can they really be that dense?
Or is it a shameless game
For dollars and fame?
Patriotic propaganda disguised as news
Rah rah
Rock the blues
Or you lose
Imbecilic advertisements
Buy this, buy that
You need it
You deserve it
You can’t live without
Their vapid void plastic placebo panaceas
Or can you?

ON SINCERITY BY DANIEL SCHORR

My final thought for the week comes via Ted Pease, a quote from Dan Schorr who spent a lifetime at CBS News and later CNN before burrowing into NPR. Says my namesake: “I learned that television wasn’t about conveying information, but about glorifying the conveyor of the information, the star. When I asked a young producer the secret of success for a print reporter aiming to go into television, he replied: ‘Sincerity.’ If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.’ ”

As Breaking News competes with faking news, we thank Dan for his contributions over six decades, especially his disclosure of a key CIA document way back when. Yesterday, I went networking at the independent Feature Project to meet energetic young filmmakers fighting to get their films seen in a marketplace that seems rigged against Indy perspectives. I heard more tales of woe but also heartening descriptions of wonderful projects. May we all succeed and prosper. That’s my prayer as the high holidays begin with many of us feeling so low. Onward. Write to me and join Mediachannel: dissector@mediachannel.org)