03
Nov
A Deadly Show, A Deadly Day
CBS’S 75th BIRTHDAY
FOX DISMISSES AND IS DISMISSED
HOW MUCH WILL IRAQ COST?
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CBS: HOORAY FOR CBS
Networks love specials, especially specials honoring themselves. Glitz and glamour and stars galore are magic more powerful than David Copperfield’s illusions. This illusion builds the brand and makes money. And so it was last night when CBS celebrated its 75th anniversary. The show originated in the “legendary” Hammerstein Ballroom — actually once a seedy, run-down venue until the Moonie man, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, bought it and the Manhattan Center of which it is a part. Somehow it is fitting that the cult of self-promotion and the cult of the Unification Church spend the night together for one of those touching and hokey “reunions.”
It was good to see Walter Cronkite there and to hear genuine applause for Edward R. Murrow as the Eye network, as it is known by its distinctive logo, offered a brief clip of one of his famous broadcasts. Walter received a standing ovation when he came on stage alongside Dan Rather, the man who forced him out. (Cronkite was forcibly retired at 65; Rather just turned 70. CBS producer Don Hewitt will work until he is carried out.) Cronkite praised icons Murrow, Collingwood, and Kuralt as well as all the producers and tech people who made their work possible.
And then it was left to Rather to go to the videotape.
THE GREATEST NEWS HITS
Then we saw what we have seen so many times before — the greatest hits of TV news. There was lots of talk about standards and about CBS as the network of record. Then there was the parade of archival clips: the JFK assassination that transformed TV news, the Vietnam War, the 60’s, the l968 Democratic convention, the civil rights movement, the moon walk. Little perspective was offered about these “defining moments” other than that CBS carried them. There were snippets of Iraq coverage such as the statue falling, but none of today’s news. No one mentioned that a right-wing media research center gave CBS its prize for the best Iraq coverage. Oh, well. What do we expect
The big story, also not mentioned last night, was about CBS: the upcoming Ronald Reagan docudrama that has come under attack for distorting the truth. More on
It seems a bit surreal that the network’s past glory days seem to outshine its state-of-the-art high-tech present. The production was as slick as we might expect. I was happy to see that a former Globalvisioneer Jack Sussman was an executive in charge. Although he couldn’t score me a last-minute ticket, Jack told me that as soon as it was over he was flying south to the next CBS spectac — the Victoria Secret extravaganza. Somehow I don’t think I will be around for Victoria
DEBATING FOX NEWS
While CBS puts its best face forward, Fox News was engaged in a rear-guard action as more critics came out of the closet to questions its claim to “fairness and balance.” Last week I told you about the letter of former Fox producer Charles Reina. He revealed that each day a memo goes out enumerating the key points that all FNC shows are supposed to stress. In short, he offered more evidence of how Fox follows a political line imposed from the top, undercutting its claim to fairness and balance. No sooner was this post up than a Fox spokesresponder dismissed him as one of those perennially disgruntled ex-employees.
Then, Peter Carlin of the Washington Post came to Reina’s defense on Jim Romesko’s media news site:
As an earlier correspondent pointed out, you at least have to admire Fox News Channel’s consistency. Taken to task on any issue ? and particularly the bias one — they refuse to address the question at hand, turning instead to a fierce ad hominem attack on their antagonist. Asked by the LAT about Charlie Reina’s letter, FNC spokesman Robert Zimmerman (write your own Dylan joke here) went for the immediate kill, describing his “rantings” as the work of “a bitter, disgruntled former employee.” Then there’s more: “It’s unfortunate that Charlie’s career ended the way it did, but we wish him well.”
Ooh, brutal. But what about the Memo? Here comes the non-denial denial: “All we are saying is that these are false accusations.” Ah. But which accusations? The existence of the daily memo, its content or the way FNC employees respond to the content? You know who could really set this straight? How about Roger Ailes! That’s what the LAT reporter asked, but don’t hold your breath: “Roger is not addressing this and is not available.” Oh, of course. He’s probably too busy writing today’s….oh, never mind. Look, I think it’s perfectly fine for FNC to be as conservative as they wanna be. It’s a free country, it’s Murdoch’s cable channel, he should do what he wants with it. But pretending to be the paragon of objectivity — usually by making invidious comparisons to other news organizations — while being nothing of the sort is bogus and wrong and they should shut the hell up about it, already.(www.poynter.org/forum/default.asp?id=32178)
Mike Harvey also reflects on Fox’s defensive-aggressive response:
I could imagine “that little son of a b____” being muttered more than once as the missive was typed — seemingly quickly, I might add. My guess is that it was a twenty-minute note fired off in the heat of the moment and that a flushed face was involved. I’d wager that the mouse button suffered at least a little damage on the “Send.”
At its core, Berg’s note is a non-denial denial. It appeared to me that the original primary premise of Charlie Reina’s letter was not that folks don’t want to work at FNC or that “I was a terrific employee, you know,” but that such a daily memo exists and nudgingly points folks at FNC towards, shall we say, more desirable stories and angles.
Perhaps I’m jaded, but I didn’t see the revelation of a daily FNC “directions” memo as anything particularly earth-shaking or even mildly surprising. In fact, my first thought was, “Well, of course
there is.”
BLACKHAWK DOWN?
No, it was a Chinook this time with 16 dead, 20 wounded — another deadly day in Iraq as a US helicopter is shot down and the toll of the dead and wounded continues to mount. Iraqi civilians died in other incidents. What was most revealing/disturbing was the cheering by Iraqi passers-by, who expressed their feelings about the US occupation by joyfully celebrating the attack.
Over on Fox this morning, one retired general was justifying the decision to ground the Chinook fleet, and there was discussion of all the SAM-7 missiles in use. “Should we pay more to buy them up?” asked a Foxette.
The New York Times quotes Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s comment: “It’s clearly a tragic day for America. In a long, hard war, we’re going to have tragic days. But they’re necessary. They’re part of a war that’s difficult and complicated.”
Necessary? In an op-ed column, Holly Skar explains,
According to the U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, attacks on troops have jumped from 10-15 a day over the summer to 20-35 a day since early October. More than 350 U.S. soldiers are dead and more than 2,000 have been wounded. About 20 percent of the wounds are severe brain injuries. Thousands of Iraqis have died.
ARE “FOREIGN FIGHTERS” BEHIND IT?”
And who is behind these attacks? Some suspect Saddam; others suspect small groups of ex-soldiers; still others blame so-called “foreign fighters.” TIME’s Tony Karon discusses this in his blog:
Having to explain to his increasingly alarmed electorate why U.S. forces in Iraq had sustained more than 230 attacks in the space of one week — sounds a little like the Tet Offensive, doesn’t it? — U.S. officials this week dusted off that old chestnut about “Foreign Fighters.” The temptation to blame “foreign fighters” is obvious — it speaks to the need to maintain the illusion that the Iraqis themselves actually support the occupation, implying that the attacks are the work of jihadis that have flocked in from outside. (Which, of course they have, in numbers that suggest that Iraq is having a galvanizing effect on the angry young men of the Muslim world quite comparable to that set off by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 — although this time, presumably, they won’t have the CIA and the White House helping lay the political-military foundations of al-Qaeda),…
Most of the “Foreign Fighters” in Iraq are in those in the ranks of the U.S. and its coalition. Washington’s efforts to expand the number of foreign fighters on its own side in Iraq have been a bust. Beyond next spring, the U.S. runs out of fresh combat troops in the active-duty Army to cycle in to replace those already there. And those tiny bands of Lithuanians and Samoans aren’t going to plug the gap (indeed, the Thais are already talking about pulling out because of the security problem, and who knows what effect the recent attacks on Ukrainian forces might have). Despite the new UN Security Council resolution, India, Bangladesh and Portugal have said no; Pakistan has said maybe later (like when the Messiah comes) and South Korea and Japan have prevaricated. The only good news on that front had been the decision by Turkey to deploy more than 10,000 troops, but then opposition from the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council appears to have stymied that possibility.
(www.time.com/time/columnist/karon/article/0,9565,534275,00.html)
David Enders of baghdadbulletin.com says,
Iraqis seem to agree attacks will continue as long as there is an occupation force in the country. The Red Cross is just one of the many possible “soft targets.” There have been threats against companies working with the occupation administration just as there have been continued attacks on Iraqi police and other officials whose only identifiable “crime” seems to be compliance with the occupation.
(www.accuracy.org/new.htm)
WHO IS MAKING MONEY OFF THE CONFLICT?
The Center for Pubic Integrity has released a new report called “The Windfalls of War, which consists of a summary report, six sidebar reports, profiles of 71 companies and individuals awarded contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 and 2003, plus numerous charts. The Center’s six-month investigation has produced the most comprehensive information to date — inside or outside of the government — about the American companies that landed U.S. taxpayer money contracts in the two nations targeted in Washington’s war on terror. (www.publicintegrity.org/wow/)
AND HOW MUCH WILL IT COST
Tomdispatch.com cites a report by Representative John M. Spratt, Jr., the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee. The report gives ballpark cost estimates of the American occupation of Iraq. He found a report that says,
In the most expensive hypothesis examined by the budget office, troop strength declines to 102,000 by 2005 and drops to 50,000 by 2008, remaining there until 2013. Total spending would come to about $200 billion, including about $22 billion in 2005. Spending would then fall to about $14 billion in 2008, and rise from there in line with inflation through 2013?.
The least costly plan, at about $85 billion, calls for troop levels to decline to 76,000 by 2005 and for all troops to be withdrawn by 2008. That version predicts spending $16 billion in 2005.
Eric Margolis of the Toronto Sun comments,
The isolated, unworldly Bush is only now becoming dimly aware he has stirred up an anti-American hornet’s nest overseas. Equally disturbing, thanks to the crusades in Iraq and Afghanistan, total U.S. military spending next year will likely hit $500 billion. Incredibly, this titanic sum is even more in constant dollars than the U.S. spent in Vietnam in 1968, at the height of that war. The light that optimistic George Bush sees at the end of the Iraq tunnel is probably an onrushing truck, loaded with explosives.
AND THERE IS MORE TO COME
Marc Perelman of the Forward in New York reports,
Despite mounting criticism of the administration’s Iraq policy, Vice President Dick Cheney appears to be ratcheting up his commitment to the circle of neoconservative intellectuals who helped spearhead President Bush’s war policy, adding one of its most controversial proponents to his national security staff in a little-noticed move last month.
David Wurmser, a neoconservative scholar known for his close ties to the Israeli right, was appointed in mid-September to join the team led by Cheney’s national security adviser, Lewis “Scooter” Libby. In recent years Wurmser, who boasts a complex network of relationships to a variety of pro-Likud think tanks and activist groups, has frequently written articles arguing for a joint American-Israeli effort to undermine the Syrian regime.
RALLY FOR PEACE
From Israel comes word of a another suicide bombing at a check point?Also, the Mail and Guardian reports, “A rally in memory of Yitzhak Rabin eight years after his murder turned into the largest left-wing demonstration since Ariel Sharon came to power as more than 100 000 people at the weekend gathered under banners denouncing occupation and demanding peace.” (www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?a=13&o=32524)
I-SPY: BLAIR V. BUSH
The Guardian reports (via News Insider):
MI5 planned to bug the London embassy of its foremost ally, the United States, it was disclosed yesterday. The agency was approached by a man in charge of restoring the embassy in a project that began in 2001. Eventually, MI5 recruited the man, gave him the codename Notation, and allegedly asked him to bug the embassy and take confidential documents. The agent, however, told the US embassy about the operation. UK government sources yesterday refused to comment on the operation, although it is clear it has caused the British government acute embarrassment.
In some media news of note, two Iranian TV journalists were finally released by US forces in Iraq, who held them for four months “on suspicion of spying.” The story was a big one in Iran but barely covered here? Noam Chomsky finally made it into the New York Times Sunday magazine. They call him a “professional provocateur” and avoid his politics. They ask him to comment on psychotherapy (he doesn’t believe in it) and on the many words for death and genitals. (They scare people.) ?. CNN reports that fairytale PFC Jessica Lynch is getting married. She met her husband-to-be at a Taco Bell?.The New York Times did a long take on how federal disaster assistance is used for political purpose. Their most surprising revelation after weeks of flames eating homes on TV: “No one seriously believes that there are more floods, fires and pestilence than there used to be.”
YOUR LETTERS
Bradley Kenneth Laing shares some speculation:
I’m no fan of the New York Post, but…
How many other media companies will keep an unprofitable property alive for years?
In terms of actual profitability, where does the money come from in the media business — advertising only, with news stand sales as an after thought?
How many conservative, liberal, etc. properties actually turn a profit? I thought most magazines were hobby magazines, and political magazines funded by tax write-offs?
Isn’t N.Y. and Seattle, WA the only two major dailies that compete cities left in the U.S.?
Can it be missed that for all the complaints of “liberal media bias” local stations turn a profit, and are blandly apolitical? That only national media sources are ever accused of having influence over the electorate?
The money comes from “it bleeds, it leads” apoliticism, and then the station broadcasts CBS, which is accused of being “liberally biased”? But nobody at the local level ever protests about liberal bias between the local car crash and sweeps weeks sensationalism stories?
Take these ideas separately, as speculations, not a complete argument…
ON THE FIRES
Lee Ferrell writes from the blackened Golden State,
The state USGS has been pleading with the Fed for $ to reduce trees that have been killed by bark beetles, for months. Bark beetles normally have only 1 life cycle a year. Higher temps over the last 7 years have allowed them 5-8 life cycles and firs and pines become no more than tinder.
This is happening all the way into Alaska, Danny. Lumber companies are licking their chops. As evidence accumulates, like this, what Bush and the droning media giants are up to may be moot. Pacific Whales have been recorded moving farther north each season since ‘95 in search of plankton. The environment is reaching a crisis point that will make our very survival as a species questionable. Folks won’t have time to pay much attention to media when food shortages begin and power outages multiply.
IN CLOSING . . .
And so, November is now here. The year is racing away from us. I have a number of speaking gigs, interviews about my new book finally in print, and editing pressures. I am hoping to preview a rough-cut of my film on the media coverage of Iraq at the upcoming Media Reform conference in Madison, Wisconsin. I speak on Friday afternoon. Not sure when the film will be shown. Next week: Minneapolis and then Boston and Ithaca. Lots of work to do. Too much work. Too little time.
Stay with us. Write: dissector@mediachannel.org.
