UNFACTORED

MEDIA SELF-CRITICISM

TERROR FEARS

I was sitting there, just minding my own business yesterday when an e-mail comes in from “THE FACTOR.” It wasn’t something I had factored into my day. It asks if I was available to come on the air last night on Fox News Channel factor forum with Bill O’ Reilly. He apparently was planning some “liberal media” bashing on his nightly program. They were looking for comments/analysis of the Iraq prison scandal coverage.

So I end up chatting with the producer and make my first mistake. I tell him what I really think and about what I have been writing. He seems very interested but keeps telling me that Bill ?who “I assure you knows less about than you” believes that the NY Times is playing the story day after day on page one for obvious political reasons.

I sort of disagree, and cite lots of factors including Times’ competition with the Washington Post, the fact that the prison abuse is a big world story with new developments daily, the Times’ distaste for being outscooped by ex-Timesman Sy Hersh and perhaps its own guilty conscience for taking the pipe on the WMD story.

“How interesting,” the producer says. He’s fascinated, hanging on every word. The more I talk, the more I realize I have already violated rule number one of O’Reilly World: keep it simplistic, and partisan. Heat, not light. They want argument, not analysis.

In talking about how CBS first stumbled on the story, I mentioned a report that the father of one of the soldiers facing court martial went first to O’Reilly, thinking he would care about the plight of a serviceman taking the fall for the big brass. The man had no response from this champion of the little guy. He was apparently not a factor. So Fox lost the scoop to 60 Minutes 2.

“Oh, don’t mention that,” says the producer who says he will get back to me. I stupidly think he will, and spend time preparing with research from Peter Hart’s book for FAIR called “O’Reilly, O’ Really?” chronicling Bill bluster and Bs. One story he tells is about O’Reilly condemning Al Jazeera for not covering Saddam’s crimes while they occurred in the l980’s. Hart points out that Al Jazeera didn’t go on the air until the 90’s.

Soon I was all dressed up and ready to take on the foxiest of the Foxes in a manner of speaking. Alas, this great moment in the history of TV was not to be. Like my partner Rory who went through a similar “pre-interview.” I was to be cancelled without even the courtesy of a call to that effect.

“Yea, you blew it, man, “Rory snickers. “You didn’t lie to them. If you denounced the Times as a Kerry tool, you would have had no problem getting booked”

I was crushed. How naﶥ. I, of all people should know: Media miscoverage of the war is not a subject that goes down too well in Murdochland. (Who ended up on the show: Ann Coulter. Actually O’Reilly ended up challenging her!

KRUGMAN’S FRIDAY SERMON

Oddly, while I was sharpening my dissecting scalpel to have a go on the Factor, over at the New York Times, Paul Krugman was firing up his latest op-ed. (If he was a Muslim cleric, it would be labeled his militant Friday sermon.) His topic this week: the media itself:

“Some news organizations, including The New York Times, are currently engaged in self-criticism over the run-up to the Iraq war. They are asking, as they should, why poorly documented claims of a dire threat received prominent, uncritical coverage, while contrary evidence was either ignored or played down.

But it’s not just Iraq, and it’s not just The Times. Many journalists seem to be having regrets about the broader context in which Iraq coverage was embedded: a climate in which the press wasn’t willing to report negative information about George Bush.

“People who get their news by skimming the front page, or by watching TV, must be feeling confused by the sudden change in Mr. Bush’s character. For more than two years after 9/11, he was a straight shooter, all moral clarity and righteousness.

“But now those people hear about a president who won’t tell a straight story about why he took us to war in Iraq or how that war is going, who can’t admit to and learn from mistakes, and who won’t hold himself or anyone else accountable. What happened??

yourself, but as you do, bear in mind that the self-criticism that Krugman alludes to, even at his own paper, is still more of a muted trickle than a mighty stream.

THE OTHER K-MAN WAFFLES ON

While Krugman takes on the press, another K man, John Kerry pulls more punches in taking on the president. He tip toes around Iraq even as Al Gore and other Democrats are trying to deepen the controversy on an issue that seems to be costing Bush political support. BBC reports he fears being exposed to criticism himself as events change rapidly. Reports the Times; “Senator John Kerry said the president’s foreign policy hasabandoned the alliance-building of the post-World War II era.” Gutsy!

Speaking of the big war, a new WW2 memorial opens on the mall in Washington this weekend so TV will be taking us on a nostalgic trip back into the past to remember a conflict that had many more casualties and support than this one. Those sacrifices will be remembered; the reasons for fighting World War 2 will not. Prediction: the words “fighting fascism” will not be on every TV lip. We will hear little about the sacrifices of others like the 20 million Russians lost to the Nazis?Watch for military bands and flag waving..

In Iraq, the off again, on again ceasefire in Najaf may be on or off again depending on which outlet you watch. There is an agreement, for what that is worth. Is it holding? Answer: At times??Two Japanese journalists were killed yesterdat?more busloads of prisoners have been freed?.

27 RATIONALES “DEPLOYED” TO SELL WAR

“News Insider reports: “In just over a year between September 12, 2001 and October 2002, the Washington hawks used some 27 different arguments for invading Iraq and ousting its then dictator, Saddam Hussein, 24 of them originating at the White House. So writes Devon Largio, an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, who published her honors thesis on the topic of Bush’s rationales for going to war with Iraq. Some of the reasons Largio cited included the evilness of Hussein, the hatred of the US professed by him, and the making of an example out of Iraq to gain favor in the Middle East. Largio also showed that the media drove much of the speculation about Iraqi wrongdoings even ahead of the Bush administration. Largio concluded that nearly every rationale used was questionable.”

SELLING THE WAR TO US

Rationales are one thing — the sales techniques used to build consensus for war another. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

“In many ways, the war is being run like a political campaign. For public relations and rhetorical purposes, senior commanders and uniformed spokesmen are taking their lead from civilians at the Pentagon and in the war zone. “When military guys talk about ‘terrorist death squads’ rather than ‘irregulars,’ they are following political direction from the White House Office of Global Communications passed through and coordinated by the political types,” says retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner. He notes that senior civilian communications officials in Iraq and at Central Command previously worked for the GOP on the Florida electoral recount?.

In terms of political inclinations, military officers do not reflect the country as a whole. A year before the 2000 election, a survey by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies showed strong support for the GOP among officers. Of those surveyed, 64 percent identified with Republicans, 17 percent with Independents, and only 8 percent with Democrats.”

osted a study that war junkies will find of interest — its view of how they conquered Iraq.

http://onpoint.leavenworth.army.mil/

HOW GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING HELPED

Investigative journalist Dan Forbes reveals today on Antiwar.com, that the Dept. of Homeland Security delayed launching $226 million in advertising (2003’s total) that paved the way for war until a month before the bombs fell on Baghdad. Veiled by a fig leaf of public health preparedness, the campaign — four times larger than its biggest non-government, non-state security competitor for donated time and space — featured Tom Ridge instructing the public that every family in the land is at risk of attack, and that every American needs to be engaged in supporting the coming war on terrorism. Though Americans were at risk throughout 2002 and needed to hear the portion of the campaign that didn’t pander to Mars — that is, the standard public health doctrine — the ads were delayed for 17 months after 9/11.

“It’s part of a shift by the nation’s broadcasters from donating advertising time and space to such traditional nonprofits as cancer awareness and the United Negro College Fund to blanketing the airwaves with free ads for government security agencies that last year dwarfed what’s traditionally thought of as public service campaigns.”

http://www.antiwar.com/forbes/?articleid=2679

THE FINE PRINT

As the June 30th turnover date approaches in Iraq, journalists will do well to follow Ian Williams example and “follow the money. This veteran UN observer focuses on the fine print in the UN resolutions setting the terms for what’s coming next: “On finances, the resolution has made some extra concessions. It would hand over the Iraq Development Fund balances, derived from Oil For Food surpluses and some, at least, of the confiscated Ba?athist funds to the new authority, but under the continuing monitoring of the International Board that was set up to try to stop Bremer from handing it all to Halliburton. But there is no recourse on the contracts already committed under it.

“Interestingly, smuggled in there in a web of dense cross references to other resolutions is a crucial clause. It refers to paragraph 20 of resolution 1483. Shamefully, this means that the new sovereign Iraqi government must continue to pay 5% of its oil revenues in reparations to the UN?s Compensation Commission, in effect to Kuwait, even as the resolution calls upon Paris Club members to “substantially reduce” Iraq?s sovereign debt.

One supposes that spelling out the reparations issue may make others less eager to subsidize Kuwait but the evasion is just one of many elements that could make other countries suspect less than forthrightness in the resolution and once again, vindictive reparations.”

http://fpif.org/pdf/gac/0405iraqtrans.pdf

WEEKEND OF FEAR

CNN is already running promos hyping the fear of a terrorist attack this weekend. “WILL YOUR TRAVBEL PLANS BE SAFE?” All this in the aftermath of Attorney General Ashcroft’s warning that American may be “hit hard.” CNN is hitting the fear button even harder. If you read the NY Times story on this from the bottom up — that’s where the meaty information usually is, you would have found a different story than the one suggested by the headline:

Quote:

“There’s no real new intelligence, and a lot of this has been out there already,” said one administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “There really is no significant change that would require us to change the alert level of the country.”?

“Some intelligence officials said they were uncertain that the link between the fresh intelligence and the likelihood of another attack was as apparent as Mr. Ashcroft made it out to be. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security said just a day before Mr. Ashcroft’s announcement that they had no new intelligence pointing to the threat of an attack.

“Senator Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who is a member of the intelligence committee, said in an interview that the committee had received no word of any new information of the type Mr. Ashcroft described. Mr. Durbin said that if there were credible new information about a possible strike, he believed the intelligence committee should have been told about it.”

Hmmmmm

BE ON THE ALERT FOR THIS MAN

Meanwhile The LA Times reports that “One of the persons sought for questioning by the F.B.I.in connection with possible terrorist acts in the coming months is a youngman raised in Southern California who converted to Islam as a teenager andhas lived in Pakistan for most of the past five years.

“Adam Yahiye Gadahn, 25, grew up on a small farm in Riverside County, east ofLos Angeles, according to his aunt, Nancy Pearlman, an environmentaladvocate and journalist in Los Angeles. His parents, Phil and JenniferGadahn, lived an isolated life - “off the grid'’ - and home-schooled theirfour children, Ms. Pearlman said. She spoke to reporters late Wednesdayafternoon in an impromptu news conference on the sidewalk outside her homeon the edge of the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Beverlywood.

“She said she was stunned to learn that federal authorities sought her nephewfor questioning. She said that he was raised as a pacifist and that as faras she knew had no connection to Islamic militants or terrorists.

“It’s not clear at all what they want to find out from him,'’ Ms. Pearlmansaid. “He never espoused any kind of militancy.'’ She said that she andother members of her family last heard from him about 18 months ago, when hecalled from Pakistan to say that he had married an Afghan refugee and thatthey were expecting a child.”

IS THERE A TERROR THREAT?

In fact, Al-Qaeda is stronger than ever — says a specialized think tank, Britain’s Institute of Specialized Study reporting that the US is responsible. NYU’s Global Beat has this report;

“In its annual strategic survey, the IISS reports that the Bushadministration’s actions in the Middle East– especially the war inIraq–have accelerated recruitment of terrorist candidates ready to fightfor Al Qaeda. Despite efforts to track down terrorist cells, the IISSestimates that 18,000 graduates of training camps in Afghanistan are stilloperational, and Al Qaeda has been made more effective by decentralizingthe command structure that was previously in Afghanistan. The lack ofsufficient U.S. troop strength in Iraq is forcing the coalition to turn tootherwise unpopular local militias to keep order. More important, thesemilitias will exact a political price for their support. Loss of U.S.prestige due to mismanged intervention is likely to further reduce theU.S. room for maneuver. The Economist assesses the IISS findings alongwith the FBI’s warning of increased threat. The IISS’ director JohnChipman’s summary of findings is available in pdf format. Chipman’spresentation is available in streaming audio (Windows media player). A25-minute Q&A with the staff of the Military Balance and news reporters isalso available on line.

http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/index.html#iiss

DEJAVU ALL OVER AGAIN

Today’s atrocity news recalls yesterday’s Australia’s New Age reminds us that it is dejavu all over again:

“News had just broken of an unimaginable atrocity committed by American soldiers, and the US defence secretary and the national security adviser debated whether there was any way to stop newspapers and television using graphic photographs of the victims.

“They’re pretty terrible,” the defence secretary, Melvin Laird, said of the colour photographs of the men, women and children killed in the My Lai massacre in South Vietnam.

“Henry Kissinger, the national security adviser, responded that one of president Richard Nixon’s top aides had “heard that the army is trying to impound the pictures - that can’t be done”.

“A transcript of this 1969 telephone conversation, with its uncanny echoes of the Iraq war and the abuses at Abu Ghraib jail, was released on Wednesday by the US National Archives as part of 20,000 pages of records of Dr Kissinger’s telephone conversations.

Conflict was the most constant topic. In their conversation on November 21, 1969, about the My Lai massacre, Mr Laird told Dr Kissinger that while he would like “to sweep it under the rug”, the photographs prevented that.”

TASER USED ON 9 YEAR OLD

Closer to home authorities in Louisiana close a juvenile prison known for systematic abuse?In Tuscon Arizona,, KGUN TV reports: “On May 8th, South Tucson police answered a call to Arizona’s Children Association and used a Taser …on a nine year old girl. There’s an investigation not simply because police Tasered a child but because she was already in a police car and already handcuffed at the time that they did it.”

SUDAN CATASTROPHE

While we are focused on Iraq, other crises stalk the world — terrible floods in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and “extreme weather” around the world?.South Africa’s Mail and Guardian reports on Sudan as well:”

” Deals paving the way for an end to 21 years of civil war in southern Sudan have prompted international praise, tempered by fresh warnings about a humanitarian catastrophe in the western region of Darfur. The United Nations has called the conflict in Darfur, where at least 10 000 people have been killed, more than a million displaced and several hundred thousand left at risk of starvation, the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?a=37&o=80246

NPR UNDER FAIR’S MICROSCOPE

On our media beat, check out a new Fair Study on NPR: “National Public Radio, though founded as an alternative media outlet that would “speak with many voices,” relies on largely the same range of sources that dominate mainstream commercial news, a new FAIR study has found. Characterized by conservative critics as “liberal” radio, NPR has more Republican than Democratic voices, and male sources outnumber female sources by nearly four to one.

ttp://www.fair.org/extra/0405/npr-study.html

NEW RESOURCE

For more on media coverage and what it might be: The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University launches a new Web site today to encourage watchdog reporting by drawing on authorities in various fields to suggest questions for the press to ask. See: www.NiemanWatchdog.org,

Have a great weekend. I will be back Tuesday or before. And, as you hit the roads of fear in search of escape from the American Sector or whatever sector confines you, here’s a little media related ditty dealing with the FCC sung by a person unknown. No doubt, he is under investigation. WARNING: May contain “offensive” language.

http://www.pythonline.com/plugs/idle/FCCSong.mp3

Sing along with Mitch. Hope It gives you a stitch. …If you want to see an interview with yours truly on line, check out: Marcus Morrell’s promising new UK based site: http://www.big-picture.tv…Feedback welcome as always: dissector@mediachannel.org