SIMONA, SIMONA: FREE AT LAST

WINNING AND LOSING IN IRAQ

DAVID BRODER EXPRESSES SHAME

The two Simonas are free and I couldn’t be happier. Three weeks ago I was in Rome when we heard that the two Italian humanitarian workers kidnapped in Iraq would be killed in 24 hours. (One of this shadowy “Islamic web sites” we keep hearing about has already reported their demise!) The Iraqi children they worked with took to the streets demanding that these women who worked in Iraq for ten years be released. The Italians and others went to work to win their release as opposed to simply denouncing ther kidnappers. Soon. Simona Pari and Simona Torretta were free. They were smiling big smiles after three weeks in captivity.

“Shukran, shukran gesilan, ma salama [Thanks, thanks a million, good-bye],” said one of the women.

BBC reports a French negotiator “says he has reached a deal with kidnappers to free two French hostages in Iraq, according to Arabic television.” (In related news, two men convicted of being part on the attack on the USS Cole have been sentenced to death in Yemen and John Walker Lindh, the so-called “American Taliban” captured in Afghanistan in a bloody assault has appealed to President Bush for his freedom citing the release of a US-born Yaser Esem Hamdi, an “enemy combatant” who had been in Guantanamo.”)

Could there be a change or tactics by insurgent groups underway, or did common sense break out in a country ravaged by war? Get this reaction: “I’m so happy, overwhelmingly happy,” said Ms Pari’s father, Luciano, from his home in Rimini on the Adriatic coast. He thanked “the entire Arab world.” Many in Iraq and The Arab world had demanded the two Simonas be freed–an indication that global solidarity is alive and well and that bridges can be built . . . BBC reports: “Palestinian gunmen have freed a CNN journalist abducted in Gaza. “The Times of London reports “Moscow police have arrested two Chechen suspects in connection with the murder of Paul Klebnikov, the editor of Forbes magazine’s Russian edition.”

PESSIMISM IN HIGH PLACES

Meanwhile. in the main ring of the terrordome, the Washington Post reports today more “Pessimism on Iraq ” today as “Doubts Increase Within U.S. Security Agencies. ” For months, I and others have reported that the situation there is in a free fall. Now, mainstream media is picking up the mantra . . . The New York Times echoes this approach today: “Resistance to the occupation of Iraq is more widespread than the pockets of insurgency described by Iraqi officials, data shows.” The Times reports “military officers argue that despite the rise in bloody attacks during the past 30 days, the insurgents have yet to win a single battle.”

“We have had zero tactical losses; we have lost no battles,” said one senior American military officer. “The insurgency has had zero tactical victories. “We are at a very critical time,” the officer added. “The only way we can lose this battle is if the American people decide we don’t want to fight anymore.”

NYT, front page, Wed. morning, 2:35 AM EST.

Dan Cassidy, or News Dissector Times watcher notes: “Guerrilla armies do not fight battles. they win wars of attrition that can last for generations.”

INCOMPETENCE IN HIGH PLACES

Eric Lichtblau reports in the Times: “More than 120,000 hours of terrorism-related recordings have not been translated by the F.B.I., and computer problems may have erased some Al Qaeda recordings.” . . . Another military set back for Bushworld: The Post offers other doubts today, reporting, “What the Bush administration had hoped would be a triumphant achievement is clouded by doubts, even within the Pentagon, about whether a missile defense system that is on its way to costing more than $100 billion will work. ” See the new issue of the New Yorker for Frances Fitzgerald’s devastating report on this $l0 billion dollar fiasco.

DOMINIQUE AT THE LIBRARY

Dominique de Villepin, the stunningly articulate former French foreign minister who had opposed the Busheviks invasion of Iraq, and spoke up for global understanding at a time of war is now proposing new strategies for fighting terrorism including ending the impasse in the Middle East and focusing on its political roots. Now France’s Interior Minister, he is still advocating a global approach when he spoke about terrorism at the New York Public Library last night. His appearance was associated with the launch of a new book, Toward a New World, of his speeches in English published by Melville House.

www.melvillehousebooks.com

His speech ranged over the paradoxes of fighting terrorism offering an alternative vision based on international cooperation. He did not criticize the Bush approach but it was clear he did not and does not embrace it. I questioned him on one point he made about how media publicity for sensational acts by terrorists can promote terrorism. Was he advocating censorship, I asked.”No,” he replied, admitting that the terrain is complicated. Although he was a bit vague, he was asking for more responsible coverage overall, a point that the crowded room resonated with. I sat next to Shashi Thoroor, the equally eloquent UN information guru who nodded when Villepin stressed the importance of strengthening the United Nations.

As a politician, the French Minister focused on the politics of terrorism, but this morning CNN was all over its economic impact as fear feeds financial speculators and drives up the price of heating oil. This economic pressure may do more damage to the world economy than all the incidents we keep hearing about as oil prices are manipulated and consumers pay on average another $500 in the winter heating season.

PEACE TRAIN

Dominique de Villepin’s call for global understanding has many supporters including singer Yusef Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens who was yanked off a plane as a security risk last week. The soft-spoken Yusef was shocked by what happened and so were his many fans who have followed his work on behalf of dialogue between the Islamic World and the West.

Last night I had a call from one of his advisors Mohammed Kahn who urged me to visit his website at www.yusufislam.org.uk

When you do, you will realize the injustice done him. Lets see if the media will be fair to him now that he was thoroughly demonized. His website tells us: ” Yusuf Islam speaks about his recent exclusion from the US in an exclusive interview with 20/20 ABC News to be aired on Friday, 1st October. Segments from the interview will also be broadcast earlier in the week on Good Morning America on 27th September between 7.00am-7.30am (EST) and again on the morning of 1st October. World News Tonight is expected to air a portion on either 27th September or 28th September (7.00pm-7.30pm EST). Listen out also on ABC Radio and ABC News Now. Times subject to change.”

As a former 20.20 producer, I can only hope he doesn’t get the smart ass John Stossel treatment and is, instead, given a chance to express his views. Will 20/20 board the peace train? Let’s see.

“THE UNBELIEVABLE THING”

Islam told part of his story in an op-ed in the LA Times:

“The unbelievable thing is that only two months earlier, I had been having meetings in Washington with top officials from the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to talk about my charity work. Even further back, one month after the attack on the World Trade Center, I was in New York meeting Peter Gabriel and Hillary Rodham Clinton at the World Economic Forum!

“Had I changed that much? No. Actually, it’s the indiscriminate procedure of profiling that’s changed. I am a victim of an unjust and arbitrary system, hastily imposed, that serves only to belittle America’s image as a defender of the civil liberties that so many dearly struggled and died for over the centuries.”

Yusef lives in England. His Prime Minister Tony Blair was on the defensive again yesterday. BBC reports he was heckled by a lone anti-war protester as he defended his decision to support the invasion of Iraq. The New York Times gave Blair’s broadside in a more positive spin.: “Prime Minister Tony Blair offered a qualified apology that the evidence on which he had taken Britain to war had proved wrong.”

HELL IN HAITI

BBC reports the death toll is over 1300 with 200,000 homeless. Canada’s leaders are there, Where’s Colin Powell and Condi Rice who expressed so much concern about democracy there while deposing the country’s elected president Aristide. Canada’s Globe and Mail reports:

“More than a week after the passage of hurricane Jeanne, the calamity in the northwest city of Gonaïves is overwhelming Haitians and foreign rescue workers.

“With no electricity or running water and short of basics like antibiotics, doctors in makeshift clinics are fighting to save survivors in a city so contaminated it will be hard for newborns to survive.

“As Haitians try to recover, gangsters are looting aid shipments and are subjecting survivors to life-threatening delays in getting food and water, officials said. ”

HAVE YOU SEEN THE POLLS TODAY, O BOY?

My friend Marc sends this along:

“Some bad news for the polling business. Strategic Vision (R) has a new poll in Ohio showing Bush ahead 52% to 43% there. However, there is also a Lake Snell Perry (D) poll showing the race there to be an exact tie, with both candidates at 46%. It is becoming increasingly clear that the pollsters are producing the results that the people paying the bills want to hear. Even pollsters who were once thought to be above suspicion are now suspicious. Gallup, for example, is now normalizing its samples to include 40% Republicans, even though the 2000 exit polls showed the partisan distribution to be 39% Democratic, 35% Republican. There is scant evidence that the underlying partisan distribution has changed much since then. Other pollsters also normalize their data, but most don’t say how. Normalizing the sample to ensure the proper number of women, elderly voters, etc. is legitimate provided that the pollster publicly states what has been done.”

www.electoral-vote.com/sep/sep28.html

AP reports:

“New voters are flooding local election offices with paperwork, registering in significantly higher numbers than four years ago as attention to the presidential election runs high and an array of activist groups recruit would-be voters who could prove critical come Nov. 2.

“Cleveland has seen nearly twice as many new voters register so far as compared with 2000; Philadelphia is having its biggest boom in new voters in 20 years; and counties are bringing in temporary workers and employees from other agencies to help process all the new registration forms….”

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040928/ap_on_el_pr/new_voters

When I was in Calfornia, I met with two of Move On’s campaign strategists and ad men. Their view: Kerry will win!

A SENSE OF SHAME

William Safire, the right wing sage of the New York Times editorial page is indicting the way information is controlled: “The right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate the workings of government is under attack”. One of America’s top political journalists David Broder is speaking out on that “free press,” an industry that he has devoted a life time to working in: ”

After almost half a century in this business, I certainly feel a sense of shame and embarrassment at our performance. The feeling is not relieved by the awareness that others in journalism not only did fine work on other stories, but took the lead in exposing these instances of gross malpractice.

“The common feature — and the disturbing fact — is that none of these damaging failures would have occurred had senior journalists not been blind to the fact that the standards in their organizations were being fatally compromised.

“We need to be asking why this collapse has taken place.

My suspicion is that it stems from a widespread loss of confidence in both the values of journalism and the economic viability of the news business.

“The first symptom of wavering confidence that I spotted came when news organizations — television particularly, but print as well — began offering their most prestigious and visible jobs not to people deeply imbued with the culture and values of newsrooms, but to stars imported from the political world. Journalists learn to be skeptical — of sources and of their own biases as well. If they are any good, they are tough on themselves. Politicians learn something very different — how to please the public. They try to satisfy others, not themselves.”

ANOTHER MEDIA DISSIDENT

Pulitzer Prize winner Sidney Schanberg reflects on the role of the media in this week’s Village Voice

“Until someone invents android reporters, incidents of human error, weakness, and sometimes venality will continue to happen. The question is not whether we are too reckless or aggressive, but whether we are willing to examine ourselves in an ongoing, systemic way, as professionals should.

“Ideological critics of a freewheeling press would have us believe that journalists are too adversarial in their reporting and therefore injurious to the smooth governing of a complex society in a turbulent world. The true problem is that reporters are not aggressive enough — or professional enough. Being aggressive means charging hard at a story that the government or a private power center doesn’t want revealed. Being professional means not presenting the story to the public until facts are nailed down. Professionalism also requires admitting to fallibility. Perhaps the greatest sin of Big Media today is in offering up virtually all its stories in a tone of omniscience — while rarely including a paragraph stating prominently the elements of the story that are still unknown or in dispute. ”

TV GUIDE: “EMBEDDED at the RNC

Do you feel a draft? Join Paul Rieckhoff, a decorated vet as he infiltrates the Republican Convention to get answers about the war in Iraq.

Airing on Link TV (Eastern time):
1:35 AM Wednesday Sept. 30
7:35 AM Wednesday Sept. 30

JOHN STEWART VS BILL O REILLY

The AP’s on top of it media writer David Bauder filed this report-

“The folks at Comedy Central were annoyed when Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly kept referring to “The Daily Show” audience as “stoned slackers.” So they did a little research. And guess whose audience is more educated? Viewers of Jon Stewart’s show are more likely to have completed four years of college than people who watch “The O’Reilly Factor,” according to Nielsen Media Research.

“O’Reilly’s teasing came when Stewart appeared on his show earlier this month. “You know what’s really frightening?” O’Reilly said. “You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary, but it’s true. You’ve got stoned slackers watching your dopey show every night and they can vote.”

“Comedy Central executives realized, and O’Reilly acknowledged, that he was poking fun. But they said they didn’t want a misconception to persist. “If the head of General Motors was watching O’Reilly’s show, that could be very important to us,” said Doug Herzog, Comedy Central president. “If you listen to O’Reilly, you get the sense that it was crazy longhairs behind the show,” he said. “And it’s not. It’s great, smart television that attracts a well-compensated audience, most of whom are voting age.”

“Relax, said Fox News Channel spokesman Rob Zimmerman. “Comedy Central must have lost their sense of humor,” Zimmerman said. “Without Jon Stewart, Comedy Central would turn into the Great American Country Channel.”

Comedy Central also touted a recent study by the University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey, which said young viewers of “The Daily Show” were more likely to answer questions about politics correctly than those who don’t. Comedy Central had no statistics on how many people watch “The Daily Show” stoned.

YOUR LETTERS

Steve Withers writes from New Zeakand:

“I’ve been a usenet newsgroup participant for 13 years.

“There, along with all the normal people, you will also find a motley and often poisonous crew of psychiatric out-patients and the undiagnosed mentally ill, who stalk and curse and abuse the current focus of their obsessive/abusive cycle of behaviour.

“You get used to it . . . and it certainly is good discipline to “harden up”. If you are used to civilized discourse, in good faith, then these online abusive obsessives can be a real shock to the system.

The problem is all theirs . . . so don’t internalise their poison. It’s not you. It’s them. ”

Marc Sheffner writes from Japan:

“The best questions and sharpest comments I read about the rather affair are over at this place then here for more mordant musings after Sep 15th. And whoever writes this stuff leaves no mailing address.

“Maybe they’ve learned something!”

He recommends: http://xymphora.blogspot.com

BLAME THE LIBERAL MEDIA

Someone named Cederford has not given up on “liberal bias as the reason for the CBS scandal. (See my latest piece on Media Channel’s home page challenging this view)

“I hope the CBS folks and others hit with scandal can get their act together. It really is in large part due to liberal bias, IMHO. Partisanship does appear to undermine professionalism. It tempts, it promotes groupthink, it evidently ties prominent news organizations right into political campaigns by the journalists that are defacto campaign workers. The liberal agenda is obvious at the LA Times, NY Times, CBS, etc., in what stories they spike, and which ones they run ad nauseum because they think it will help “their sort of politicians”, or damage a US institution they dislike. Abu Ghraib is a fine example.

“I do regret that reporting hard news and breaking important, major stories may suffer. From a business perspective, it is far less risky, and easier and cheaper, to crank out “fluff” that may improve circulation or ratings more. So we in the public get all Laci Peterson, all the time…. not reportage on immigration. Not social security problems. No, more Laci! That’s what the plebians want, bread thrown at the Colosseum. Perhaps toss in a little Paris, Brittany, and Kobe for a break - but Laci is as important as political partisan pundits or lawyer media whores who don’t debate or analyze, but yell talking points at one another at the same time to assure they are unintelligible, but entertaining. ”

“EYES WIDE SHUT”

Sarah Meyer writes:

“Is it the fault of the American press that the American people are uneducated? I reproduce a recent email:

“Dear Susan, In a discussion last night, two American friends were 1) supporting Allawi and not recognising him as a Bush Puppet 2) supporting Kerry’s position on Israel; not acknowledging the similarities of Bush / Kerry policies ; 3) saying everyone fighting in Iraq was a ‘terrorist.” I was saying, “No, it isn’t like that; you have blinkers; your country is not connected to the rest of the world in its understanding of what is happening ” - and then trying to teach another reality. I also mentioned that some in Europe were comparing Ashcroft’s civil rights policies and the need of the US government to keep the fear factor prominent to the Nazi government. And my friend cried out, “but we are on the same side, why are we arguing?” And I said, “No, we are not on the same side. Your eyes are shut.” It was v. hurtful, but true, I felt.

“Perhaps it is just better with these Americans who think we are “on the same side” is just to nod and not to try and point out uneducated misconceptions? It is so upsetting for me, as an American living in Britian — why are these previously well informed, educated people so “eyes wide shut?”

BACK IN ACTION

I am catching up on sleep and the news after a few days on the road. As the election draw nearer, political debate intensifies and the media is at the center of it. Make the Mediachannel your source for information and news you can use. Tell your friends about it. Write: dissector@mediachannel.org