WMD OPENS IN NEW YORK
A CRONKITE MOMENT
HONORING OSSIE DAVIS

“I finally made it to Broadway, even if it is 99th Street” was my opening quip in a voice still cracking from overuse and a cold that won’t quit, as WMD opened at the New Metro, one of two theaters showing the film in New York City. (WMD is also in theaters in Portland Oregon and Buffalo New York). It screens tonight in a theater in Glasgow Scotland thanks to the initiative of our friend and reader Paul O’ Hanlon.

Even though my name was not up in lights, my film was, and that was a thrill. Thanks to help from a variety of organizations, it was great when representatives of Operation Truth, the Iraq veterans group, the peace mobilizers United for Peace and Justice, and resistance advocates Not in Our Name, and the IMC’s Indypendent newspaper in New York as well as singer Stephan Smith turned out to speak and pledge support. (On Sunday night Stephan brought me along to plug the film at an anti-war event with Amy Goodman and others at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater.) I was pleased when former Iraq soldier Jimmy Massey also praised it.

Hear Sgt. Massey reading from his upcoming book and reviewing ‘WMD’ in the Dissector audioblog.

The New York audiences resonated with the message even if the NY Times hadn’t. No surprise there (A Times correspondent came to the Village East to see for himself). But it is still troubling when progressive radio stations and weekly newspapers would rather bash the big guys than support a smaller film like mine. I have already moved on beyond the organization with that name.

“Out there,” in the America beyond the coasts, the film was well reviewed in the Buffalo News and Grand Rapids paper. A writer in the Oregonian falsely argued that WMD isn’t needed because the Control Room covered all the same ground. Really?

Indicting media coverage plays to the public but many media people have problems embracing the critique. Many will concede a few “flaws” and “gaps” and “sloppy reporting” but not the deeper institutional critique. Sometimes that’s because of co-optation– when professionals become part of an institution, that institution and its corporate culture becomes part of them. Its hard to accept that a corruption of values and orientation is deep and pervasive. They become defensive, or maybe even blind when it comes to critiques from outside their world. I know. I used to work insider the media beast.

WITH WALTER CRONKITE AT THE UN

On Friday, I spoke to several hundred educators who teach about the United Nations — at the United Nations. I did my media rap and was followed to the dais by Walter Cronkite to whom I made a respectful nod of deference and respect. As the TV anchor who was once considered “the most trusted man in America” I always admired his integrity and devotion to journalism. I still do.

He admired the MediaChannel enough to embrace our mission as you can read and see on the home page where a short video he made on our behalf five years ago appears.

He is a critic of Bush’s foreign policy and backer of the UN. But however outspoken he is against Administration policies, he comes from a generation that believed so much in the mainstream media that perhaps it is hard for him to hear what I discuss–that it has failed pervasively in its coverage of the war.

Before making his own remarks, he responded to my talk, chastising me for going too far in citing “media failures,” as a cause of war. He asked how could the media have known the WMD’s weren’t in Iraq when the government didn’t. (I never met a cab driver in NY who ever believed they were there — but never mind!)

It’s not fun to be slapped around metaphorically and publicly by someone you admire especially in public, in the hallowed halls of the UN no less, but we do come from different cultures and stations in life.

I am from the generation that relied far more on I.F. Stone for my Vietnam understanding than any US network. While Cronkite turned against that war, with great impact, I always sensed he bought into the cold war far too long.

He is after all an insider. I’m not.

Mr. Cronkite cautioned me to make distinction among media outlets and to also recognize that the fault also likes with an uneducated American public which does not read deeply enough or know enough. I find that somewhat elitist but I also recognize that he comes from the apex of the media elite while my media schooling was done in the counter-culture.

Perhaps when you get too passionate about these issues as I am, you lose balance. Some foks there thought I had, but then again, the UN is a temple of diplomacy. Diplomats use double-speak. I try not to.

We shook hands afterwards and he promised to straighten me out at our next lunch.

I am only raising this not to argue with him, but to make the point that even critical journalists have a hard time seeing the media system as system, and an instrument of power, not watchdog over it.