“BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH”

In case you haven’t heard, the media protest day against the war has been moved up to MARCH 15. Mediachannel’s home page will post more information today.

The national day for local media protest announced last week on Mediachannel.org received such a positive response that the organizers of United For Peace And Justice, the country’s largest anti-war coalition, decided to change the date from March 21 to March 15 to make a focus on the media the kickoff event for this years week-long “spring offensive” against the war to mark the third anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.

Activists, peace groups and media reformers are being encouraged to organize protests in every city and community.

I wanted to add some personal comments to this campaign because journalists as a rule and Mediachannel until now has reported on protests, not helped organize them. Usually, media people are not activists but this case is different. Here the issue is not about politicians or causes, but our own profession and industry.

If we are not willing to speak out on a problem so close to home, who will? If we don’t stand up for media freedom and against deceptive news practices, how can we lecture or editorializes other institutions to practice ethical standards, accountability and transparency?

I know there are colleagues of ours who find protests, well, unseemly, and likely to do no good. Some readers feel that way too. To these “nattering nabobs of negativity,” to quote the late and great Spiro T Agnew, a politician with loose standards but clever language, I would respond, it is the duty of all of us who believe in the need for honest journalism to say so publicly.

Remember the phrase “my country right or wrong, my country! The response is always ”My country right or wrong, but when wrong, set it right.” The same goes for the press.

I have been fighting this media battle for a long time. In his foreword to my book WHEN NEWS LIES on media complicity and the Iraq War, Michael Wolff calls me “the 2000 year old” media critic in the spirit of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner’s hysterical 2000 year old man shtick.

Yes, I have been doing it a while but mostly in the media, dissecting news on the radio or producing TV and films. In the case of Iraq, I have written two books and made the documentary WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception). I think I know what I am talking about.

I have spoken on the issue all over this country and throughout the world. And yes, I know from painful personal experience, how easy it is to be ignored, or patronized and marginalized.

Speaking Truth to power has never been a well-rewarded vocation.

Now I will be joining the marches on the media on March 15th.

Over the last years, I have seen arrogant and aloof know it all media outlets forced to admit some of their mistakes and publish mea-culpas. I have seen public opinion shift against this war as it has against earlier military adventures. And now, I am pleased that United For Peace and Justice, the anti-war coalition is acknowledging the importance of taking on the media and setting a day aside for a long needed protest.

Most journalists and editors and media owners see themselves as serving the public even when they aren’t. They should be confronted with the anger and concerns of their readers and viewers. It’s time for some feedback to penetrate the bubble of self-righteousness and unexamined media routines that they are encapsulated within.

Shaming the media is something we can do. Can it have any impact? Let’s find out.

I started in politics in the civil rights movement. Did conservatives at the time tell Dr. King that protests would be counter-productive? Yes they did. Were they? No! The same has been true with all social movements. As the editor and agitator Frederick Douglass said in slavery times:

“”The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. . . If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.”

MEDIA COVERAGE: STILL WIMPY AND TILTED

As the Washington Post focused yesterday on US military attacks on insurgents, the Times told us about the power of younger clerics in Iraq and featured a long overdue expose on conditions for detainees in “legal limbo” at the Baghram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. Meanwhile Reuters reports:

”Taliban and al Qaeda militants took control of a wing of the Afghan capital’s main high security prison and at least 30 prisoners were wounded in attempts to quell the riot, officials said on Sunday.

“The unrest erupted on Saturday night after prisoners led by Taliban and al Qaeda militants took two female guards captive during a row over attempts to implement a new rule requiring inmates to wear prison uniforms, government officials said.

“As far as we know, some 1,500 prisoners are involved in this incident,” a security official told Reuters on condition he was not identified.

For more info, read Mediachannel or write to Priya@mediachannel.org

“DESERT STRUM”

New York Times Baghdad correspondent Dexter Filkins reviews Paul Bremer’s book “My Year in Iraq.” He faults him and General Sanchez for not demanding more troops. He PRAISES him for organizing elections saying “HE DESERVES OUR GRATITUDE FOR BRINGING THEM OFF.” Our gratitude? Who is talking about, the NY Times, The US Government, or his readers?

This just underscores the continuing identification of a major media outlet’s top correspondent with the military mission which lost because it just wasn’t big enough, Never mind that most Iraqis who did vote said they were doing so not to endorse some Bushian or Bremerian view of democracy but to give the the Americans the ritual they insisted on so that they would leave. There is no mention in the review of how Bremer’s “energetic” CPA countenanced BILLIONS of dollars in corruption.

In contrast to Fikins mild and qualified rebuke, I ran into an Iraqi American now working for the Times who quipped that Bremer should be on trial alongside Saddam.

Two journalists. Two views. Guess which one gets ink in the NY Times?

SUNDAY BABBLE

CBS: White House Official talks of making progress. He blames it on terrorists like Zargaqi Friedman challenges that saying violence was blamed on Shia Death Squads in Iraqi police.

ABC: George questions John McCain: “Have they achieved a message of victory. McCain: Yes….We have made serious mistakes in Iraq. We have to prevail there. We can’t afford to fail.

Carl Levin: Supports government of national unity or “reassess” (ie. Does it make sense to stay).

Chris Wallace on Fox to Joe Biden on Iraq: “It has lessened my optimism…”

How pathetic these shows are. Why not just turn them over to the government and charge for them?

SEARCHING FOR JILL CARROL

ABC News reports:

” Iraqi police conducted raids in search of kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll on Sunday, the deadline set by her captors for the United States to meet their demands, but the day passed without word on whether her captors carried out their threat to kill her.

“The kidnappers, a formerly unknown group calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, have publicly demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq, (but there were also apparently also more specific conditions) ….On Sunday, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said an extensive search was under way for Carroll.”

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1665512 - AP, ABC News