posted on January 22, 2002 02:56:38 AM new
Part I:
Blasting The Myth Of The Liberal Media
INTRODUCTION
Everyone knows in their gut that the mainstream media is not doing its
job - that something is terribly wrong. Those of us who are old enough
to remember the pre-Reagan news era recall a time when if serious
wrong doing were discovered in government, if a questionable war was
being prosecuted, if civil rights were attacked, if there was evidence of
a major scam against the public (the FDA falsely pushing high-priced
Cipro as the only drug for anthrax, for example), then we could trust a
least a handful of journalists to charge onto the scene and kick butt.
They were our cavalry, our marine landing battalion, our white knights.
They kept us informed - really informed - and they kept politicians from
getting too far with their excesses. Even during the McCarthy
blackball/news blackout period, there were journalists who hung tough
and eventually helped the public come to its senses.
Now instead of news people, we have marketing specialists and PR
people. Instead of hard-hitting seasoned journalists, we have
mealy-mouthed wimps who are more preoccupied with their next SUV
payment than they are the future of American Democracy - or truth
itself, for that matter. So, in a three-part series, I will attempt to take
you behind the scenes in the news world for a glimpse at the sordid
underbelly of the bloated, beached monster we call the mainstream
news.
Part I:
Blasting The Myth Of The Liberal Media
I was lucky. When I started my career as a journalist in 1987, I was
taken under the wing of veteran editor Kent Ward of the Bangor
Daily News --a crusty 60-something elder statesman of the newsroom
affectionately known as "the Old Dawg." Kent, who was a staunch
Republican and conservative, did not believe that news should have any
slant -- political or otherwise. He took me on as a stringer (regular
freelancer) because he liked my ideas -- purely and simply. He told
everyone who ever wrote for him, regardless of their political passions,
that he would defend their right to say anything, as long as they said it
well and supported their facts.
During our nearly eight-year association, I did a lot of writing and Kent
did a lot of defending. But even in the 1980s in rural Maine, the growing
power of the corporate dollar was being felt. I remember the time I did
a piece on horses in Maine -- innocuous enough, right? But an
embarrassed Kent was forced to tell me that an unflattering reference
to the John Deere Tractor Company had to go. I had simply mentioned
the historical fact that in the 1930s, the company had lured farmers to
"trade in" their work horses for new tractors by promising a pastured
retirement for the horses when in fact the horses were actually taken
promptly to the "glue factory." However, John Deere was one of the
BDN's long-time advertisers.
Later, when I wrote a three-part investigative report on the health care
crisis in Maine, which included a tough look at the sweatshop labor
practices of the state's biggest hospitals, Kent had to sneak the series
onto page one during Christmas week (1987) when all the paper's
"higher ups" were away on vacation. We both felt the repercussions
from "above" for weeks -- even though the series helped foment some
needed changes in the state's health care sector. A few months later,
Kent was ordered to turn down another investigative report I did on the
state's solid waste issues because the topic was considered too much of
a "political hot potato." Naïve me -- I had always thought the main
purpose of a free press was to serve and dissect such hot potatoes!
The series was published instead by a smaller paper, and helped derail
a multi-million dollar expansion of the state's largest solid waste facility
-- an expansion designed to accommodate toxic sludge trucked in from
out of state. It was one of the biggest blows to my faith in the media
that the BDN would have suppressed coverage and let that happen to
preserve corporate peace.
When I decided to focus most of my efforts on environmental issues, I
ran into the densest brick wall of all. I soon had to leave the BDN and
instead wrote regularly for The Maine Progressive, a tiny independent
monthly. That was when I discovered just how desperate dedicated
activists are for news stories that present reliable, usable facts. Many
of my stories -- which, thanks to the exhortations of the "Old Dawg" in
my formative years, were well-researched and full of well-supported
facts -- were disseminated to legislators and town officials when
related issues came up for votes because they could not be dismissed
as "emotional diatribes."
Because of the methodical blackout by the mainstream media of
investigative pieces on "political hot potatoes" such as the environment,
industrial practices, or the dubious background of corporate-sponsored
political candidates such as G.W. Bush, information on these topics are
relegated to "opinion piece" status or must be published in "fringe"
publications. As a result, the general public does not see serious,
in-depth treatments of these topics. Instead, what they are allowed to
see, at best, are emotional diatribes in the letters to the editor. This is by
design, make no mistake. Through this strategy, the media's
corporate/political puppeteers can perpetuate their favorite myth: that
environmentalists and liberals of any type are the "hysterical fringe
element."
Meanwhile, the media remains free (not to mention well-remunerated)
to present whatever "serious news story" on a topic that suits their
immediate purpose. A classic example of this strategy is the
inauguration coverage. While no mainstream media outlet showed the
extent of anti-Bush protesting or just how empty some of the bleachers
reserved for pro-Bushers were, stories and images of protesters and
police run-ins abounded in independent publications such as the
indymedia website. While it is great that we have these independent
outlets, they unfortunately play into the hands of the corporate media,
who can then push the myth that such outlets are all run by
troublemaking radicals who exaggerate. After all, who saw any of that
stuff on the six o'clock news?
At the same time, to attract consumers, the corporate media pads out
its content with an overabundance of nonpolitical sensationalism (sex,
violence, and "real life" free-for-alls). This allows the politicos on the
right to tout these programming decisions as proof of the wantonness of
the liberal media. As a result, the public is given the following message:
A: The media is full of sex, violence, fluff, and irresponsible content,
which means B: The liberal media is full of sex, violence, fluff, and
irresponsible content, which means, C: Liberals represent sex, violence,
fluff, and irresponsibility. If challenging stories do appear in the
mainstream media, they are decried as examples of the liberal media.
The bottom line is this: There is no such beast as the Liberal Media. It
was created and perpetuated by the right-wingers, born of post-World
War II paranoia and gaining great steam during the McCarthy era. But,
lest I be accused of making a "hysterical diatribe," consider the
following facts:
Today, of the 25 most prominent political columnists (a list that includes
George Will, Ellen Goodman, etc.), only six can be described as liberal,
while 15 are classed as conservative (the rest are considered
moderates). While the conservative columnists share over 3,000 regular
clients between them (newspapers, radio stations, etc.), liberals share
only 850, and moderates a little less than that. Of the dozen or so most
popular radio talk show hosts, all but two (Howard Stern and Tom
Stephan) are conservatives, the majority of them on the extreme right.
This hardly adds up to a "liberal media." (Since this article was written,
the situation has gotten more outrageous with growing Ashcroftian
suppression of anything non-rightwing).
In the past 16 elections (1940-2000), the overwhelming majority of
newspaper endorsements went to Republican candidates in all but three
elections, and in most cases by an overwhelming number (on average
about two to three times more endorsements for the Republican
candidate than the Democratic candidate). In 1992, Clinton was the
first Democratic candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to receive
more endorsements from national newspapers than a Republican
candidate. When this happened, the Republicans went after their
roaming lapdog the media with a vengeance. Bob Dole made "liberal
media" bashing a primary feature of his 1996 campaign. When that
failed, the Republicans used the full spectrum of manipulation open to
them via the corporate media. They created a salacious scandal, then
pushed it for months like a tacky version of "Survivor," while blocking
most positive coverage of the President, or any serious investigation of
Starr's witch hunt. What ran in abundance, of course, were easily
dismissed op-ed pieces. And if any of this fails to convince, then, for a
week or so, try routinely comparing the coverage of major stories in the
U.S. with coverage of the same stories by the BBC and other non-U.S.
news sources, or the live coverage of political events on C-SPAN with
what actually gets reported on the news that same night.
As of early 2001, an estimated 80% of all news outlets in the United
States were corporate-owned. This to me represents a cartel -- the
Media Mafia.
This syndicate decides what news we see and why and it decides to an
alarming extent what movies, books, and television programs will be
pushed at the public, and which will never see the light of day. Even
scarier, this Media Mafia can also "fix" the stock market reports,
manipulate elections and drive any opposition into the ground with their
financial clout. By controlling the media outlets, they maintain a grip on
the mind of the average American, who only knows "I saw it on the
news."
What is worse, these conglomerates are immune from any antitrust
controls. In 1969, when bigger newspapers first started buying up
smaller newspapers, the Supreme Court opposed these activities, saying
that although freedom to publish is a Constitutional right, freedom to buy
up other publishers to silence them is not a right. However, publishers
and the moneyed interests that ran them pressured the Senate into
overturning the court decision, by threatening to use the power of the
press to derail their next election bids.
Now, 30 years after, this attitude permeates all media and a frightening
arrogance has replaced any responsibility to the public.
CNN: Owned by Time Warner/AOL, which now controls a major
share of the on-line market, including the increasingly well-read AOL
news and owns Turner Network, numerous theme parks, sports teams,
retail stores and publishing companies, Book-of-the Month Club, Time
Magazine, Fortune magazine, People, CompuServe, and Netscape
and holds major interests in Wal-Mart and Bell Atlantic, along with
significant interests in Gateway, Hughes Electronics and SBC
Communications.
ABC: Owned by Disney, which also owns 10 television stations, 44
radio stations, and 219 affiliated TV stations, various publishing and
recording companies, and movie studios.
CBS: Owned by Viacom, which owns at least three dozen television
stations, 200 affiliated stations, 160 radio stations, the Blockbuster
movie rental chain, Simon & Schuster publishing, and King World
Features.
FOX: Owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which owns 22
television stations in the U.S. and 159 affiliated stations, along with The
New York Post and The Weekly Standard, various satellites systems,
book publishing concerns, and at least 130 newspapers overseas.
NBC: Our very own "state-run network" is owned by General Electric,
which also owns CNBC jointly with Dow Jones and MSNBC jointly
with Microsoft. GE also owns several financial services, insurance
companies, and of course, is one of the world's techno companies,
producing everything from light bulbs to nuclear equipment.
Traditionally, GE has been one of the biggest defense contractors ever,
and has its finger in many pies, including Enron. Enron's senior advisor
to the chairman and member of the corporation's finance committee is
John LA. Urquhart, who also happens to be the Senior Vice-President
of Industrial and Power Systems for GE. NBC has consistently had one
of the most slanted nightly news programs you could tune in to this side
(in space-time) of the Iron Curtain. It has lately pumped up the
"urgency" of the California crisis, in which its owner has a major stake.
Worse yet, it is now methodically covering up its tracks: On February 6
of last year, Tom Brokaw did a story on the millions being made off the
crisis by energy providers. However, the story nowhere mentions
Enron or its roll in driving PG&E, one of California's three largest public
utilities, out of business. Enron then grabbed the company and has been
making money off selling the power back to the people of California for
its own profit. Nor did the story mention Enron's own projections of
what it stands to make on the California crisis in the long run (up to $30
billion). The NBC story is intentionally trying to turn the light of scrutiny
away from Enron and assign blame elsewhere -- and totally falsely.
UPI: (update) One of the world's largest newswire services was
recently bought by the Rev. Moon -- yep, it's now Moonie news, Inc.
Moon, one of the Bush family's most dedicated supporters, also owns
The Washington Times, a rightwing rag which serves as Moon's and
Bush's personal mouthpieces, with a few "real news" bits thrown in
each day to throw the unsuspecting off the scent.
The fact is, until the freedom of the press is wrested away from the
clutches of corporate interests, the true majority -- liberals and
moderates -- will face a disproportionately uphill battle. I believe a push
should be made by the Democrats now on Capitol Hill to create
legislation that will insure the separation of press and corporate
interests as surely as the Constitution has insured separation of church
and state. As it stands now, thanks to the lack of separation between
the former, there may soon be a lack of separation between the latter.
Note: A shorter version of this article first appeared as a Democrats.com
commentary in Spring 2001.
posted on January 22, 2002 10:06:44 AM new
Factual and chilling, yet not wholey unexpected. I'll have to read the next piece. I have copied this article into text on my computer. Wish there was a link as well.
