The Media, Revealed

I probably shouldn't yell at the newspapers when they make stuff up and report non-facts, but I have come to realize that that's really at the core of our current crisis. When this sad era of American history is ended, the story will not be about George W. Bush, who is after all just a regular doofus who got in over his head. The lesson of history will be about the symbiotic relationship between corporate media and political power.

So it has been just fascinating this past week to read the testimony from the Scooter Libby trial, where White House insiders tell about how they work with the press. From the online Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON -- A smorgasbord of Washington insider details emerged during the perjury trial of I. Lewis Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff.

No one served up spicier morsels than Cathie Martin, Vice President Dick Cheney's former top press assistant . Martin described the craft of media manipulation -- under oath and in blunter terms than politicians like to hear in public.

Most of the techniques were candidly described: the uses of leaks and exclusives, when to hide in anonymity, which news medium was seen as more susceptible to control, and what timing was most propitious.

Even the rating of certain journalists as friends to favor and critics to shun -- a faint echo of the enemies list drawn up in Richard Nixon's White House more than 30 years ago. Libby case witness details art of media manipulation

I'm sure some of this was embarrassing for some news people -- well, it should be. Tim Russert took an especially direct hit when one of Martin's notes had the word "control" next to mention of Russert's Meet the Press show. She explained that her note meant the Vice President's office knew they could control the message on Russert's show.

The testimony goes on to explain why George Tenet took the blame for the Bush lie misstatement about Iraq trying to buy uranium in the 2003 State of the Union Address, and other insider topics that everybody had speculated about and never really knew.

If you want to keep track of the trial, Firedog Lake has live-bloggers in the courthouse, pounding their laptops to capture everything that is said and everything that happens. Yesterday they even had somebody in the courtroom itself, though laptops aren't allowed there. These reports are long, don't figure you'll get any work done if you start reading this, but it is amazingly fascinating, watching the maneuvering and lawyering in progress, and finding out about the previously-secret details of how the White House uses the media to get their not-necessarily-accurate story to the public.

The Libby trial might make us pause for a moment and think about the State of the Union address from 2003 compared to the one last week. This trial is about the President fibbing a little bit about whether Iraq was buying uranium from Niger, and then the administration getting revenge on a guy who blew the whistle on them, by revealing that his wife was a CIA agent.

In 2003 people expected the President to tell the truth. It was actually controversial four years ago for someone in the media to point out that something he'd said was not correct.

Look at this year. Do you remember in last week's address when he listed off all the successes he's had in his "war on terror?" Here, a web site has a list of them, you will remember hearing them all:

1.-"We stopped an al Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast."

2.-"We uncovered an al Qaeda cell developing anthrax to be used in attacks against America."

3.-"Just last August, British authorities uncovered a plot to blow up passenger planes bound for America over the Atlantic Ocean."

4.-"We broke up a Southeast Asian terror cell grooming operatives for attacks inside the United States."

Bush's Four Anti-Terror Successes All Fictional

If you watched his speech, think back to how you reacted when he said these things. Did you believe him? Of course not. You rolled your eyes and waited to see what he would do next. AfterDowningStreet.org took the time to look into each of these statements, and of course, as their headline says, they are all fictional.

But do you turn on the TV news and see people discussing this? Of course not. Do you think there will be any questions in the press about why the President said these things, and what he was referring to, and whether the statements were accurate or not? No, that happened in 2003 when he said Iraq was trying to buy uranium, but it won't happen now. Because now everybody knows he makes this stuff up, nobody takes it seriously any more, nobody thinks it's even supposed to be true.

One method of influencing the media used by conservatives has been to constantly assert that the media have a liberal bias. The effect of this is to push the news more and more toward the conservative point of view as they try to compensate, dragging public opinion with them, until you reach the point where Barry Goldwater would be a liberal by modern standards. There is a new push by Democrats to reintroduce the Fairness Doctrine, an FCC rule abandoned during the Reagan administration, that said that television and radio licensees had to give equal time to both parties.

I'll tell you what, Google for that term, "fairness doctrine," and you tell me if every site you see isn't a rightwinger raving about what a bad idea this is. They feel very threatened by the return of the Fairness Doctrine, but why should they? --If the media have such a liberal bias, then the Fairness Doctrine could only benefit conservatives, right? The Democrats should be against it, Republicans should be for it.

Raw Story had a piece on this last week:

Media reform is the most important issue confronting our democratic republic and the people of our country," Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) said at the Free Press National Media Reform Conference held in Memphis, Tennessee last weekend. "This is a critical moment in history that may determine the future of our country…maybe forever."
...
Hinchey added, “There is a definite role for the public. The American people have got to understand how important this is. Five corporations control ninety percent of radio and TV. They are trying to change the rules of access to let them control the newspapers as well.”

In an op-ed published at a website run by the right-wing think tank Frontiers of Freedom Institute, the owner of the web-based news journal, Daley Times-Post, argues that Democratic efforts to exhume the fairness doctrine reveal "just how far to the left their party has slid over the years."
...
Asked whether the Congressman believes there is now an attempt at a fascist takeover of the U.S., a Hinchey staffer noted that Rep. Hinchey’s legislation arose from his concern about increasing concentration of media ownership into the hands of a few individuals and corporations. “Whether or not there is a purpose that includes fascism, we could wind up in a fascist situation if corporations end up controlling information without the government providing some balancing mechanism, such as the Fairness Doctrine,” said the staffer, who spoke on background only and did not wish to be named. “He would also say that the FCC’s recent efforts to weaken media ownership rules in order to enable corporations to own more and more outlets plays into that as well.” Rep. believes Democratic media reform bill may prevent possible 'fascist' takeover of US media

I have confidence in America to pull itself upright again. We definitely lost balance over the past half-dozen years or so, but people are smart enough to see what's going on. We're seeing it everywhere these days.

And there's still a market for honest, accurate news. People haven't given up on the truth.