When the Media Fails

When the Media Fails

         The U.S. media's mishandling of the Iraq war
-- including the buildup and aftermath -- has brought
an unusually wide range of criticism and
condemnation. Greg Dyke, General Director of the
BBC, said he was "shocked while in the United States
by how unquestioning the broadcast news media was
during this war."

         But even within the United States, such
sentiments have spilled well beyond the usual circles
of right-and left-wing media critics. I recently
participated in a panel discussion at the National
Press Club here on the media in Venezuela. In that
country the private media has openly and consciously
sided with the political opposition, and in the process
disgraced itself in the eyes of journalists worldwide.
The comparison with American reporting on the war
repeatedly came up. It was striking to see such broad
agreement -- among people of very divergent views
and politics -- that our media had indeed failed
miserably to fulfill its basic duty to inform the public.

         The most obvious evidence of this failure is a
"results-based" measure. A Gallup poll last August
found that 53 percent of Americans believed that
Saddam Hussein was "personally involved" in the
massacre of September 11. Where did they get this
idea, for which no evidence exists?

         They got this idea from hearing it implied --
not even stated outright -- repeatedly by the Bush
administration. The broadcast media transmitted this
information over and over again, with only occasional
rebuttals, if any. Regardless of their own views on the
war, American journalists became the Bush
Administration's major means of promoting it, even
through disinformation. This disinformation included
the alleged weapons of mass destruction (still missing
in action), the forged documents and aluminum tubes
put forth as evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program, and
other falsehoods.

         Many journalists I have talked to blame the
American people for allowing themselves to be
fooled, some even calling Americans "stupid." As far
as they are concerned, the information was all there,
especially in the print media and on the Internet -- so
it's your own fault if you were misinformed or
deceived.

         This is a cop-out. Americans may have a
lower literacy level than other high-income countries,
but they are not any more stupid than anyone else.
The people of Europe -- including the British and
Spanish whose governments joined the "coalition of
the willing" -- overwhelmingly opposed the war
because the media in those countries, while
presenting Bush and Blair's statements, also gave the
other side of the story.

         The broadcast media is most important,
because that is the main source of information for the
"swing voters" and Americans whose views are not
determined by party affiliation. This media will have
to be reformed.  Journalists must begin to treat
government lying as any other form of malfeasance
such as bribery or stealing: it is something to be
exposed to the public as news, not glossed over and
reinforced with endless repetition.

         And when the public is divided on matters of
opinion, with 61 percent opposing a unilateral
American invasion of Iraq, that view must be given
equal time to that of government officials -- not just
an occasional spray in an ocean of pro-war messages.

         The last nine months have been truly
Orwellian. In a political move beginning last August
that was as transparent as it was cynical, the Bush
team used a manufactured threat from Iraq to remove
from the electoral agenda all the domestic issues on
which it was politically vulnerable. Among these: a
series of scandals involving the administration's
highest officials (including President Bush and Vice-
President Dick Cheney), the economy, the budget,
Medicare and Social Security.

         The strategy worked, and helped them win
both houses of Congress for the Republican party.
They then invaded Iraq, causing the media and the
public to rally even more around the President, and
lifting his approval ratings. Now the press is talking
about whether he can "use the capital from the
military success to push forward his domestic
agenda."

         That is not likely, as the economy continues to
sputter and unemployment rises. The odds are
therefore very high that we will find ourselves
confronting another "security threat" before the next
election -- North Korea, Iran, Syria . . . there are
many to choose from.

         Yes, it can happen again. The media's
complicity in such scams is therefore much worse
than a problem of bias or passivity. It is one of the
greatest threats to democracy -- and security -- that
this country faces.

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for
Economic and Policy Research, in Washington D.C.
(http://www.cepr.net/)

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