It's hard to choose which deserves the coarser jeer: the excited
baying in the press about the non-discovery of weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq or the wailing in the press about the 3-2 decision of the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) earlier this week to allow corporate media
giants to increase their domination of the market.
Actually, they're all part of the same binding curve of
nonsense, and if we meld the two, we're left with the following proposition,
mostly promoted by Democrats eager to impart the impression that only greedy
Republicans are serfs of the corporate media titans and that the
Telecommunications "Reform" Act of 1996 was actually a well-intended effort
to return the airwaves to Us the People.
The proposition: Until the FCC vote this week, we the people,
surfing through the TV channels or across the AM/FM radio dial, were
afforded diversity of choice, the better to form those reasoned political
judgments essential in the functioning of this democratic republic.
In the run-up to the U.S./U.K. attack on Iraq we were afforded a
multiplicity of analyses, not just from hole-in-the-wall operations like
Pacifica or satellite-based LINKS TV. Night after night the bulk of the
American people were able to enjoy well-informed reporting, suggesting that
the Bush administration's accusations that Saddam Hussein had WMDs ready to
use in as little as 45 minutes had no factual foundation.
But now, after the FCC decision, these voices will be stilled.
We are entering the era of Big Brother.
You think I'm joking? Here's what one of the two Democratic FCC
commissioners, Michael J. Copps, said before the vote, with his grand words
now approvingly quoted by liberal editorial writers and pundits: "Today the
Federal Communications Commission empowers America's new media elite with
unacceptable levels of influence over the ideas and information upon which
our society and our democracy so heavily depend. The decision we five make
today will recast our entire media landscape for years to come. At issue is
whether a few corporations will be ceded enhanced gatekeeper control over
the civil dialogue of our country; more content control over our music,
entertainment and information; and veto power over the majority of what our
families watch, hear and read."
Now, didn't this happen, oh, 40, 50, maybe 70 years ago? Of
course it did. The damage was done long, long ago, and all that happened
this week is that it got slightly worse, but not to any degree instantly
apparent to the long-suffering national audience. So, just as you suspected,
we were getting lousy info from the corporate press before the FCC vote this
week.
The press is now happily passing the buck to the intelligence
services, and quoting former analysts from CIA and DIA wailing that
objectivity collapsed in the face of political pressure. We're shocked,
shocked! Anyone remember how the neo-cons forced an outside posse of
experts, known as Team B, into the CIA in the mid 1970s because Team A, the
CIA regulars, were turning in reports saying that the Soviet Union was not
quite the fearsome power the neocons supposed it to be? Anyone remember all
those accusations, by the late Sam Addams and others, that the CIA fudged
the numbers in the Vietnam War because of political pressure from the White
House?
Intelligence services invariably succumb in the face of
political bullying. But it didn't matter that the CIA and DIA were cowed by
the wild men in Rumsfeld's Department of Defense, who said Iraq was still
bristling with WMDs. Any enterprising news editor could have found (and some
did) plenty of solid evidence to support the claim that Saddam had destroyed
his WMDs, that he had no alliance with Al Qaeda.
In the run-up to the attack on Iraq, the worst journalistic
outrages came in two publications at the supposed pinnacle of the
profession: The New York Times, which recycled the Iraqi exile Ahmad
Chalabi's agenda through its reporter, Judith Miller, and The New Yorker,
which printed Jeffrey Goldberg's nonsense about the Saddam-Al Qaeda
"connection." That was no consequence of media concentration, or the
perversion of intelligence analysis by political priorities.
Simply on the grounds of common sense about the prejudices of
her source, Howell Raines, the editor of The New York Times, could have told
Miller to qualify her reports. David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker,
could have as easily punched holes in Goldberg's story. Instead, they
delightedly hyped shoddy journalism that played a far greater role in the
White House's propaganda blitz than the bullying of the CIA and DIA.
It's easy to be right after the event. It takes real fiber to
stand out against the war party when it is in full cry. The bulk of the
mainstream press failed dismally in its watchdog role, and a little more
forthrightness about this failure would be welcome indeed. But can we expect
the hounds of war, like Tim Russert, to apologize? Of course not. Some
senator will probably, sometime soon, grill the CIA's George Tenet, or
others in the intelligence "community," but Russert, or Miller, or Raines or
Punch Sulzberger? Never.
Alexander Cockburn is coeditor with Jeffrey St. Clair of the
muckraking newsletter CounterPunch. To find out more about Alexander
Cockburn and read features by other columnists and cartoonists, visit the
Creators Syndicate Web page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2003 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
