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MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
July 29, 2003
MEDIA ALERT: THOUGHT CONTROL
The Chains of Seduction
“If the mass will be free of chains of iron, it must accept chains of
silver. If it will not love, honour and obey, it must not expect to
escape seduction.” (Professor Harold Lasswell, quoted, Taking the Risk Out
of Democracy, Alex Carey, University of Illinois Press, 1995, p.23)
It’s an age-old conundrum for rulers everywhere. How can those who
govern keep those who are governed from the levers of power? In ‘free’
societies lacking the option of “chains of iron”, devotion to consumerism
and unthinking acceptance of the inequitable distribution of power have
to be inculcated and maintained by a constant stream of state-corporate
propaganda. This propaganda is invariably based on appeals to universal
values: freedom, democracy, justice and human rights. Indeed, it has
been standard practice for over a hundred years to forge an inviolable
link in the public mind between these values and the alleged virtues of
free enterprise and capitalism.
The Australian social critic Alex Carey, author of the seminal book,
Taking The Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and
Liberty, once noted:
“Consider for a moment the symbols by which Americans defined their
dream and pictured social reality: the Statue of Liberty with its
Christlike promise of succour and compassion to the poor and wretched of the
earth; the Declaration of Independence with its noble proclamation of
respect for the equal and inalienable rights of all men and women; the
unending public litany of adulation for American freedom, American
individualism and American democracy; a near religious commitment to the
American form of free-enterprise economic system, with its supposed almost
immaculate joining of private interest to public well-being.” (Carey,
ibid., p.75)
Or consider Tony Blair’s recent speech to Congress:
“Members of Congress, ours are not Western values, they are the
universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere, any time ordinary people
are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not
tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the
secret police. The spread of freedom is the best security for the free.
It is our last line of defence and our first line of attack...
“But, members of Congress, don't ever apologize for your values. Tell
the world why you're proud of America. Tell them when the Star-Spangled
Banner starts, Americans get to their feet, Hispanics, Irish, Italians,
Central Europeans, East Europeans, Jews, Muslims, white, Asian, black,
those who go back to the early settlers and those whose English is the
same as some New York cab drivers I've dealt with, but whose sons and
daughters could run for this Congress. Tell them why Americans, one and
all, stand upright and respectful. Not because some state official told
them to, but because whatever race, colour, class or creed they are,
being American means being free. That's why they're proud.” (‘Tony
Blair's speech to the US Congress’, The Guardian, July 18, 2003)
Selling Free Enterprise
The original purpose of the ‘public relations’ industry that took root
in the United States in the early part of the last century, and which
rapidly spread to other western-style liberal democracies, was to sell
corporate interests to the public as ‘national interests’, thus
protecting the enormous power and wealth enjoyed by a narrow sector of society:
industrialists, investors and their political allies. American
Historian, Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, writes of the 1940s and 1950s:
"Manufacturers orchestrated multi-million dollar public relations
campaigns that relied on newspapers, magazines, radio, and later television,
to re-educate the public in the principles and benefits of the American
economic system... This involved convincing workers to identify their
social, economic, and political well-being with that of their specific
employer and more broadly with the free enterprise system." (Fones-Wolf,
Selling Free Enterprise - The Business Assault on Labour and
Liberalism, 1945-60, University of Illinois Press, 1994, p.6)
Mainstream media professionals continue to play a crucial role in this
protection of private power by maintaining the illusion that members of
the public are offered an ‘impartial’ and wide selection of facts,
opinions and perspectives from which any individual can derive his or her
own well-informed world view. But what +is+ this notion of
‘impartiality’ that is trumpeted so loudly from the media ramparts? And how do
mainstream commentators define it?
Consider a recent example from the media section of the Independent in
which Tim Luckhurst quoted the journalist and broadcaster Brian Walden
with approval:
“The demand for impartiality is too jealously promoted by the political
parties themselves. They count balance in seconds and monitor it with
stopwatches.” (‘Time to take sides’, The Independent, 1 July, 2003)
This, writes Luckhurst, is a “telling point”. Indeed it is, for it
presumes that “impartiality” equates to one major political party receiving
identical, or at least similar, coverage to another. But when all the
major political parties have almost identical views on important issues,
barring tactical differences, how can this possibly be deemed to
constitute media impartiality?
The problem is a glaring consequence of the unmentionable truth
described by political scientist Thomas Ferguson in his book Golden Rule:
namely, that when major backers of political parties and elections agree on
an issue – such as international ‘free trade’ agreements or retaining a
massive ‘defence’ budget – then the parties will not compete on that
issue, even though the public might ardently wish for a real alternative.
One likely possibility, ignored by Luckhurst and virtually all
mainstream media analysts, is that the public is well aware that a huge
constituency of opinion is reflected neither in what the major political
parties are offering them, nor in what the major broadcasters and newspapers
are offering them. When politicians of all major political parties
assume that benign notions of ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, and ‘human rights’
really do shape foreign policy, for instance, where might one access
reporting that does +not+ assume the benign intent of major power as
Eternal Truth?
Richard Falk, Professor of International Relations at Princeton,
rightly points out that western foreign policy is propagated in the media
“through a self-righteous, one-way moral/legal screen [with] positive
images of western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating
a campaign of unrestricted violence”. (Quoted, John Pilger in the
introduction to ‘Web of Deceit’ by Mark Curtis, Vintage, 2003, p.xiii)
Such a perspective is well beyond the framework of what is considered
‘impartial’ or ‘responsible’ news reporting. Despite much navel-gazing
and insider media gossip that might suggest a healthy state of affairs
to news ‘consumers’, the media is actually loath to subject itself to
critical examination. UK-based media commentators will occasionally
subject the US media to mild criticism - perhaps acknowledging the
agenda-setting power of elites in Washington and at the Pentagon - but we never
see a journalist placing the performance of their own paper - the
Independent, the Guardian, the Scotsman or any other British newspaper - in
a similarly broad political context. We rarely, if ever, see anything
in the print or broadcast media about the role played by the media in
boosting state-corporate power, of which it is a major component. This
also would mark out a journalist as ‘crusading’, ‘unreliable’, or simply
‘off the rails’.
Following The Lead Of Power
Independent columnist Adrian Hamilton, probably regarded by many of his
readers as comparatively liberal/ progressive, recently mused over
whether “Washington will still keep its shoulder to the wheel of a Middle
East settlement” and whether “it make[s] sense to put all the burden of
hope on America”. This rhetoric fits the standard picture of the US
government as a neutral, even benign, force in the search for a just peace
in the Middle East. This is summed up in the article’s title: “Not even
the US can impose peace in the Middle East”. (The Independent, June 12,
2003)
This is a singularly inappropriate and ironic headline, given that the
US has a long history of supporting Israel's brutal suppression of
Palestinian rights in opposition to an almost unanimous global consensus.
The US exerts enormous leverage over Israel through its huge military
aid, as well as its considerable political and diplomatic support. As
Israeli linguistics professor Tanya Reinhart has noted:
“If the US ever wanted to halt Israel even temporarily, it could do so
easily and at any moment by immediately freezing all military aid.”
(Reinhart, Israel/Palestine – How to End the 1948 War, Seven Stories
Press, 2002, p.144)
Hamilton’s article is wholly typical for the mainstream in overlooking
this blindingly obvious context.
Another standard feature of the liberal press is to assist in the
promotion of fear in pursuit of geopolitical control and ‘Third World’
resources. Thus, prior to the launch of the invasion of Iraq, the
Independent ran two news stories, revealing the existence of “three mystery
ships” in the Gulf possibly carrying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Various other newspapers and broadcasters picked up on the Independent’s
exclusive. The first article - the Independent’s lead story on 19
February - claimed that “three giant cargo ships are being tracked by US and
British intelligence on suspicion that they might be carrying Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction”. It added: “the movement of the three ships is
the source of growing concern among maritime and intelligence experts”.
(‘Iraq crisis: three mystery ships are tracked over suspected weapons'
cargo’, Michael Harrison, The Independent, 19 February, 2003)
There was a short follow-up the next day on an inside page by reporters
Nigel Morris and Ben Russell. The article stated:
“Security experts and senior MPs expressed alarm last night at the
prospect that three giant cargo ships are being tracked by Western
intelligence agencies because they could be carrying deadly Iraqi weapons”.
(‘Alarm over cargo ships tracked by intelligence’, The Independent, 20
February, 2003)
But then the story disappeared from the Independent’s pages, a curious
fate given its initial headline prominence and the purported “growing
concern among maritime and intelligence experts”. What happened next?
Were the ships ever found or investigated? What about the newspaper’s
claims that they were carrying WMD? When, if ever, will the Independent
follow this up? Was it, in fact, a bogus story?
In an online Guardian debate on 5th June, Peter Beaumont, foreign
affairs editor of the Observer, said of the story: "just goes to show, we
can all make mistakes. ie the story was - as far as i know - a load of
cobblers." Beaumont added: "but we've all written cobblers, myself
included."
On 17 June, we asked Michael Harrison, author of the original article
in the Independent, what had happened to the story. Harrison responded:
“Thanks for your email about our ‘mystery ships’ article. My apologies
for taking time to reply. The paper spent several days checking and
verifying the story before running it. We are confident of our sources and
satisfied with the veracity of the story. Indeed, we are continuing to
pursue the story with the intention of reporting on it further. Hope
this is of help.” (Email to David Cromwell, 19 June, 2003)
A month later, we prompted Harrison again, mentioning Beaumont’s views
and adding our own questions:
“How confident can you be that you were fed accurate US and British
intelligence? Who are the maritime and intelligence experts to whom you
referred? When will the Independent publish a follow-up, either refuting
or further detailing the original story?” (Email from David Cromwell to
Michael Harrison, 16 July, 2003)
Harrison responded briefly:
“Peter Beaumont is welcome to his opinion. All I can do is refer you
back to my previous email.” (Email from Michael Harrison to David
Cromwell, 22 July, 2003)
Perhaps the story was true. If the Independent really was “confident of
our sources and satisfied with the veracity” of reports that Iraqi WMD
were being transported by three giant cargo ships, then they presumably
passed the details onto Hans Blix.
There are curious parallels here with the infamous Gulf of Tonkin
incident in 1964 in which US destroyers supposedly came under attack from
North Vietnamese patrol boats. The alleged provocation was exploited by
politicians and military planners to escalate the US assault on Vietnam.
Media analyst Daniel Hallin has noted that the episode “was a classic
of Cold War management... On virtually every important point, the
reporting of the two Gulf of Tonkin incidents... was either misleading or
simply false” and was, as Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky note, “in
accordance with the needs of the US executive at that crucial moment”.
(Manufacturing Consent, Herman and Chomsky, Vintage, 1994, p.208)
It remains an open question whether the Independent’s reporters,
doubtless unwittingly, were acting in accordance with the needs of the US-UK
administrations to find evidence of an Iraqi threat. However, as we
have shown in scores of Media Alerts over the last two years, there is
certainly no question that reporters and editors at the Independent, the
Guardian, BBC, Channel 4 News, and elsewhere, did little to challenge
the US-UK lies, distortions and omissions that enabled a brutal and
illegal invasion of Iraq to take place.
And now at a crucial moment for the British government, as media debate
and a judicial inquiry focus on the tragic but narrow issue of the
death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly, Tony Blair is resorting to ever
greater exhortations of messianic belief in his own righteousness – where
“every fibre of instinct and conviction” tells Blair that he +is+
right. In his recent address to Congress, Blair made a desperate appeal:
“Can we be sure that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction will
join together? Let us say one thing. If we are wrong, we will have
destroyed a threat that is at its least responsible for human carnage and
suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive.” (‘Blair:
History will be my judge’, Donald Macintyre and Andrew Buncombe, The
Independent, 18 July 2003)
It is remarkable that Blair could fail to recognise the irony in his
reference to “human carnage”: the kind of carnage that the US-UK
“coalition” has wrecked in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and indeed
in so many places where the Washington consensus of corporate-led
globalisation holds sway.
But Blair is surely right to trust that history will forgive both him
and Bush. Indian statesman, Jawaharlal Nehru, explained it all:
“History is almost always written by the victors and conquerors and
gives their viewpoint.” (Quoted, The Oxford Dictionary of Political
Quotations, Antony Jay ed., Oxford, 2001, p.265)
SUGGESTED ACTION
The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and
respect for others. In writing letters to journalists, we strongly urge
readers to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Write to Tim Luckhurst, occasional media analyst at The Independent:
Email: TimLckhrst@aol.com
Write to Michael Harrison of The Independent:
Email: m.harrison@independent.co.uk
Write to Adrian Hamilton of The Independent:
Email: a.hamilton@independent.co.uk
Copy your emails to The Independent's editor, Simon Kelner:
Email: s.kelner@independent.co.uk
Feel free to respond to Media Lens alerts: editor@medialens.org
Visit the Media Lens website: http://www.medialens.org
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