Neighbors Times: September 2006 #1

What the Corporate Media won't tell you

We know we are surrounded by a news media whose stories represent the viewpoints of a network of elite interests. We cannot excuse their frequent and deliberate exclusions of the voices of the less wealthy and powerful members of society.

Most of the news that we consume is produced by entities owned by giant media conglomerates, including one weapons manufacturer (GE). There is substantial evidence that whether deliberate or not, advocates of peace, liberal analysts and legitimate critiques of the current administration's policies are not given the airtime or print space that their pro-war conservative counterparts are.

There are several excellent books and reports that cover the corporate media‚s treatment of news events, including several written by professor Robert McChesney of the University of Illinois, the book "Manufacturing Consent" by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, as well as a detailed report published in May/June of 2005 by FAIR's (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) media analysts. Most recently, the July 3 issue of The Nation magazine has a comprehensive diagram illustrating the diversity of the media holdings that only a few conglomerates own. This media oligopoly now provides us with the vast majority of our news and entertainment. As The Nation states in their introduction to the diagram, "It is the power that a handful of corporations continue to wield over the media we consume - even the new media of a supposedly liberating Internet - that ought to concern us as citizens. It is not enough to hope that the Internet will set us free."

Many consider these viewpoints to demand the label of "conspiracy theory". But careful analysis of the news has proven an indisputable bias without resorting to stories about star chambers, secret backroom deals and simplistic propaganda devices.

Without even looking at the monumental journalistic errors made by news organizations when they uncritically supported George Bush's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, we now can see in the current Middle East crisis of Israel's attacks on Gaza and Lebanon the bias that renders us insensitive to and largely uninformed about the extent of the damage that the Lebanese and Palestinians have undergone and the tragedy of the innocent lives lost. Certain points can be readily seen:

The cultivation of the "Access of Evil". Coined by Amy Goodman of "Democracy Now!", this phrase refers to journalists who forego critical and uncomfortable questions for government officials in order to maintain an "insider's" relationship with them.

The arbitrary use of timelines. For the U.S. media, the timelines in this most recent Israel attack on the Palestinians and Lebanese begin from two points: Hamas captured one Israeli soldier on June 25th; then on July 12 Hezbollah killed several Israeli soldiers and captured two. They have downplayed, and even ignored the longer ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from which Palestinians emerge as the biggest losers. Israel's prior attacks on Palestinians include their detainment of thousands of Palestinian civilians as well as members of the Palestinian Government, many of whom are not charged with any crime. These illegal detainments are not mentioned on our major news shows, nor are they highlighted in our mainstream newspapers and magazines. The U.S. press has not brought up Israel‚s many criminal assassinations of Hamas leaders and Palestinian government officials. Finally, Israel's recent June 9 bombing of a civilian family on a Palestinian beach showed the U.S. press highlighting denials of responsibility from Israel and downplaying the Human Rights Watch‚s investigation - which implicated Israel. In effect all the surrounding context has been wiped clean, as if we lived in a history vacuum.

Responsibility taken out of the hands of the protagonist. This is the only way Israel can be sympathetically portrayed despite its questionable and brutal actions. All responsibility for Israel's bombings, shootings and terrorizing of the civilian populations in these two countries is laid at the hands of Hamas and Hezbollah. In the U.S. media, Israel‚s attacks are regularly qualified with the presumption that they had no other choice because Hezbollah chose to use the Lebanese people as human shields, making Hezbollah the aggressors.

The same actions viewed in a different light. On the BBC and other international news sources, the Lebanese and Palestinian people are more frequently shown suffering under Israeli bombings. Middle East scholars regularly appear criticizing Israel‚s tactics as well as disputing Israel‚s claims to innocence. Here in the U.S., when Israel bombs a Lebanese or Palestinian area and kills innocent civilians, the deaths are described as involuntary, accidental, or are generalized as simply "the way that wars are run "and the civilians should have "known to get out of the way". Victims are often blamed and dehumanized. When Hezbollah launches a rocket, a suicide bomber performs his or her final bloody act of war, or Hamas attacks Israeli soldiers, these actions are strictly condemned in the U.S. media as terrorist actions that destroy innocent life, threaten the existence of Israel, and even threaten Western civilization.

Demonizing "The Enemy" vs. Supporting "Our Allies." Any attempts to explain the activities of Hezbollah or Hamas by analysts or scholars invite the disastrous label of "terrorist supporter" in U.S. media. For example, while U.S. news reporters do not challenge the Bush administration‚s label of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, international reporters generally call the organization a "militia." In stories about Israel, cities with a biblical context are highlighted, such as the city of Nazareth. U.S. news stories describe Tel Aviv in terms of its modernity and make comparisons to a California city. Yet Beirut‚s modernity and affiliation with Western culture is ignored, as is the historical significance of Qana, also highlighted in a New Testament story about Jesus. In late July, Qana was host to indiscriminate Israeli bombing of civilians, most notably the bombing of a building that took 29 innocent Lebanese lives.

In addition to the media's internal bias, news organizations face external pressure: The Bush administration and Republican officials are now threatening news organizations like The Washington Post and The New York Times with prosecution for their printing of confidential information related to "national security". Of course, whether national security or the President's job security is being threatened is debatable. Additionally, the AIPAC (American Israeli Political Action Committee) case that was ruled on in early August allows private citizens to be prosecuted by the government if they have received or given out information related to national security. The 1917 Espionage Act is now being used as a basis to imprison private citizens who have simply received classified information, regardless of what they do with it. Obtaining hidden - even classified - information is what journalists do, by definition. The enforcement of this law means that all journalists are in danger of being prosecuted. Such arbitrary power placed in the hands of a super-secretive administration that is increasingly on the defensive about its suspicious activities poses a tremendous danger to the journalists who are brave enough to investigate the corruption and lies that run rampant in our government.

These tactics add up to a media that cannot be relied upon to give us the whole story. One of the most effective tools in our politicians‚ bag of tricks is to use the media to tell us how a destructive policy, even one of unprovoked war, will make all our lives better and keep us safe. These messages, repeated ad nauseum in countless images and stories, cover up the growing reality of our deepening constitutional, social and economic insecurity. They reduce our discomfort with the Bush administration‚s military agenda. Neighbors Times seeks to increase our readers‚ discomfort to the point where we need to do something to alleviate our guilt and angst about world events. For more information on independent media sources, you can see the list we have compiled in the September newsletter.