April 26, 2007
Bill Moyers on Media and Iraq: When Lies Become Truth, Soldiers Die (Brent Budowsky)
On Christopher Lydon's radio show, several journalists recounted their recent dinner with David Halberstam shortly before his death.
Halberstam was mournful at the decline of the media in the days of Iraq, remembering how he and others warned the nation, and their readers, in the early days of the Vietnam War.
Bill Moyers reports the story well in his PBS special about the media and Iraq.
When it mattered, in 2002 and 2003, virtually the entire American major media covered Iraq the way Pravda covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They jumped on what they believed was the winning side politically, maintained their insider power base, and sustained the high income that would have been threatened if they reported the truth.
The front page of the New York Times became the propaganda vehicle for neoconservative theory and lies threatening mushroom clouds. Within hours, Tim Russert sat meekly while Dick Cheney repeated the neoconservative talking points with dire words "On Meet The Press," quoting the New York Times, which had printed the talking points.
Meanwhile, Tom Friedman of the Times, with an excited tone of voice, championed the Iraq war as a wonderful moment to remake the Middle East, allegedly his field of expertise. When it didn't work at first, he said the next six months were crucial. A year later, he said the next six months were crucial. Now he says he was warning everybody all along how hard it would be.
In the age of Iraq, there is the Faustian union of commentariat and consultariat classes. So turn on your television and you'll see one of America's wealthiest political consultants, who has lost every presidential campaign since 1972, telling us how to win elections. What was he doing before the war? He was telling an experienced Democratic senator to send young men and women to die in war, so he could pad his national-security resume.
Now we can see him on television, 3,000 Gold Star Mothers later and perhaps a million bucks wealthier, feeling really great about himself and what an awful war this is.
In his final days David Halberstam mourned the loss of journalism as journalism, the loss of reporting as reporting, and the birth of this dark age of sycophancy in media. Journalists have largely become indistinguishable from the insider classes they cover, dining on the inside at the seat of power, aiming at the big time of book deals, television shows and big fat bank accounts at the expense of professionalism and truth.
For those who missed it, pull up the C-SPAN coverage of the White House Correspondents Dinner. The beginning looked like Academy Awards night: red carpet, dramatic entrance by the celebrity stars, the men dashing in their tuxedos and women glamorous in their gowns. "Hey, there's Wolf! Wow, it's Andrea! George, George!!!!" All with a demure and well-timed smile aimed at the red light on the camera.
Life is good for the glamorous who cheered for profit when the young were sent to die in the sands of Arabia, as they preened at the self-glorifying dinners where they honor each other for a job well done.
It's been a good war for companies that make ripoff profits and media that have turned ripoff journalism into a multi-million-dollar art form.
It's been a great war for journalists who morph into insiders, taking their handouts from their sources, reaping huge wealth by repeating spin and calling it news, all the while dining in elegance at the seat of power, believing "it's a wonderful life" and smiling for the cameras when fans greet them at gala dinners.
There are important exceptions: Sy Hersh and Mary Mapes turning the lights on Abu Ghraib, Tom Ricks reporting on the military with honor, Dana Priest exposing the shame of treatment of wounded troops, James Risen revealing the massive eavesdropping without court order, Bob Parry offering a different point of view on consortiumnews.com, Mark Karlin on the site buzzflash.com and Rob Kall on opednews.com ferreting out major stories often unrecognized by the major media. Then there's smirkingchimp.com, which not only has the most appropriate name for the modern era but is another outlet for truth in news, and Caro Kay on makethemaccountable.com.
It is often said, and with some truth, that the problem with major media is corporatization, which limits dissent, stifles truth, corrupts reporting and is inclined to serve the regulatory master of the government and the financial master of Wall Street.
I submit an equal and possibly greater problem is the personal corporatization of many who have given up the profession
of reporting to turn themselves into personal corporations and to turn their "journalism" into the personal pursuit of wealth, fame and vainglorious ego.
They become sycophants, not journalists. They repeat conventional wisdom, not reporting real news. They worship at the altar of their sources, and deprive their readers and viewers of truth that offends the powerful and threatens their insider position. They support each other and promote each other in their own little but lucrative world divorced from their customers, their country and the traditional standards of what used to be their profession.
For some, there will be a wall put up, where we honor the dead.
For others, they walk down red carpets and wave with camera-ready smiles, because for them, it sure has been a really great war.
23 Comments
»
The Hill welcomes comment from anyone and will almost always post it whether it is favorable or critical, as long as it is substantive and advances debate.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
An excellent post on a subject worthy of front page, above the fold, exposure. Thanks
Comment by Bo — April 26, 2007 @ 12:52 pm
Describing the New York Times as the tool of the neocons is about the same as describing the Media Matters puppet Bill Moyers as an objective "journalist". And of course PBS treated Frank Gaffney's work with the same respect as Bill Moyers'. In your dreams.
Comment by Igor R. — April 26, 2007 @ 12:53 pm
Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes are credited with the development of tools that placed the media in a straighjacket. Waging war and casulaties based upon lies and deceit is treasonous at best. Cheerleading for the destabilization of a cuountry for the benefit of reaping the hydrocarbons is animalistic and savage. Enablers and supporters of such collosal non-sense are as fascinating as the story itself.
Comment by Chris in NM — April 26, 2007 @ 8:14 pm
—"When it mattered, in 2002 and 2003…."
Yep, it mattered then, and it continues to matter now. But nothing has changed, the click is still the click and only got tighter.
Cheney 'the dick' told a senator to F himself, in the Senate halls, McCain in a preelction '06 told reporters if the Demos won he would 'kill himself'-now he is a pResidential candidate, another Pres candidate said 911 would come again if a Demo was elected in '08. And the MessMedia floats along and attends another fest, as described, and the click tightens even more. But the Demos react, a nonbinding veto prone resoution and a fond wish for 'Bipartisinship'
What folley/
Comment by Cole Epstein — April 26, 2007 @ 9:04 pm
I do worry about the future of journalism; hopefully there were some lessons learned from all of this.
Comment by Derek D. — April 26, 2007 @ 11:23 pm
It's hard for conservatives to admit, they usually wont,but the so called "liberal media" sold us this war and in doing so have given all of us a clear look at the myth of a "liberal media". The only check and balance that Americans have outside of the Government, it turns out, is just another part of the campaign, an echo chamber to repeat administration talking points.
Comment by pizzaman — April 27, 2007 @ 10:05 am
Tim Russert looked slightly, but only slightly embarassed on Bill Moyer's special when asked about Cheney pushing the idea on Meet the Press about Saddam and bin Laden having close ties. Mad man Cheney is still at it. And war cheerleader Tom Friedman refused to be interviewed by Moyers. What a coward.
Comment by Audrey — April 27, 2007 @ 10:22 am
Journalist were duped and that was understandable for awhile. Not everyone could see the disaster that was coming. 9/11 softened up the press so they would have been looked upon as unamerican had they crossed Bush. We just know recently that the commander and thief was a liar and a crook. It is just a shame that the press did not dig into Bush's head a little more in the beginning. But I think they were censored, and America will pay for that censorship.
Comment by Gary Anderson — April 27, 2007 @ 11:25 am
"Buying the War" was long overdue. I look forward to more from Moyers, and maybe he will start something, maybe he will be an icon for a new generation of journalists… Like Murrow and "Woodstein" were…
I have seen thousands of comments from the netroots on several sites in the last few days, an extrodinary response. The news business is about to change and very quickly. I will begin in my own small way by ending my subscriptions to the Hearstian rag and and the former KR paper to which the SF Bay area is subjected… Both have deteriorated and I use them to scan for things to explore on the Net… Beyond the first two paragraphs there is rarely anything useful or new, in fact that is where you usually find the spin…
Comment by Dallas112263 — April 27, 2007 @ 11:25 am
Possibly the greatest Bush approved Whitehouse "Leaks" to the media.
Comment by Donald — April 27, 2007 @ 2:27 pm
…
Bush/Cheney/Rove played the american media. There is still so much fear around Cheney. No one has really challenged him on all of his blatent lies. He is a silly silly man. It'll take some guts.
It seems that John Stewart is the only guy out there that is openly and daily challenging the spin.
..
Comment by wellstoner — April 27, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
After vilifying Imus and glorifying Cho, I didn't think the spineless, gutless, incompetent weasels at NBC/MSNBC could get any lower. I was wrong. As the Bill Moyers PBS special showed, the appropriate condemnation of the pinheads at NBC needs to go much further.
The Bill Moyers PBS broadcast "Buying the War" shows that these inept, deceitful NBC bastards made a major contribution to promoting the BushCheney lies and distortions for war. For example:
In the show, Phil Donahue recalls that he was told he could not feature war dissenters alone on his MSNBC talk show and always had to have "two conservatives for every liberal." Moyers resurrects a leaked NBC memo about Donahue's firing that claimed he "presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
At the close, Moyers mentions some of the chief proponents of the war who refused to speak to him for this program, including Thomas Friedman, Bill Kristol, Roger Ailes, Charles Krauthammer, Judith Miller, and William Safire.
These slime bag excuses for reporters and the NBC/MSNBC execs will, if there is any eternal justice, all rot in hell.
Comment by ImpeachmentNOW — April 27, 2007 @ 4:20 pm
Well the Democratic lies are becoming truth now, and who will make a PBS documentary when these lies result in the destruction of the Middle East and American interests there?
Even the pre-eminent Anti-Bush CNN Iraqi correspondent Michael Ware, who hates everything the US done in Iraq, has more sense that New York Times and the entire Democratic leadrship today:
COOPER: Does a withdrawal make sense, in terms of sending a message to Iraqi politicians?
WARE: No, none whatsoever.
I mean, the Iraqi politicians don't feel that kind of pressure. That's a delusion back here in Washington and in America, that, by threatening to withdraw U.S. forces, that's somehow a carrot or a stick to motivate them, or what I hear on the ground, to incentivize them, when, in fact, it's quite the opposite.
Maliki is not the true power in that government. The true building blocks of power there, to some degree, would love a U.S. withdrawal. And many of them call for it, publicly, definitely privately, because they will be the ones who would capitalize from the chaos that will follow.
COOPER: Because they want the chaos; they want a sectarian, once and for all, figuring this out?
WARE: They want to consolidate the power that they now have. And, indeed, they want to extend it.
And, for example, essentially, this Iraqi government doesn't exist as a government, per se. It's a loose alliance of militias, most of whom, according to U.S. intelligence, are backed by Iran. So, they want to consolidate that Iranian-sponsored power and, indeed, extend it.
And you can imagine what kind of threat that poses to America's Arab allies in the region.
Comment by Igor R. — April 27, 2007 @ 5:37 pm
We're all company men now.
It's the silliest of all myths that Americans are the most independent, free thinking, freedom loving of all peoples. It was De Tocqueville I think who pointed out that Americans hold their opinions of others close so that they don't offend someone who might do them some good, in the monetary sense, later. .
Show me a man who will easily volunteer criticism of his company, his real opinion, to a customer, and I'll show you poor man. It just doesn't happen. It isn't going to come from a CEO or even the counter person at Taco Bell. Everyone knows the rules.
Everyone knows everyone is holding back or lying. Nobody could really blame the tobacco execs for lying to congress about their personal opinion of the addictiveness of nicotine . They had to lie, it was their job, Everyone who is anyone, which is anyone with two dimes to rub together, which is anyone who works for or with corporations is in the same boat. In the public sphere there is no personal opinion and relentlessly the same applies to the private sphere as well. If for no other reason that privacy is disappearing. That is not a coincidence.
Comment by rapier — April 27, 2007 @ 6:00 pm
Consolidate and extend power? WTF? Get real Igor, that is utter nonsense. Have you ever heard of 'libraries'? Give up the Rush Limpbaugh jibberish as it has already been proven wrong. Try Air America Igor, that will help you. I guess Igor beleives there to be an Iraqi link to 9/11.
Comment by Buster Brown — April 28, 2007 @ 1:08 am
Is there a larger lie trotted out to the brainwashed and braindead minions of the right wing daily than the term "liberal media" ?
Comment by Tony B — April 28, 2007 @ 7:00 am
Rapier, I believe that most of those who post here believe in what they are saying. Exposing of "company men" by those who don't have a monetary interest in the outcome is an important key to progress. Everyone has to make up their own mind if they are being shown the real motivation by those making the argument. I've been trying to point out that the motivation of the Democrats in playing deaf and dumb on Iraq is pure political gain. When Harry Reid claims that the reason that he changed his mind since 2005 is that a lot can change in five years, he has no respect for those listening to him. When he is playing with words to pretend that Petaeus saying that the war can't be won only militarily means Petraeus agrees that the war is lost, he is being a company man to such a horrific degree that I feel compelled to not let this injustice stand.
Comment by Igor R. — April 28, 2007 @ 11:16 am
Buster, is Michael Ware of CNN now spouting Rush Limbaugh jibberish??? The world is more connected than I thought.
I don't believe in any 9/11 link to Saddam Hussein. I do believe there is a global struggle and Afganistan and Iraq are just two fronts in it.
Was this story all over Air America today? It was on AP, Reuters, AFP in the morning, but now it's kinda hard to find.
BAGHDAD, April 28 (Reuters) - The powerful Iraqi cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr called President George W. Bush the "anti-Christ" on Saturday and urged him to heed calls by the opposition Democrats to withdraw from the chaos of Iraq.
Sadr, whose ministers quit Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government this month, renewed his demand for a U.S. pullout a day after Bush pledged to veto legislation that would require U.S. troops to begin leaving Iraq by Oct. 1.
Calling Bush "the greatest evil," Sadr said in a letter read out by a Sadrist MP in parliament that an eventual U.S. pullout would be a "victory for the Iraqi people".
"Here are the Democrats demanding that you withdraw at least with a timetable and you are stubborn against them," said Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia fought two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004.
Comment by Igor R. — April 28, 2007 @ 11:07 pm
In the long haul of history, 9/11 will be most noted as a national trauma. We grew up thinking that wars, even our wars, were fought in other places. That Tuesday tore down this deeply imbedded assumption.
Unfortunately, other than killing 3000 innocent Americans, this event unleashed the authoritarian paranoics, like Igor, who just couldn't deal with the fact that a baby boomer, highly intelligent and educated President, had boosted up every single Americans lot in life, as well as building America's prestige abroad. This just wasn't belligerent and bullying enough for them. So not only the normal among us were traumatized, but these maniacs found a way to release their hatred. We were told that acceptance of gays was to blame. We sere told that it was Bill Clinton's passivity that was the problem. We needed to turn to Generals Cheney, Safire, and Kristol, those past war heroes and defenders of good.
The press collapsed under this nonsense. The Phil Donahue portion was very telling, in that after the fact, MSNBC was concerned that they would stand out among their peer networks as unpatriotic.
In retrospect, successive generations will view this period as far worse than the McCarthy era. Imbecile Bush's legacy is destroyed and will never recover. Cheney will be viewed as one of the major villians in US history. I feel sorry for the next generation Bush's and Cheney's. they will have a lot to live down .
Thanks to Moyers, McLatchey, Air America, Bill Maher, John Stewart, Rich, Krugman, etc etc (sorry to leave anyone out)this dark era of American history is concluding. The authoritarians of the world need to climb back into their hate holes, awaiting the next opportunity. We now need to get our precious American treasure out of Iraq and home safely. We need to develop medical technology further, to help those whose lives are permanently impaired by the deceit of the evil. We need to utilize the financial resources that have been spent killing our own and the innocent of Iraq toward healing our planet. There is so much to do for our children.
I believe a new day is dawning for America, but it has been at a very high cost.
Comment by Chris Calbi — April 29, 2007 @ 8:50 am
Chris, I'm sure you're familiar with the term "projection", so I would carefully consider whether you yourself feel hate or simply see it in the authoritarian right wingers. I see hate in what Krugman writes in his columns, I see hate in the recent Rahm Emanuel speach at the Brookings institution, and I even see hate in your words.
Comment by Igor R. — April 29, 2007 @ 1:42 pm
Well said, Mr. Calbi. The list of folks that have helped to shed some light in these dark times is growing, but the names you have listed are a good start.
Comment by Derek D. — April 29, 2007 @ 5:31 pm
Iraq politicians are out of the Bush military complex loop.
Bush doesn't communicate with them any more than he does the U S Congress.
Bush orders wall built around neighborhoods or road blocks which once Iraq officials learn about them; stop the operation.
Bush is playing his own game in disregard to Iraqi leaders, people, American people, our Congress, U N, and other world leaders.
Comment by Donald — April 29, 2007 @ 6:30 pm
Donald, Maliki needed to say what he said for domestic political consumption. Bush probably talks to him more than to the US Congress, quite a bit more. I just care that Iraq has a democracy and that it should be preserved. Whether Bush is incompetent or not, giving up Iraq to the dark side is not the right option.
Comment by Igor R. — April 30, 2007 @ 11:23 am