>> A Bloody Media Mirror
>> by Norman Solomon
>>
>> Many of America's most prominent journalists want us to forget what
>> they were saying and writing more than four years ago to boost the
>> invasion
>> of Iraq. Now, they tiptoe around their own roles in hyping the war and
>> banishing dissent to the media margins.
>>
>> The media watch group FAIR (where I'm an associate) has performed a
>> public service in the latest edition of its magazine Extra. The
>> organization's
>> activism director, Peter Hart, drew on FAIR's extensive research to
>> assemble
>> a sample of notable quotations from media cheerleading for the Iraq
>> invasion. One of the earliest quotes to merit special attention came from
>> ace New York Times reporter - and chronic Pentagon promoter - Michael
>> Gordon. In a CNN appearance on March 25, 2003, just a few days into the
>> invasion, Gordon gave his easy blessing to the invaders' bombing of Iraqi
>> TV.
>>
>> Gordon cited "what I've seen of Iraqi television, with Saddam
>> Hussein
>> presenting propaganda to his people and showing off the Apache helicopter
>> and claiming a farmer shot it down and trying to persuade his own public
>> that he was really in charge, when we're trying to send the exact
>> opposite
>> message" - and so, the Times reporter went on, Iraqi TV was "an
>> appropriate
>> target."
>>
>> Let's unpack Gordon's rationale for a military attack on Iraqi
>> broadcasters: They presented propaganda to viewers, aired triumphal
>> images
>> and touted the authority of the top man in the government, while an
>> adversary was "trying to send the exact opposite message." By those
>> standards, Iraqis would have been justified in targeting any one of the
>> American cable news networks, most especially Fox News Channel.
>>
>> Hart - who is author of the book "The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning
>> Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly" - includes some quotes from Fox in his
>> collection of war-crazed statements from media. For instance, soon after
>> the
>> invasion began, Fox News commentator Fred Barnes declared: "The American
>> public knows how important this war is, and is not as casualty sensitive
>> as
>> the weenies in the American press are." (Unsurpassed bravery is a common
>> denominator of rabid hawks in stateside TV studios.) But many of Hart's
>> examples are from U.S. media outlets with reputations for judicious
>> professional journalism.
>>
>> On NBC News, Brian Williams was singing from the choir book
>> provided
>> by U.S. officials. "They are calling this the cleanest war in all of
>> military history," Williams said on April 2, 2003. "They stress they're
>> fighting a regime and not the people, using smart bombs, not dumb, older
>> munitions. But there have been and will be accidents. . And there's a new
>> weapon in this war: Arab media, especially Al Jazeera. It's on all the
>> time,
>> and unlike American media, it hardly reflects the Pentagon line. Its
>> critics
>> say it accentuates civilian casualties and provokes outrage on the Arab
>> street."
>>
>> The next day, on the same network, Williams' colleagueKatieCouric
>> was more succinct in her fawning. Viewers of the "Today" program listened
>> as
>> she interviewed a U.S. military official and exclaimed: "Thank you for
>> coming on the show. And I want to add, I think the Special Forces rock!"
>>
>> A week later, on MSNBC, the hardballer Chris Matthews was swept up
>> in
>> beach-ball euphoria as America's armed forces toppled the Saddam regime.
>> "We're
>> all neo-cons now," Matthews exulted.
>>
>> At the start of May 2003, when President Bush zoomed onto an
>> aircraft
>> carrier and stood near a "Mission Accomplished" banner, Lou Dobbs was
>> quick
>> to tell CNN viewers: "He looked like an alternatively commander in chief,
>> rock star, movie star and one of the guys."
>>
>> On the same day, journalist Matthews assumed the royal "we" - and,
>> in
>> the opportunistic process, blew with the prevailing wind. "We're proud of
>> our president," he said. "Americans love having a guy as president, a guy
>> who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy
>> like
>> Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They
>> want
>> a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out.
>> The
>> women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's
>> simple." All too simple.
>>
>> Perhaps no journalist was more shameless in echoing President
>> Bush's
>> fatuous claims about the invasion than Christopher Hitchens.
>>
>> "Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast,
>> and
>> I have a message for them: If we must begin a military campaign, it will
>> be
>> directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against
>> you,"
>> Bush said on March 17, 2003.
>>
>> The next day, Hitchens came out with an essay declaring that "the
>> Defense Department has evolved highly selective and accurate munitions
>> that
>> can sharply reduce the need to take or receive casualties. The
>> predictions
>> of widespread mayhem turned out to be false last time - when the weapons
>> [in
>> the Gulf War] were nothing like so accurate." And, Hitchens proclaimed,
>> "it
>> can now be proposed as a practical matter that one is able to fight
>> against
>> a regime and not a people or a nation."
>>
>> More than four years - and at least several hundred thousand Iraqi
>> civilian deaths - later, the most reliable epidemiology available
>> confirms
>> that those claims were more than misleading. They were fundamentally out
>> of
>> touch with human reality.
>>
>> If you had engaged in such cheerleading for the launch of the Iraq
>> war
>> in early 2003, by now you might also be eager to change the subject and
>> argue about God.
>>
>> The new documentary film "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits
>> Keep Spinning Us to Death," based on Norman Solomon's book of the same
>> title, has just been released on DVD. For information about the
>> full-length
>> movie, produced by the Media Education Foundation and narrated by Sean
>> Penn,
>> go
to:www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org
>>
>> Link to "Outfoxed" a movie about the spin doctors at Fox News, aka the
>> Goebbels Network.
>>
>>
http://tinyurl.com/33g4zu
>>
>> Good flick. If you ever thougt there is a "Liberal" Media in America,
>> watch
>> "OUTFOXED".
