December 5, 2006
By Norman Solomon
The lead-up to the invasion of Iraq has become notorious in the annals of American journalism. Even many reporters, editors and commentators who fueled the drive to war in 2002 and early 2003 now acknowledge that major media routinely tossed real journalism out the window in favor of boosting war.
But it's happening again.
The current media travesty is a drumbeat for the idea that the U.S. war effort must keep going. And again, in its news coverage, the New York Times is a bellwether for the latest media parade to the cadence of the warfare state.
During the run-up to the invasion, news stories repeatedly told about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction while the Times and other key media outlets insisted that their coverage was factually reliable. Now the same media outlets insist that their coverage is analytically reliable.
Instead of authoritative media information about aluminum tubes and mobile weapons labs, we're now getting authoritative media illumination of why a swift pullout of U.S. troops isn't realistic or desirable. The result is similar to what was happening four years ago -- a huge betrayal of journalistic responsibility.
The WMD spin was in sync with official sources and other establishment-sanctified experts, named and unnamed. The anti-pullout spin is in sync with official sources and other establishment-sanctified experts, named and unnamed.
During the weeks since the midterm election, the New York Times news coverage of Iraq policy options has often been heavy-handed, with carefully selective sourcing for prefab conclusions. Already infamous is the Nov. 15 front-page story by Michael Gordon under the headline "Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say." A similar technique was at play Dec. 1 with yet another "News Analysis," this time by reporter David Sanger, headlined "The Only Consensus on Iraq: Nobody's Leaving Right Now."
Typically, in such reportage, the sources harmonizing with the media outlet's analysis are chosen from the cast of political characters who helped drag the United States into making war on Iraq in the first place.
What's now going on in mainline news media is some kind of repetition compulsion. And, while media professionals engage in yet another round of conformist opportunism, many people will pay with their lives.
With so many prominent American journalists navigating their stories by the lights of big Washington stars, it's not surprising that so much of the news coverage looks at what happens in Iraq through the lens of the significance for American power.
Viewing the horrors of present-day Iraq with star-spangled eyes, New York Times reporters John Burns and Kirk Semple wrote -- in the lead sentence of a front-page "News Analysis" on Nov. 29 -- that "American military and political leverage in Iraq has fallen sharply."
The second paragraph of the Baghdad-datelined article reported: "American fortunes here are ever more dependent on feuding Iraqis who seem, at times, almost heedless to American appeals."
The third paragraph reported: "It is not clear that the United States can gain new traction in Iraq..."
And so it goes -- with U.S. media obsessively focused on such concerns as "American military and political leverage," "American fortunes" and whether "the United States can gain new traction in Iraq."
With that kind of worldview, no wonder so much news coverage is serving nationalism instead of journalism.
Norman Solomon is the author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.
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Warfaremercialists vs. The Profits of Peace
Don't blame the mainstream war media for continuing to do what they are employed to do, it's pretty obvious what business they're in.
I happened to catch the media pundit Olbermann on MSNBC last night, just the last minutes of his program. I normally don't watch television news, but he's been trying to inject some truth, were none exists lately.
My hopes for honest independent analysis were shattered immediately, when some guy named Scarborough came on. I quickly remembered why I don't watch anymore.
He acted shocked that Gates would say "we're losing the war in Iraq" at his confirmation hearing. He needed 3 people to "explain" it to him, in ways only a tv war pundit can understand.
Scarborough needed someone to explain to him, why or how, "we shouldn't leave Iraq". Scarborough didn't really need an explanation, he needed one to provide to the viewer, to appease their cognitive dissonance.
Now, I don't expect any of these guys to acknowledge what so called "leftist" peace activists have said from the beginning. I don't expect them to consider what the realistic traditional conservatives have said all along either. I'm also not naive about them admitting they are wrong now. There should be no illusions about that.
There was one saving grace, only one reason to watch this war pundit.
To indentify the war advertisers.
The companies that advertise during these war commercials("warfaremercials"-wich is what they really are), gives you an opportunity to learn what products you DO NOT want to buy.
Advertisers are the only reality check you get, while the warfaremercialists scream ignorance.
General Smedley Butler wrote "war is a racket" in 1935, he outlined 3 steps to stop this racket. You could argue that two of them, maybe even just one, is not applicable today. However, the main thrust, the most important one, that cannot be repeated often enough and must be screamed from sea to shining sea by anyone who values democracy at home, before it is disingenously used as an excuse for war abroad, is to...
TAKE THE PROFIT OUT OF WAR
If you want to stop the racketeers, you must think like them. War profiteers would rather dupe the advertisers into footing the bill for the handsome salaries of the war pundits, then pay it themselves.
Anti-War pundits should not stop "analyzing" the lies of the "analyzers"...but this only works and is effective at convincing those who are already convinced. Those who are experiencing cognitive dissonance, will only change their opinion to fit what they already believe to be true, even when you catch them red handed and hold them up for ridicule to the entire world...
Organic products have suddenly become all the rage, the producers of the artificial food have seen the profits that can be made in diversifying their companies to produce healthy food.
What this example shows, is that if it's possible to make healthy food a profitable market(with very little advertising investment and strong opposition from the FDA), then it may be possible to make "healthy news" profitable and "artificial news" unprofitable by indentifying the war advertisers.
The peace pundits have indentified the warfaremercials. They have provided solutions where the warfaremercialists haven't. They have pointed out the inaccuracies, misinformation, and propaganda of war pundits. These are all victories for them, but they're still frustrated that the warfaremercials continue.
A healthy product, sells itself. An artificial product needs millions upon millions, to convince the consumer that the artificial product is worth buying.
George Washington knew he did not need to win the revolutionary war, all he had to do, was not lose it. The same strategy can be applied nonviolently. Peace does not need to win, just not lose. Slowly bleeding the profits out of war, by forcing the war profiteers to spend more and more and more every day to convince Americans it's in their best interest to support a racket, will become unprofitable sooner or later.
While it's true, the American taxpayer is fueling the war machine, the war advertisers help alleviate some of the profits lost by having to sustain a 24 hour warfaremercial.
When the racketeers have to start dipping into their own profits, as well as asking Congress to get the American taxpayer(the shareholder) to pay for more war with little return...the peace market will become profitable and the war market will become overvalued.
The only way the warfaremercialists will be able to combat this(and sound even more ridiculous in the process), is to repeat the claim that nonviolent peace activists are "terrorists". This shouldn't scare the profits of peace, because they have the product of truth, and a good product sells itself. The angrier you make the warfaremercialists by taking away their profits, the sooner the truth will become self-evident.
The truth, as explained by General Butler, is that war is a racket, and you must take the profit out of war, so that peace becomes profitable for everyone...including the companies that advertise during the warfaremercials. That is, if they are smart enough to start diversifying and investing in the profits of peace.
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