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War, Peace & the Media

By Amy Goodman

very president goes to Mt. Rushmore to be filmed before that grandiose backdrop, but never before with the Hollywood sensibility of the Bush administration. His handlers positioned the president in exactly the right position so that his head fit in perfectly with those of the other presidents. They ensured that all cameras would be placed to get him in that position; so that in all the photographs, he fit right in.

They have this refined to a high art. The aircraft carrier was just perfect for that, as he announced the end of hostilities, only feeding the anger of the military families who asked, “Then where are our loved ones?”

He then flies in back to California; behind him a big banner says, “United Defense.” United Defense is the military contractor owned by The Carlyle Group. George Bush Sr. serves as Carlyle’s primary ambassador, drumming up business along with Jim Baker, Frank Carlucci and others of Iran-contra fame. And so you have Bush flying in, you see this sign for a weapons manufacturer, and you know its stock will go up. This only increases his father’s wealth, which in the end will only increase his. It is all in the family. War is a very lucrative, I don’t want to say game, but for them it is. They have made it look like that from beginning to end. They understand that if people in this country saw the casualties, they would care: That’s why the media has really brought journalism to an all-time low.

Media Manipulation
The New York Times has been going through a lot of internal turmoil. Howell Raines is no more. He was the editor until the Jayson Blair affair. They say that this young man conned the Times on a number of stories and brought the paper to its 152-year low. He wrote a series of fabrications, and that’s bad and they have had to deal with that. But is that the real reason they’ve reached an all-time low? Or is it the Bush/Tony Blair affair? Is it because of reports like those of Judith Miller’s? The lies that are put forth, repeated over and over, attributed to “unnamed sources” that further exactly what the Bush administration wants to do, whether it’s the aluminum tubes used for the nuclear program in Iraq that she put forth, or the guy in the baseball cap that she saw from a distance and “knew” was involved with biological weapons because members of a military unit told her that was the case. In fact, the military unit she was with wanted to pull out because they hadn’t found anything. She wrote a letter to the two-star general saying that if they pulled the unit out, she would write negative stories in the Times. The unit became known as “Judith Miller’s Unit,” because she was running the show. When there was a military ceremony in Baghdad for the unit, she pinned the medal on one of the soldiers.

Judith Miller gets fed a tidbit from the Pentagon, and then the Pentagon cites the New York Times: “Well, even the New York Times is saying this.” And there is no check and balance. The Times should be bringing us a four- or five-page investigation of Judith Miller, not Jayson Blair.

At the same time that much of the press went after Al-Jazeera for showing the pictures of American prisoners of war, the New York Times and Washington Post published unusually large color pictures of Iraqi prisoners with their butts up in the air, stripped down and facing the ground. Where is this Geneva Convention the Times talks about? If they say that prisoners should not be photographed, then it must apply across the board. Instead, Al-Jazeera gets kicked off the floor of the stock exchange and NASDAQ and completely marginalized for daring to show the Americans. I think that the Pentagon was not so concerned about the soldiers being shown. In fact, some family members said they were relieved to see their family on television, alive. But the United States was concerned about the effect it would have on the American people to see U.S. citizens in prison.

We need to see all sides. No one should be demeaned; no one should be unjustly dealt with. And we need to see pictures. On Democracy Now!, we asked Aaron Brown, the CNN anchor, why we were not seeing the casualty pictures. Clearly they exist, Al Jazeera shows them all the time. The U.S. media used their pictures of bombs falling on Baghdad; the firework-like photos that most Americans would associate with this war. So we do use Al Jazeera. Why not the casualty photos? If we saw that in this country on all the networks, I think war would be abolished in the world. It is up to us to demand that the media tell the truth. These are not simply private corporations. They are private companies that are using the public airwaves. War is blood and gore. And when we asked Aaron Brown why he was not showing these pictures, he said, “They’re tasteless.” We said, “No, war is tasteless.”

Would today’s media have ever shown the photograph of the young girl in Vietnam running down the street, burned by napalm? That picture probably helped end the war. She was Vietnamese. She was not American, but people cared. Americans are a compassionate people.

Our Airwaves
We have to take our airwaves back. This is something that FCC chair Michael Powell understands well. Michael, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell. The father helps lead the war on Iraq; the son leads the war on diversity of voices debating and discussing the most important issues of our day. Michael Powell is leading one of the greatest consolidations of corporate power the world has ever seen. The media ownership rules he passed on June 2 launched the largest media consolidation in U.S. history. The arrogance and secrecy with which they tried to do this is the reason for the rise of a media democracy movement in this country like we have never seen before. There was supposed to be a public comment period. Very few people knew about it. One public comment hearing which took place in the middle of a snowstorm was not advertised at all.

But Pacifica Radio, Democracy Now!, and media democracy groups got together and said, “If you won’t hold hearings, we will.” These hearings were called by two dissident commissioners, Jonathan S. Adelstein and Michael J. Copps. Michael Powell was forced to come to the one at Columbia Law School because it got so much attention.

But it’s not enough just to speak in auditoriums, you need media that connect the dots, and that’s where a network like Pacifica comes in, broadcasting these hearings. So that we can be a mighty force from our communities, hearing what others are doing and connecting with them.

Of course, the corporate media can do that much more efficiently, but they refuse to. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting did a study of newscasts on ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS. Of 393 interviews in the week leading up to Colin Powell’s address on Iraq to the United Nations and the week after, only three were with people opposed to war.

We have to take our airwaves back. They are using public property to propagandize for war. We need more media like Pacifica. Pacifica, of course, was formed out of the ashes of World War II by war resisters who said there must be an outlet for those opposed to war. NPR initially copied Pacifica’s idea of going to listeners for support, not corporations. Unfortunately they’ve gone another way now. That closes off a lot of voices, and it needs to be challenged.

Pacifica is the most open forum for a diversity of views. We see what a difference is can make. The Democracy Now! of 1996 was broadcast by maybe 20 stations. We are now on 160 radio and TV stations around the United States, Canada, Italy, and Australia, aided by high-tech, low-cost computer technology.

You have public access television in your community because media activists wrested a few channels from the monopolies like Cablevision, like Time Warner. The cities don’t want to dig up the streets for multiple cable lines, so one company gets an entire contract. In exchange, the company funds public access channels for public use, for education, for governing. If you don’t have it, you should demand it through your city council. But now Time Warner and some of these companies are trying to take away these channels. You’ve got to be there, come out in force to defend those channels.

Democracy Now! is broadcasting on public access TV stations around the country. We are showing the images from independent filmmakers. We recently premiered a video documentary called, “Afghan Massacre, Convoy of Death,” by a former BBC documentarian. The video details how the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance forces working with U.S. Special Forces were involved in the killing of thousands of Taliban prisoners who were then buried in mass graves. We were able to broadcast a documentary on public access TV when it would not be seen on national television. We have to provide a powerful alternative force, because when the documentary finally aired, the networks asked how to get in touch with the filmmakers.

People are hungry for information. People are hungry for the truth.

Contact: Democracy Now!, PO Box 693, New York, NY 10013; (212) 431-9090; mail@democracynow.org; www.democracynow.org

Award-winning journalist Amy Goodman is host of Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now!, airing on more than 140 stations nationwide.