Postcard USA: The media at war
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_23-3-2003_pg3_7
Khalid Hasan
The US press and media are independent but since the campaign against Iraq began, this independence has been little more than a licence to be unapologetically partisan and one-sided. Seen from this perspective, the American media has failed the test of being fair, balanced and accurate
After the guns have fallen silent and the world has begun to recover from the maelstrom into which it has been thrown by President Bush’s decision to attack Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein, it will be time for a stock-taking. When that moment comes, the mainstream American media will be found to have made a major contribution to the creation of the hysteria that enabled the President and his close advisers, all un-elected, hand-picked men with a certain worldview, to defy the will of the international community and destroy one of the pillars of the international order though the exercise of pre-emption.
As the admirable Edward Said — whose writings are unacceptable to any major national newspaper in this country — pointed out in a recent piece published in Al Ahram, Cairo, and reproduced in an earlier issue of this newspaper, “The media has simply become a branch of the war effort. What has entirely disappeared from television is anything remotely resembling a consistently dissenting voice. Every major news channel how employs retired generals, former CIA agents, terrorism experts and known neo-conservatives as ‘consultants’ who speak a revolting jargon designed to sound authoritative but in effect supporting everything done by the US form the UN to the sands of Arabia. There are no anti-war voices to read or hear in any of the major medias of this country, no Arabs or Muslims who have been consigned en masse to the ranks of the fanatics and terrorists of the world, no critics of Israel, not in public broadcasting, not in the New York Times, the New Yorker, US News and World Report, CNN and the rest. When these organisations mention Iraq’s flouting of 17 UN resolutions as a pretext for war, the 64 resolutions flouted by Israel with US support are never mentioned … This makes a total mockery of taunts by Bush and others that the UN should abide by its own resolutions.”
An independent group which monitors the mainstream US media has pointed out that network newscasts, dominated by current and former US officials, largely exclude Americans who are sceptical of or opposed to an invasion of Iraq. Between January 30 and February 12, out of the 393 on-camera sources who appeared in nightly news stories about Iraq on ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS, more than two-thirds or 267 were Americans, of which 75 per cent were either current or former government or military officials. Only one of the official US sources expressed scepticism or opposition to the war, but in very vague terms. He said, “Once we get in there how are we going to get out, what’s the loss for American troops are going to be, how long we’re going to be stationed there, what’s the cost is going to be?”
When both US and non-US guests were included, 76 per cent were either current or retired officials. “Such a predominance of official sources virtually assures that independent and grassroots perspectives will be underrepresented. Of all official sources, 75 percent were associated with either the US or with governments that support the Bush administration’s position on Iraq; only four out of those 222, or 2 percent, of these sources were sceptics or opponents of war.” Half of the non-official US sceptics were interviewed on the street, with five of them not even identified by name. Only one source represented an anti-war organisation. Of all 393 sources, only three, which is less than one per cent, were identified with organised protests or anti-war groups.
The US press and media are independent but since the campaign against Iraq began, this independence has been little more than a licence to be unapologetically partisan and one-sided. Seen from this perspective, the American media has failed the test of being fair, balanced and accurate. As for the major newspapers, the only exception has been the New York Times, while the Washington Post, once the flag-bearer of liberalism, has belittled itself by calling for war against Iraq every other day. Singly, it has spread more venom against Iraq and the UN than Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice put together.
Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent