Reparing the Information Infrastructure

There was a fantastic edition of GRIT-tv that aired yesterday and that you can get more information on by clicking here.

In this episode host Laura Flanders spoke with her guests about the ever-changing landscape of the media and how we are at a critical point in the decision about how we will fund the "public good" that is journalism. Panel members include Robert McChesney and John Nichols (co-founders of FreePress.net and authors of The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again), Tracy Van Slyke (co-author of Beyond the Echo Chamber: How a Networked Progressive Media Can Reshape American Politics) and Kate Giammarise (co-founder of Rustwire.com).

The conversation is really vibrant and focuses on the problems that we are seeing with the quality of journalism since the collapse of the newspapers. Not only is the quality of journalism suffering, but the availability of jobs that compensate (young) journalists for digging into important issues is also a very real concern. Watch the 20 min. segment here:



Naturally this very issue hits close to home as I am one of those who must blog, write, research and interview all in my "spare time" and do so without compensation. I, like many others, am quite passionate about where society is headed and about the kinds of stories that are being covered. I completely agree with John Nichols and Bob McChesney that a strong and independent media is vital to a healthy democracy. After all, this is why I started this blog and contribute to The Cincinnati Beacon. There needs to be a reinvestment in the information infrastructure so that journalism and democracy can flourish in this new digital age.

I think the talk of subsidies are a great place to start as I recognize the need to initiate, develop, and compensate the work that needs to be done. After all (like others), I am but one person and my coverage of issues is limited to the amount of "spare time" that I am able to devote to my work. I can't take my camera to every public event that I would like, I can't devote the amount of time that is needed to do research on some issues that I think are important, and I must choose to spend my personal funds on continuing this work. We are at a very interesting point in time for the media and I think it is quite obvious how necessary it is for this conversation to continue on how to productively move forward. The media is and should continue to be, a public good; we are just in need of a new commitment to the important principles that will allow for a new age of journalism to thrive.

Roger Ailes Defends Beck and Fox on ABC's 'This Week'

Roger Ailes, President and CEO of Fox News, made a rare appearance as a member of the "Roundtable Dicussion" on ABC's This Week earlier this morning. Rounding out the panel was Washington Post columnist George Will, Founder of the Huffington Post Arianna Huffington, and economist Paul Krugman. There was some discussion on the election of Scott Brown to the Senate, health care, and the media, but I knew that things were going to be interesting when Ailes began the segment by offering to pose nude for $100.

By watching this discussion it is crystal clear to see why Fox News operates as it does. Ailes defends the crazy rhetoric of Glenn Beck, his network's coverage of President Obama, and the idea that Fox is a "fair and balanced" network. Also funny is how Ailes rails against other media outlets for being slanted and then proceeds to defend Beck's misinformation and spout the same Republican talking points that hosts on his channel espouse.

In Ailes' defense of Glenn Beck he tries to turn the tables on Arianna Huffington by claiming that her website calls him awful names. Ailes, just like Bill O'Reilly has done, accomplishes this by quoting from the "user comment" section of the Huffington Post and trying to project the views of some anonymous commenter onto the founder of the site. These are the fun tactics that we have come to expect from Fox and Ailes shows that not only is this part of his business model, but the views that he finds acceptable for his network. Below are the full videos of the Roundtable segment from this morning:

Tipping the Balance

Things like this come up every so-often in the media. Check out this item highlighted by Nick Baumann at Mother Jones:

...today's example is a story in the Times about Obama's plans for his State of the Union address, which is scheduled for Wednesday. Describing the administration's new economic recovery proposals, the reporter writes:

Such programs are, notably, much less far-reaching than Mr. Obama’s expansive first-year agenda of passing an economic recovery package, bailing out the auto industry, overhauling the health care system, passing energy legislation and imposing tough new restrictions on banks. That agenda has left him vulnerable to criticism that he is using the government to remake every aspect of American society.

I added the emphasis there, but that sentence sticks out anyway. It's hilariously broad—"every" aspect of American society? It's totally unattached to any sourcing or evidence. Who are these critics? Do they have names? If "Republicans" or "Tea Party activists" are claiming that Obama is using government to remake American society, readers should know that. Just saying that Obama is "vulnerable to criticism" without saying where that criticism is coming from gives the claim a credibility it doesn't deserve. Does America society seem "remade" to you?

I think a lot of people expel lots of energy on media bias that doesn't really get us anywhere. This includes the incessant screaming that we hear from the right about the so-called "mainstream" media having a liberal bias.

I am with Bill Moyers on this when he observes that it is more productive to think of the media not as having a general "liberal" or "conservative" bias, but as stenographers to power. The bottom line, the almighty dollar, is what drives much of what gets on the air which is how you have rodeo clowns like Glenn Beck whipping up a populist fervor when just five years ago the same news station was aligned with those in power.

I interviewed the Director of the Journalism at Miami University in Oxford Ohio for a recent piece that I posted a while back and I think he is right to observe that there is a bias in all coverage. This must be acknowledged from the beginning. In critiquing those in the media it is important to ask if they made every effort to be fair and complete in their coverage as well as present all sides of the story. Not just two-sides (as there are rarely just two-sides to a story), but all sides.

Like it is illustrated in the Mother Jones post, the effort in trying to appear non-partisan can often result in confusing the matter and complicating the road toward actual truth. Merely telling us what the left said and what the right said is not balance if both sides are merely spouting lies.

Bill Cunningham Makes 'Most Outrageous Comments of 2009" List, 3 Times

The end of the year usually brings about many "Best of" and "Worst of" lists that attempt to summarize various points of interest from the previous year. Media Matters for America is no exception to creating such a list as the liberally-slanted non-profit has compiled the most "Outrageous" comments from Conservative commentators in 2009.

Many of the usual suspects are on the list, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck even had the dubious honor of being dubbed 2009's "Misinformer of the Year" for calling the President a racist and comparing modern day America to the rise of Nazi Germany. You can watch the special video that Media Matters created for Beck at the bottom of this post.

In the mix with all of these nationally known Conservative voices is a man who resonates in a special way with the city of Cincinnati and who had three of his comments make the "Most Outrageous" list that was compiled by Media Matters.

Bill Cunningham has always been known for stirring up controversy on his Monday-Friday talk show and there have been a few instances when he has gained some national attention for his antics. Remember when Cunningham warmed up the crowd at a local event before John McCain took the stage in 2008 during the campaign season? Or how about the times when Cunningham has gone on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News to give voice to one crazy theory after another?

It should come as no surprise that Cunningham would land on such a list.

Here are the three comments that Media Matters considers among the "Most Outrageous" of 2009.

1. Cunningham on the Poor: "They're poor because they lack values, ethics, and morals."

On the January 4 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Cincinnati-based radio host Bill Cunningham continued his attacks on the poor, stating: "[P]oor people were not and are not poor because they lack money. They're poor because they lack values, ethics, and morals." Cunningham added: "All that the mid-'60s and '70s did to the black community was to pay black fathers money on condition that they not be involved in the lives of their children and that black mothers were told that if you married, it would have a painful consequence. If, on the other hand, you acted irresponsibly by producing children out of wedlock, you would have a positive consequence, because government would fund bad behavior."

2. Cunningham on Section 8 housing: "I like keeping all those degenerates in one location so we can keep an eye on them"; residents "sit around and fornicate, defecate"



3. Bill Cunningham claims stimulus "give[s] ACORN up to $4.2 trillion" and contains "$350 million to hand out condoms and birth control pills so the poor can fornicate like rabbits"



and here is the video that Media Matters put together for Glenn Beck's "Misinformer of the Year" award:



You should check out some of the other items that made the Media Matters list and also feel free to post your favorite "outrageous" quotes in the comments section. What moments stick out in your mind from the past year either from national figures or on a local level from figures in Cincinnati?



This is cross posted here.

The Promise of the Digital Age

Matt Yglesias makes some good points on the shifting of power between the political press and politicians in this post:

Bandwidth used to be very thin. If you wanted to communicate to voters, you had to get the attention of one of a very small number of national television newscasts or one or two local newspapers. Now there’s much more bandwidth you can take advantage of. At the same time, budgets have declined. Consequently, campaign coverage now consists largely of reporting what candidates or their representatives said or even just putting two proxies on television and listening to them talk.

[...]

This is the promise and the peril of digital media. People can communicate much more directly with their constituents, the media elite have much less power, consumers are much better-informed about the things they want to look up, but there’s less of an authoritative common culture that can force the national conversation down avenues deemed important.

The first part is nothing new. Beltway journalists and major news networks have acted as stenographers to power long before the digital age, but I certainly agree that these negative reporting practices can be magnified by the increase in available outlets. Objectivity is not CNN allowing Newt Gingrich to argue over health care reform with James Carville for a five-minute segment. Journalism should examine the arguments made by each side, point out areas that are not true, and inform the citizenry.

Sarah Palin's comments about "death panels" were largely circulated and embraced by the political right over the summer. It is not enough to simply report that "Sarah Palin has gone on record saying that health care reform will create death panels if passed." That tells us nothing except what Sarah Palin says. You have to give credit to those on reputable Internet blogging sites that broke down the fact that Palin was wrongly characterizing voluntary end-of-life counseling as "panels" that would be putting citizens to death.

This is the promise of the digital age. Responsible blogging and independent media outlets have a real chance to expand their footprint online to try and steer us back to responsible and investigative journalism. This expanded bandwidth that Yglesias references is also the peril of the digital age. The poor tendencies of the corporate media have been so pervasive, that they can easily carry over into digital mediums and percolate through the population that much faster.

The important part about the Internet is that truth and reality have a fighting chance. Organizations like Talking Points Memo are being used as sources of information for some (like Rachel Maddow) in reporting important stories. This is a big step forward in one sense, but as we all know, it is an uphill battle. The tea-party movement demonstrates this perfectly. You have a movement that had a lot of their facts wrong, whipped into a fervor by a "News" organization, and resonating with a lot of very angry people to create an odd "grasstroturf" movement.

The Internet does hold quite a bit of promise (that must be protected), but truth and reality still face a challenge in a culture that has been ingrained into the talking head mindset.

Jeremy Scahill on "Real Time" and the Release of the Inspector General's Report

Real Time with Bill Maher had an interesting panel this past Friday night on HBO. Included in this panel were comedian Jay Leno, NBC political correspondent Chuck Todd, and investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill.

They get to talking about Blackwater, torture, and holding elected officials to account when Scahill calls out Chuck Todd for the media's role (and Todd's role) in framing this debate. Here is the video:



You may remember a recent interview that transpired between Chuck Todd and Glenn Greenwald where Greenwald made Todd's arguments against investigations look ridiculous. Here is an exchange:

GG: ...But let me ask you this question - and I just have a couple more questions, and I appreciate this time. You just referenced earlier that you think that this has become cable catnip because it's an entrenched partisan debate between the left and the right. And about a month ago you created a little controversy because you said about the question about whether there should be investigations, about the release of the OLC memos, you said, quote, "Frankly, this feels like a political food fight right now: the hard left, the hard right fighting over this in the blogosphere."

Some of the people who have called for investigations and prosecutions of Bush-era torture crimes include people like Jesse Ventura, the former independent governor of Minnesota; Philip Zelikow, the former aide to Condoleezza Rice; four-star general Barry McCaffrey, who said, on MSNBC, actually, that numerous detainees were, quote, "murdered" in custody, and that there's no way that we can not have criminal investigations. General Antonio Tabuga, who investigated the Abu Ghraib crimes, said: quote, "There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes; the only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." Same with Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief-of-staff to Colin Powell; Thomas Pickering and Williams Sessions, former Reagan administration officials, on and on, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post calling for investigations.

The idea that this is something that, the idea that the rule of law, that holding our high government officials to accountability when they commit crimes, is a "hard left versus a hard right" or a partisan debate - isn't that really just an invention of cable news, for exactly the reason that you said, which is that's how cable news typically understands things, even when that's not really what the debate is?

CT: Well, look - and that is my frustration on this very issue, that I don't think - and this is why, when I said, how should this be handled, and how should this be investigated - if you could guarantee me that we could keep this debate off of television, and keep it off of being an ideological - because, this was an ideological, when you read those OLC memos, I was struck by this fact, and that is that the Bush White House was looking for a legal way to do this. They were trying to legally justify what they were doing, and what their policy was. Which then, if that is the case, then, things are going to have an ideological split, and frankly, you, you and I both know you're going find judges that end up falling on both sides of this issue.

Now, does that mean that there shouldn't be investigations as to how these detainees died in custody? Of course there should be investigations. That's what makes the American form of justice held to a higher standard.

GG: And what should be done about investigations that reveal that there were crimes that were committed?

CT: Well, look, that's up to the Justice Department. I know you have strong feelings about this. I am trying, honestly, very hard, not to put my personal feelings on this specific issue into it. I am trying to deal in the analysis of why, for instance, the Obama White House doesn't want this. They don't want to have this debate even if they passionately feel, as many do, about what might have happened.

Scahill's moment with Todd is the second instance where Todd has been forced to defend his views that prosecutions of the Bush Administration are not appropriate and should therefore not happen. Todd is not alone in his views, in fact, the Obama Administration has also adopted this "look forward not to the past" mantra when discussing the possibility of prosecuting Bush Administration officials.

The relevancy of this is also to be noted as the Justice Department is expected to release the internal investigation into torture by John L. Helgerson, or the Inspector General's report. The release of this investigation has been delayed on numerous occasions and should give us additional insight and provide for more disturbing details into the types of actions that were authorized under the Bush Administration. Scott Horton has more thoughts:

If the passages of the report describing in detail the practices used and comparing them to the OLC guidance are released, that would be significant. It would effectively set the stage for the appointment of a special prosecutor—and indeed, it looks to me that the Justice Department is now trying to build support for such a decision.

But in addition to the CIA inspector general’s report, another major document has been on hold for some time: the report of the department’s ethics office, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). Now, its disclosure is another major issue. The New York Times reports this morning that OPR is advising Holder to “reopen nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases” based on its internal review of the torture memoranda and the process that led to their issuance.

This formulation suggests that these cases were investigated and dealt with by the Justice Department under Bush–but that plainly is not correct. The cases were funneled into the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which served as a sort of “dead letter office” for politically sensitive cases on which the Bush team expected nothing to happen. And nothing did happen. The OPR report would set the stage for appointment of a special prosecutor to look at these cases. As a result of the passage of time and the failure to undertake an investigation while evidence is fresh, it will now be much more difficult to build a case for charges, but an effort will be made. Still, the real issue is whether the OPR report itself will be made public.

[...]

Release of the entire OPR report is critical. If it is not released, or released with key passages blacked out, that will suggest that the Attorney General wants to protect Justice Department figures from scrutiny. The public would be correct to cry foul about this and any other efforts to deflect attention from the Justice Department’s own role in the wrongdoing, which was enormous.

The disclosures made at the beginning of the week will provide a solid indication of how we can expect Eric Holder to act. Most likely he will be exercising discretion to disclose facts and information that reveal whatever conduct he has decided to investigate. That’s sensible enough. But we shouldn’t allow this to distract us from what he’s chosen to keep secret. That will be even more revealing.

UPDATE: Jeremy Scahill sent an email to Glenn Greenwald after his appearence on Real Time that said the following:

Right as we walked off stage, he said to me "that was a cheap shot." I said "what are you talking about?" and he said "you know it." I then said that I monitor msm coverage very closely and asked him what was not true that I said on the show. He then replied: "that's not the point. You sullied my reputation on TV."

So reporting the truth and pointing out the lack of independence in the media isn't the issue, it is about not hurting the feelings of Chuck Todd. This speaks volumes about real journalism in today's society.

Doctors and Nurses Join the Protests and the Media Crackdown Intensifies

Doctors and nurses have started to protest in Tehran over the recent murders:



Glenn Greenwald wonders what would have happened if those who had wanted to bomb Iran had had their way:

Much of the same faction now claiming such concern for the welfare of The Iranian People are the same people who have long been advocating a military attack on Iran and the dropping of large numbers of bombs on their country -- actions which would result in the slaughter of many of those very same Iranian People. During the presidential campaign, John McCain infamously sang about Bomb, Bomb, Bomb-ing Iran. The Wall St. Journal published a war screed from Commentary's Norman Podhoretz entitled "The Case for Bombing Iran," and following that, Podhoretz said in an interview that he "hopes and prays" that the U.S. "bombs the Iranians." John Bolton and Joe Lieberman advocated the same bombing campaign, while Bill Kristol -- with typical prescience -- hopefully suggested that Bush might bomb Iran if Obama were elected. Rudy Giuliani actually said he would be open to a first-strike nuclear attack on Iran in order to stop their nuclear program.

Imagine how many of the people protesting this week would be dead if any of these bombing advocates had their way -- just as those who paraded around (and still parade around) under the banner of Liberating the Iraqi People caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of them, at least. Hopefully, one of the principal benefits of the turmoil in Iran is that it humanizes whoever the latest Enemy is.

Meanwhile, the crackdown on foreign media is beginning to intensify. From CBS:

Iran's hard-line regime, starting to show stress under the mounting pressure of massive opposition rallies, has told foreign media that if they're seen on the streets of Tehran today with a camera, they will be arrested.

Jadi tweets:

Mousavi and Karroubi announced that they will only accept the nullification of the elections and nothing else. #iranelection

IranRiggedElect tweets:

a state TV employee: Gun shooting sound is heard near Jaame jam building#iranelection

Media Photographs the Return of a War Casualty for the First Time in 18 Years

For the first time in 18 years, the media was allowed access to a military base in order to photograph images of a returning U.S. soldier who was killed in combat. The body of 30-year-old Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers arrived at Dover Air Force Base last night with his family in attendance. Myers was killed on April 4, 2009 after being hit with an improvised explosive device (IED) in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. He was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery last year.

This marks the first time the media has been granted access to a military base to photograph images of United States soldiers who have been killed in combat since the ban was put in place by President George H.W. Bush in 1991. There have been a few exceptions over the years, but the ban has largely remained in place since the beginning of the first Gulf War. Since his inauguration, President Obama asked for a review of the ban and the Administration has since decided that they will allow families to decide whether to allow media presence.

Reversing the policy of a blanket ban on photographing the coffins of U.S. soldiers returning home is a positive development and interestingly comes at a time when the Obama Administration is pushing to escalate the war in Afghanistan. Members of the media should not be banned from documenting the realities of war whether it be photographing flag-draped coffins of returning U.S. dead, or the results of a bombing campaign that has caused civilian casualties overseas. If the American people are asked to support a war effort, they should be able to see all the results of that effort.

While this is a positive step for the rights of the media, there is still a long way to come. The process of embedding reporters with the United States military has had a devastating effect on objective war coverage and should be the next practice that is abandoned.

Jon Stewart Skewers Jim Cramer

Last night was the much anticipated climax to the brewing tension between host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart and host of CNBC's "Mad Money", Jim Cramer. I have written about each stage of this feud as it has progressed and last night's culmination of events did not disappoint.

Just for some brief background (that you can also access through the links above), Jon Stewart initially aired a piece which was critical of CNBC and a wide variety of their hosts who advised viewers to make bad decisions in regard to the stock market. Stewart was also critical of the lack of journalism that was displayed by the network and showed video clips of CNBC hosts lobbing softball questions to CEOs of these corporations. One of these hosts, Jim Cramer, took exception to Stewart's piece and voiced his discontent, claiming that Stewart took the pieces out of context. Stewart returned the next night with a piece that focused solely on Cramer and showed more video clips of Cramer advising viewers to buy and hold onto stock that ended up crashing in value only weeks later.

By this point, Cramer not only inserted himself into a situation that was not initially about him, but was clearly doing all he could to keep his head above water. This is when Cramer went on The Today Show and MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to attempt to defend himself. He called Jon Stewart a "comedian" with a "variety show" to attempt to discredit Stewart, but his response only ended up adding fuel to the fire. Stewart ran another piece the same day as Cramer appeared on these programs and expanded his range of criticism from Cramer to the NBC network for "protecting" one of their own.

All of this built up to last night when Jim Cramer was scheduled to be Jon Stewart's guest on The Daily Show. The interview had to be considerably edited down for the program, but Comedy Central posted the full length version of the interview on their website today. Below is the interview in three parts. Part 2 is the longest and if you only have time to view one, view part 2:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

It is quite obvious that Jim Cramer looked absolutely defenseless while fielding Stewart's questions and responding to the criticisms. Cramer was confronted with tough questions and his own words, both damning evidence that supported Stewart's case.


I think it is important to take a look at why Jon Stewart had such beef with the network in the first place while also recognizing that this problem is not unique to CNBC. Stewart's initial critique is that the network acted irresponsibly by telling people to hang onto shares of stock when that strategy may not have been the brightest idea. He also articulates that it has become evident that two markets exist, the first is the market that is presented to the public by the journalists and anchors on CNBC. The second market, is the one behind the scenes where these same figures know the system, have powerful connections on Wall Street, and end up manipulating the system by selling the public a different perspective on the market.


Part of the evidence that Stewart confronts Cramer with, is an interview which Cramer did on TheStreet.com in 2007 where he admits spreading rumors about certain stocks, gaming the system, and doing things because the SEC isn't smart enough to catch on. After the first clip, Cramer initially tries to defend himself by saying that he wasn't saying that he himself took part in practices like this, but Stewart quickly rolled another clip which rendered Cramer's defense moot. Stewart rightly points out that it looks like he knows the game and is deliberately feeding the public a different perception.


Cramer then makes the claim that he is trying his best to hold people to account and that the regulators can go after these people if they want to. Stewart jumps in and asks Cramer why the financial networks don't act as a "powerful tool of illumination" instead of making noise about how wrong they are after the fact. The following exchange really sums up the heart of Stewart's argument:

STEWART: This thing was 10 years in the making . . . . The idea that you could have on the guys from Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch and guys that had leveraged 35-1 and then blame mortgage holders, that's insane. . . .

CRAMER: I always wish that people would come in and swear themselves in before they come on the show. I had a lot of CEOs lie to me on the show. It's very painful. I don't have subpoena power. . .
.
STEWART: You knew what the banks were doing and were touting it for months and months. The entire network was.

CRAMER: But Dick Fuld, who ran Lehman Brothers, called me in - he called me in when the stock was at 40 -- because I was saying: "look, I thought the stock was wrong, thought it was in the wrong place" - he brings me in and lies to me, lies to me, lies to me.

STEWART [feigning shock]: The CEO of a company lied to you?

CRAMER: Shocking.

STEWART: But isn't that financial reporting? What do you think is the role of CNBC? . . . .

CRAMER: I didn't think that Bear Stearns would evaporate overnight. I knew the people who ran it. I thought they were honest. That was my mistake. I really did. I thought they were honest. Did I get taken in because I knew them before? Maybe, to some degree. . . . It's difficult to have a reporter say: "I just came from an interview with Hank Paulson and he lied his darn-fool head off." It's difficult. I think it challenges the boundaries.

STEWART: But what is the responsibility of the people who cover Wall Street? . . . . I'm under the assumption, and maybe this is purely ridiculous, but I'm under the assumption that you don't just take their word at face value. That you actually then go around and try to figure it out (applause).

After I heard this exchange, I couldn't help but think of the coverage in the lead-up to the Iraq War. This morning I was pleased to see Glenn Greenwald draw this same parallel. In both of these cases it is the failure of journalists to critically examine the information that they are told. Then, when the information turns out to be false, they feign surprise that they were not told the truth. There is no greater evidence that the corporate media mainly acts as stenographers to power as opposed to an independent check on the power structure. Too often is it an accepted view that the media simply report what they are told with little examination of the validity of the information. It is interesting to see Jon Stewart, the host of a satirical comedy show, fulfilling the role of a critical journalist by simply holding people to account when they try to feed the public lies. This type of behavior should be the norm, not the exception.



I am in agreement that Stewart's interview should be praised and that it was correct and appropriate to go after CNBC and Jim Cramer, but this will only prove useful if society learns from this encounter. Jim Cramer is shocked that he has been lied to by powerful people that have an interest in feeding the media misleading information. When items like this come as a shock to journalists, it should underscore that the media in this country are in trouble. Critical journalism should not be confined to Comedy Central, but should percolate into every major media network. We have seen uncritical reporting assist in making the case for war and now shielding us from some of the truths about the financial crisis. A critical and independent media is fundamental to a healthy democracy. We can only hope that instances like this can awaken us into demanding a better and more critical media.

The Fairness Doctrine, the Broadcaster Freedom Act, and the Expansion of Public Discourse

Martha Zoller has a new column that I happened to run across today that voices its support for the "Broadcaster Freedom Act". The "Broadcaster Freedom Act" will effectively bar the FCC from making any new rules or regulations that would reinstate or re-implement standards once set in the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine was established in 1949 to provide for a more balanced discourse on controversial issues that were discussed on public airwaves. The belief was that there were fewer broadcast licenses than there were people who would like to have them, therefore licensees accept certain public responsibility for the use of the airwaves. Given this acceptance of public responsibility, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to devote some of their time to discussion of issues in the public interest and to give airtime to opposing viewpoints. Broadcasters could air opposing views in many different formats (news segments, editorial spots, etc.) but were not required to air the opposing views within the same program. The Fairness Doctrine also didn't require broadcasters programming to be split down a 50/50 line, but merely provide a balance in discussion of issues in the public interest.

The Fairness Doctrine stopped being enforced in the mid-1980's when then FCC Chair Mark Fowler expressed the belief that the view of broadcasters as community trustees should be replaced with the view of broadcasters as marketplace participants. In other words, Fowler advocated the position that content being broadcast on the airwaves should be left to the "free-market". Fowler would also argue, as does Martha Zoller, that the Fairness Doctrine limited free speech by giving the government control over a station's editorial content. Zoller states:

We must protect the free market everywhere it is being assaulted, and talk radio is a free speech market that should be left alone by regulation.

We must remember when discussing this issue, that the airwaves belong to the public and that broadcasters should serve the public interest. Since the end of the Fairness Doctrine we have seen continued concentration of the media into the hands of just a few companies. Though some would argue that we have more channels now with the existence of cable, I am reminded of Senator Byron Dorgan's observation that this is like many voices coming from the same ventriloquist. We have seen opinion and viewpoints become more limited on the airwaves, not expanded since things have been turned over to the "free-market". You can see this firsthand in the coverage in the lead-up to the Iraq War and in the "post-9/11 world" where dissenting opinion was suppressed. Zoller further claims in her article:

The marketplace doesn’t want liberal talk radio. There have been some shows that have done well, but the numbers are not in their favor. This year at the Talkers New Media Seminar, there were more liberal/progressive/independent hosts represented, but the bread and butter still goes to conservative talk because conservatives are so under-represented in the rest of the media market.

When we discuss topics such as the public airwaves, which are owned by the public and should serve in the interest of the public, it is not productive to speak about such topics as "products" subjected to the "marketplace". Public forums for debate, discussion, and the expansion of ideas are fundamental to democracy and speaking about different viewpoints as if we are choosing between brands of soda pop, is grossly missing the point. Simply stating that the public "doesn't want" the other view is no excuse for its suppression and in a society that benefits from debating all viewpoints, it is completely necessary to further open up the level of discourse.

Media consolidation has hurt democracy and it is not productive to think about the issue in terms of a "liberal" or a "conservative" media, but rather recognize that our media outlets are largely stenographers to power. Our media outlets produce sanitized infotainment that passes as news and keeps advertisers coming back for more. Perhaps it is more beneficial to look at this issue of "Fairness" through the eyes of a 1969 Supreme Court decision that upheld the Fairness Doctrine:

A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a...frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.

— U.S. Supreme Court, upholding the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 1969

A Sanitized War: Coverage both McDonald's and the Pentagon can Agree on

The lens through which the citizens of the United States view war is often sanitized and "advertiser friendly". In the run-up to the Iraq war, the focus of the media was often aimed at the weaponry that would be used in the war and a fascination with the technological aspects of the United States military. Different types of aircraft were analyzed and their capability for dropping bombs on Iraq were discussed like analysts were discussing a video game. Once the campaign of "Shock and Awe" was underway we saw cameras perched on hotel balconies beaming images of wild explosions back to our living rooms. Spectacular clouds of smoke and fire filled the Iraqi sky as bursts of sporadic anti-aircraft fire swept across our screens. The invasion of Iraq also provided us with a new way to view war, through the eyes of embedded reporters. We were told that this would give us a never before seen, first-hand look at how wars are fought by putting reporters alongside troops on the front lines. This move was pure genius on the part of the Department of Defense because the reporters who were embedded with the U.S. troops developed a militarized type of Stockholm Syndrome. What I mean by this is that the reporters developed a unique bond with the troops who were protecting them and because of this, objective and independent journalism suffered. We began to see the war through the eyes of the invading forces and sanitized war coverage was what we consumed.

The reality of war is not good for advertisers. Picture this: a reporter, on the ground in Fallujah takes his cameraman to the scene of where U.S. forces just clashed with Iraqi resistance fighters. Some civilians were caught in the crossfire and three children, ages ranging between 8 and 14, were gunned down. The reporter is fresh on the scene and instructs his cameraman to show the bodies of the dead children, with pools of blood still fresh on the ground. After this report the network must throw to commercial and then you see an advertisement for McDonald's complete with happy children and families laughing and living in a carefree world of Big Mac's and Happy Meals. This is specifically what advertisers do not want; certainly a war without the casualties is more appealing for the advertisers to sell their products. Not only do advertisers benefit from such sanitized coverage, but the government also benefits from an "advertiser-friendly" war. There is a known realization that people would be horrified if they saw actual images of war: the dead bodies, the maimed civilians, and the voices of the oppressed. This is illustrated by the ban that was placed on the media (by the U.S. government) of photographing the coffins of U.S. service men and women upon their return to the U.S. They want our support for the war, as long as we get to see the war they want us to see.

Who benefits from this type of coverage? Clearly the news networks benefit from such coverage. As illustrated, advertisers will continue to spend money to advertise in programs that are sanitized so as not to conflict with the Utopian worlds that they present to us in each :30 second commercial. The government also benefits from such coverage. Public support for wars can be manipulated much easier if the public sees the war through a lens that does not present a true reality.

Who does not benefit from this type of coverage? First and foremost, all of us do not benefit from this type of coverage. We are not seeing the full picture and we are not getting independent reporting that shows us reality, no matter how ugly. I argue that we need to see these images on our television screens and in our newspapers. We need to see the dead children, the maimed populations, and hear the voices of the oppressed. There are some who may say that they do not want those types of images on their televisions and I say to them, that if that is the case, then maybe we should rethink what we are doing overseas and stand up for ending the torment of the Iraqi population. Public opinion would strongly shift if we started showing the actual images of war on our television screens. We are indeed a compassionate people, we just need to be given the full and accurate picture of what is happening.

Let's give up our fascination with machines that make war on populations and refocus our attention on the real issue surrounding war, the human cost. The human cost of the Iraqi family that has lost a child due to a cluster bomb, the human cost of the American family whose child came back from serving in Iraq and has committed suicide, and the human cost of the population of Fallujah whose children are experiencing birth defects thanks to the white phosphorous that the United States used in their assault on the city. If our country wants our support for war, we must be prepared to see the ugly, gritty, brutal human cost of war.

O'Reilly Smears the National Conference for Media Reform

As discussed in my previous entry, I will be taking this opportunity to examine Bill O'Reilly's coverage of the National Conference on Media Reform that I attended in Minneapolis this past weekend. O'Reilly had announced on his show last week that he would show his viewers just how "nuts" the people who attended the conference were on Monday evening's broadcast of "The O'Reilly Factor". O'Reilly devoted his "Impact Segment" to the conference and proceeded to smear and attack its participants. I will post the video below so you can view the segment, but below I will discuss a few of O'Reilly's claims.

1. O'Reilly begins his segment by labeling the conference the "far left party in Minnesota". This is just the first instance of many throughout the video where O'Reilly and his panelists label the attendees of the conference as "far left", "the lunatic left", "unstable loons", "a threat", and "fascists". These terms are clearly meant to smear the attendees of the conference and do nothing to provide any kind of meaningful debate on the topic at hand. O'Reilly never defines the term "far left" yet uses it as an insult. Perhaps a more meaningful discussion would be one that examines what he views as "far left" and one where he refrains from name calling.

2. O'Reilly states that "these people" have "anti-American views". I was at the conference and the issues at hand are how media consolidation hurts independent media and minority voices, how consolidation has led to sensationalized news coverage and business friendly dumbed down coverage, and how a healthy democracy needs a strong independent media to properly function. I would be interested to hear Mr. O'Reilly's views on how these issues are "anti-American".

3. O'Reilly plays three sound bytes of coverage from the conference, yet fails to put any of the statements into context or launch a discussion of the points raised in the video clips.

4. This point is a glaring one and probably one of the most important: both of O'Reilly's guests were not at the conference yet speak as if they have the authority to tell viewers what the goals and aims of the conference were. This not only lacks journalistic integrity, but leads to a complete misrepresentation of what the conference was about. Perhaps a more "fair and balanced" look would be to have on either an organizer of the conference or even an attendee.

5. O'Reilly states that the attendees are a "threat" to America and have done a lot of damage. I would ask, in what way is promoting more independence in the media a threat to America? His panelist, Mary Katherine Ham, then states that the attendees believe that "conservatives have entirely too much control" in the media. This is blatantly false. The conference has nothing to do with giving liberal voices more say while attempting to smother conservative voices. It is about the excessive corporate control of the airwaves and the need for the people to reclaim what is rightfully theirs. The people at the conference believe that it is important to have a deeper discussion about issues (from all political ideologies) instead of dividing issues into categories like "left" and "right" which this segment clearly does.

6. Bill O'Reilly states that "they don't want any dissenting voices" and that they "want to shut Fox News up." Who is it that does not want dissenting voices...a group that dissents from corporatist policies or a cable "news" show that doesn't have equal representation amongst guests? It also needs to be made clear that it is not about "shutting Fox News up", but holding them accountable for misrepresentations and lies that are told, as illustrated in this very segment. Later in the video Mary Katherine Ham says "they want to use the government to shut down conservative voices...it's totally fascist"...once again, a lie.

7. It is stated that Fox News is the "most fair" network because Hillary Clinton's campaign chair and John McCain have both said so. This naturally doesn't make it so and Juan Williams makes statements about independent pollsters coming to the same conclusion without citing a report or giving a link to any of these reports.

8. Juan Williams states that the attendees of the conference are "making it difficult to have a civil, logical discussion" when discussing the future of the country. I would consider a civil discussion one without name calling, something this segment fails to do. I would consider a logical discussion one that presents views from someone at the conference in question and does not misrepresent and lie about the issue at hand. This segment fails on this front as well.

9. Ham states that the Bill Moyers and Dan Rather gave "Orwellian speeches" at the event because they stated that they want greater diversity in the media. She then states "they don't, they want to shut it down..." Yet she provides no evidence for this claim, she simply states it is so and the segment ends.

As you can once again see, the type of journalism on display on "The O'Reilly Factor" and Fox News is appalling and leads to false representations of the topic at hand. This segment is not balanced and it is simply meant to be an attack piece with opinion stated as fact and no discussion on the actual contents of the National Conference on Media Reform. It is dishonest and a disgraceful display of the exact type of media that the attendees of the conference wishes to reform.

Also note, that nowhere in that segment is the ambush of Bill Moyers as discussed in my previous blog. This is where the second video comes in...O'Reilly waits to show a :15 second clip of the ambush in his "Body Language" segment where he attacks Moyers while discussing his body language. As you can plainly see, the footage is heavily edited and O'Reilly is free to attack Moyers personally while not addressing anything that was said during the ambush.

Check out both videos below and feel free to share your views. I would love to hear from you.