Turning American Media Into Pravda

The release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's Phase II report, describing in great detail the lies and deceptions made by the Bush White House in the run-up to the war - is perhaps most notable for what it DIDN'T cover, like the activities of the White House Iraq Group, assembled precisely to sell the war to the public, or the effort to bully intelligence agencies into offering misleading or incomplete data that sided with the White House's views. The report is useful but really a simple analysis that measures the Administration's public statements against known facts, which any blogger with "the Google" could have done.

The Administration has responded to these charges by saying that we're all just upset because it was so successful. But what's interesting is how the summary of White House lies has rankled those inside the media who bought whatever Bush and Cheney were selling in 2002 and 2003, and who don't want to be tarred with that same brush of propaganda, even though that's precisely what they deserve. And so you have idiots like Fred Hiatt compounding the lies by trying to claim that the Phase II report didn't say what it said.

Hiatt:

On Iraq’s nuclear weapons program? The president’s statements “were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.”

The actual report (pg. 15):

(U) Conclusion 1: Statements by the President, Vice-President, Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor regarding a possible nuclear weapons program were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates, but did not convey the substantial disagreements that existed in the intelligence community.

Hiatt:

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.”

The actual report (pg. 49):

(U) Conclusion 5: Statements by the President, Vice-President, Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense regarding Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction were generally substantiated by intelligence information, though many statements made regarding ongoing production prior to late 2002 reflected a higher level of certainty than the intelligence judgments themselves.

Hiatt:

Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.”

The report (pg. 57):

(U) Conclusion 8: Statements by the President, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State that Iraq was developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could be used to deviler chemical or biological weapons were generally substantiated by intelligence information, but did not convey the substantial disagreements that existed in the intelligence community.

And in another tactic, you have duped editorialists like Nick Kristof saying that the reason he didn't speak up against the war was because of the lack of meaningful Democratic Party opposition, which neatly ignores the majority of Democrats in the House and 21 Democrats in the Senate who voted against authorization, as well as those pesky 15 million protesters in February 2003 (present company included).

There's a lot of self-protection going on here, with media figures wanting to absolve themselves of any blame for the worst foreign policy disaster in US history. But on the margins, you're starting to see some journalists come to terms with the failure of their profession, like Ruth Rosen of the San Francisco Chronicle.

I worked as an editorial writer at The San Francisco Chronicle, where a liberal editorial board raised serious objections to the war. And yet, in the years following 9/11, I felt editorial restraints that never allowed us to tell the whole truth about the lies and deception that led to America's most catastrophic foreign policy disaster [...]

Let me give you some examples. I was raised in a Republican family, but schooled by the great iconoclastic journalist I.F. Stone, who taught me that you can find the truth without inside sources, if only you're willing to see beyond patriotic fervor and examine voices in the public domain that are marginalized, So, I would read national security experts who countered Donald Rumfeld's ridiculous predictions; I would read the British, Canadian, Italian and French press; I would read the writings of experts in resource wars and weapons of mass destruction.

No, I didn't know I was right. But I was sure that the administration was lying. And, I knew that at the very least that our editorials should be asking why Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al should be believed when I had found strong evidence that they were cherry picking intelligence, and setting up their own office in the Pentagon, and acting in complete secrecy [...]

To its credit, the editorial board raised some of the toughest questions in the mainstream media. And yet....I was the only one who didn't believe Colin Powell's shameful presentation at the United Nations. Why? Not because I had special insider knowledge, but like I.F. Stone, I had found credible people who could dissect his speech and found it unconvincing and unpersuasive [...]

This week, I sat with a former colleague from the editorial board in a café, rather than in the room where we used to make our editorial decisions. He admitted that I had been right, but even more, that even in a liberal paper, the editor and most of the board, had felt restrained, afraid of seeming unpatriotic, afraid of saying the emperor wore no clothes, afraid of not giving the President the benefit of the doubt, afraid of truth telling without access to inside sources.

Unfortunately for Rosen, being right is bad for her career, and remaining in the editorial consensus results in failing upwards, and never getting called on the equivalent of war crimes that people like Tom Friedman committed on the public. This raises a larger question about the corporate takeover of the media and how their agendas end up reflecting what gets covered and what doesn't. Conglomerates who profit from war are in no mood to resist it, and conglomerates who want to maintain their credibility would never toss out the bulk of their staffs who were entirely wrong. Fortunately there's a movement dedicated to restoring an independent media and returning the power of knowledge back to the people. Dan Rather spoke at it, and Bill Moyers had a great moment when he turned the tables on a Fox News flunky that tried to ambush him, which you just have to see.



It's called the National Conference for Media Reform, and it's our last best hope as a nation to get the press we deserve. As for the war criminals who led us down a path to destruction, there's always a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Bob Johnson's A Fool

Bob Johnson, the founder of BET (which doesn't actually reflect well on him or do much to "lift up" Black America, considering that their almost entire output it Hot Ghetto Mess and 106th and Park), said a really stupid thing yesterday, obliquely citing Barack Obama's drug use as a teenager, and then lying about it.

"To me, as an African American, I am frankly insulted the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues — when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood; I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book — when they have been involved," Johnson said.

Obama wrote about his teenage drug use — marijuana, alcohol and sometimes cocaine — in his memoir, "Dreams from My Father."

Johnson later said his comments referred to Obama's work as a community organizer in Chicago "and nothing else. Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect," he said in a statement released by Clinton's campaign.

Actually, Bob Johnson is irresponsible and incorrect. A community organizer is not only a noble profession, but Saul Alinsky, the "godfather" of community organizing, was one of Hillary Clinton's heroes. His comments make no sense if he was referring to community organizing.

The real problem here is that the Clinton campaign is allowing Bob Johnson to speak for them at all. Johnson has a horrible economic past, having gleefully sat on Bush's "privatize Social Security" board, having called the estate tax "racist" and having lobbied against tax fairness for hedge fund managers. No respectable Democrat would ever share the stage with him. I agree with Matt Stoller that this offers a real opportunity for Obama:

Obama should use this moment to go after big media and outclass Clinton with substantive and sharp distinctions on policy that show him as a forward-looking and deep candidate. He is already out with the policy that diversity of media ownership is critical to a healthy media system, now is a good moment to make that explicit and go after the media monopolies.

Better that than continue this identity fight, which, because of the stereotypes being thrown around, he will probably lose. He's doing much better in the recently released Washington Post poll, that shows the race nationally at 42-37-11. Obama has already garnered increased support from African-Americans because of the Clinton campaign's attacks combined with his Iowa victory, leading to Clinton practically pulling out of South Carolina. It's time to get back the white liberals. Moving off of racial identity and on to some substantive and noticeable fight would be a way to do that.

Media ownership is one of Stoller's pet causes, but in this case he's absolutely right. Johnson is a creature of a diseased media oligarchy, and the causes he's supported feed right out of that. He's an example of the narrowness of out discourse. Rather than harp on the racial nonsense and the smearing, Obama could offer a direct critique of the kind of economic inequality someone like Johnson wants to maintain. Otherwise, I do fear that Obama is being lured into a trap.

And so it's worth wondering if there's not a coordinated strategy among the Clintons to force a conversation over race. Not a conversation that will be harmful to Obama -- the Clintons have, after all, had to spend a fair amount of time apologizing, and clarifying -- but a conversation that will be harmful to his message. If Obama has to spend a lot of time talking about race, it's hard for him to be the post-racial candidate. If he has to spend a lot of time on divisive topics, it's hard for him to make an appeal for unity. And if he gets thrown off message at this point in the campaign, it will be exceedingly hard for him to blunt Clinton's momentum. And, whether it's a coordinated strategy on the part of the Clintons or not, it's definitely what's happening.

And when you add in the voter suppression effort that Clinton surrogates are engaged in, trying to make it harder for union members to vote, you have to question the win-at-all-costs strategy here. I don't think Obama's campaign has been squeaky clean, but I've yet to see voter suppression tactics. Meanwhile John Edwards seems completely apart from this debate, and he's doing pretty darn well in Nevada considering the media blackout. If Obama would short-circuit the debate and talk about the ECONOMIC reasons to reject Bob Johnson's comments, he would reap a bounty. Instead, it's identity politics, his coalition isn't big enough, and Clinton is likely to benefit.

D-Day Just Sold To Globotech

Hello, blogger-reader-types! This is William R. Lottacash, CEO of Globotech, and we're pleased as punch to be boldly entering the exciting world of new media, creating synergies with our landline products and reaching a whole new demographic class. And thanks to the FCC, it's all perfectly legal!

By the narrowest of margins, the Federal Communications Commission adopted proposals by its chairman to tighten the reins on the cable television industry while loosening 32-year-old restrictions that have prevented a company from owning both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city [...]

Mr. Martin has said that a relaxation of the ownership rules was a modest, though vital step toward assisting the newspaper industry as it struggled financially as advertising and readership migrates rapidly to the Internet. He has been critical of the cable television industry for raising rates far greater than the rate of inflation and for failing to offer consumers enough choices in subscription packages.

“We cannot ignore the fact the media marketplace is considerably different than when the media ownership rule was put in place more than 30 years ago,” he said of the newspaper-broadcast rule.

The dissenting commissioners complained strongly about the outcome.

Michael J. Copps, a Democratic commissioner who has led a nationwide effort against relaxing the media ownership rules, said the rule was nothing more than a big Christmas present to the largest conglomerates.

“In the final analysis,” Mr. Copps said, “the real winners today are businesses that are in many cases quite healthy, and the real losers are going to be all of us who depend on the news media to learn what’s happening in our communities and to keep an eye on local government.”

See, blogger-readers, it's your fault this happened. And hopefully, with Globotech's new blog-product, you will be more enticed to read and watch our other fine newsotainment content so we don't have to buy the whole Internet.

Our first blog-action: please throw eggs at John Kerry's office!

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) condemned Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin’s decision today to rush through a vote on media consolidation. The vote to relax the rules regarding cross media ownership of newspapers and radio stations passed by a 3-2 party line vote today. The FCC vote will allow media companies to further consolidate. Martin’s decision to the hold the vote ignores the expressed will of the Senate Commerce Committee. Sens. Kerry and Obama made clear last week that if Martin forced through the vote today, they would ask the Appropriations Committee to deny funding for implementation of the rule produced by the forced vote.

"By rushing through this vote today, Chairman Martin did the bidding of big corporate interests and threatened to further marginalize independent media, directly limit diversity, and damage America’s public discourse," said Kerry. "Chairman Martin was warned that ignoring the will of the Commerce Committee would have consequences, and I will work hard with my colleagues on the appropriations committee to ensure that the FCC’s funding reflects Chairman Martin’s decision to go against the commission’s own charter and limit media diversity rather than foster it."

These fine FCC Chairmen are only doing the job of ensuring Big Media keeps a small slice - only 100% - of the media pie. Globotech tells all blog-o-sphericans (I just made that up!) to reject Sen. Kerry's extreme move. Thank you.

(when are you gonna untie me? -dday)

Embarrasment of the Riches

John Edwards sees the prospect of losing me to Chris Dodd, raises me a letter to the FCC about the other massive giveaway to corporate America revealed yesterday:

Dear (FCC) Chairman Martin:

I urge you to cease your efforts to radically rewrite the rules preventing excessive media consolidation. You and your fellow commissioners have the responsibility to ensure that our nation's media is open, democratic and as diverse as the American people, and not – like too much of our economy and our political system today – dominated by the wealthiest Americans, large corporations and their lobbyists. Rewriting the ownership rules in the manner you propose is contrary to that responsibility.

For decades, administrations of both parties and the FCC have tolerated and even encouraged the extreme consolidation of our media. In just the two years after telecommunications deregulation in 1996, the ownership of nearly half of America's radio stations changed, and by 2000, one media company had acquired over 1,100 radio stations. Eight business conglomerates now control the majority of media content in America, and two-thirds of all independently-owned newspapers have shut down since 1975.

Any benefits to consumers from vertical integration have been overwhelmed by the threats to competition, fair pricing and journalistic independence. The result of all this over-concentration, Mr. Chairman, is a poorer democracy, with a few loud corporate voices drowning out independent perspectives and local participation.

High levels of media consolidation threaten free speech, they tilt the public dialogue towards corporate priorities and away from local concerns, and they make it increasingly difficult for women and people of color to own meaningful stakes in our nation's media. Rather than further weakening efforts to ensure a diverse media, as you now propose, the FCC should instead be strengthening media ownership and concentration limits so that a few huge multinational corporations are not in charge of shaping our democracy.

When your predecessor Chairman Powell made a similar attempt, nearly 3 million highly diverse Americans wrote to the FCC to express their grave concerns. I hope that you and your fellow commissioners can find the will to continue to deny the ambitions of a small number of media executives and their lobbyists, in the interest of advancing a fuller, fairer democracy.

Yours sincerely,

John Edwards

The fight against Michael Powell's efforts to loosen media ownership rules was one of the first people-powered movements. It would be repeated 10 times over if Martin continues with this nonsense. We need to be making those ownership rules more restrictive, not less, and we should be encouraging media diversity, not agglomeration.

Edwards and Dodd are running campaigns the right way - by showing leadership instead of talking about it. I hear Joe Biden is signing on to Dodd's hold on the awful telecom immunity bill; that's good too, and it shows how leadership is contagious. Our problem in the Democratic Party right now is a dearth of true leadership, combined with the fact that the person running away with the primary has no interest in taking that mantle. Which is why I think an outpouring of support for leaders like Dodd and Edwards may force her to take notice.

UPDATE: Like I said, leadership is contagious. Obama wants the head of the Voting Rights Division at the Justice Department fired. How about putting a hold on the Mukasey confirmation until that happens, Barack?

In a letter today, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) urged the acting attorney general to fire voting rights section chief John Tanner. Citing Tanner's remarks earlier this month that "minorities don't become elderly the way white people do: They die first," Obama wrote that "Through his inexcusable comments, Mr. Tanner has clearly demonstrated that he possesses neither the character nor the judgment to be heading the Voting Rights Section." He concluded: "For that reason, I respectfully request that you remove him from his position."

The OTHER Proposed Massive Giveaway To Giant Corporations Today

Overshadowed by the Senate markup of the FISA bill including retroactive immunity for telecoms, Chris Dodd's noble hold on the bill, etc., is an item in today's New York Times that has just as damaging consequences for the future of American democracy. Apparently FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin is quietly planning to relax media ownership restrictions even MORE than they are now, an action that would prompt even more consolidation in the industry and control of the news and information media in even less hands. As it would increase the power of media conglomerates, the implications for all sorts of pernicious legislation, up to and including the destruction of net neutrality, are enormous.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission has circulated an ambitious plan to relax the decades-old media ownership rules, including repealing a rule that forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city.

Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the commission, wants to repeal the rule in the next two months — a plan that, if successful, would be a big victory for some executives of media conglomerates.

Among them are Samuel Zell, the Chicago investor who is seeking to complete a buyout of the Tribune Company, and Rupert Murdoch, who has lobbied against the rule for years so that he can continue controlling both The New York Post and a Fox television station in New York.

There's a 3-2 partisan split on the FCC, and the majority Republicans are down with repealing ownership restrictions. The Democrats are questioning it for now, Michael Copps is totally against it and Jonathan Adelstein is making less forceful statements, also to his credit, he called the proposal "awfully aggressive." The plan for Martin, clearly, is to woo Adelstein and call it a bipartisan approach.

Martin's predecessor, Michael Powell, tried the same thing three years ago, was taken to court over it, and lost:

Three years ago, the commission lost a major court challenge to its last effort, led by Michael K. Powell, its chairman at the time, to relax the media ownership rules. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, concluded that the commission had failed to adequately justify the new rules. Mr. Martin’s proposal would presumably include new evidence aimed at fending off similar legal challenges.

Mr. Powell’s effort, which had been supported by lobbyists for broadcasters, newspapers and major media conglomerates, provoked a wave of criticism from a broad coalition of opponents. Among them were the National Organization for Women, the National Rifle Association, the Parents Television Council and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The agency was flooded with nearly three million comments against changing the rules, the most it has ever received in a rule-making process.

What's forcing Martin's hand are some new major acquisitions by some of the biggest names in media. Sam Zell is trying to buy out the Tribune Company, and receive by proxy the "temporary waivers" that allowed Tribune to own a newspaper and a TV station in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Hartford. In addition, there's Rupert Murdoch's recent purchase of the Wall Street Journal, and his attempt to further consolidate the information market.

It can be argued that the media consolidation that we have already seen, dating from the Telecommunications Act of 1996, are in many ways directly responsible for the cheapening of information and the trivialization of American democracy that we witness today. We know that radio has become almost a two-owner game between Viacom and Clear Channel, and as a result talk radio in particular is grossly imbalanced and not reflective of the market. The lack of local participation in media management in particular has led to mass syndication and a depressing sameness around the radio dial, as well as an elimination of any local content. Consolidation has also led to a reliance on profit and meeting Wall Street expectations rather than reporting the news. Massive cuts in newsroom budgets and foreign affairs bureaus are a direct result of control from a corporation rather than anyone acting in the local interest. So newspapers rely more on AP wire stories, shared content with other papers in the conglomerate, syndicated content, and articles that are really press releases, while local broadcast "news" has cratered almost completely. People are turning to the Internet for their news and that has spurned something of an information revolution, but the vast majority of the public still gets their information from old-media sources, and that public is not being served.

A bipartisan coalition of Senators is trying to stop this in its tracks.

Chairman Martin’s secret plans were uncovered during a Commerce Committee hearing yesterday by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), one of the most vocal critics of media consolidation. Sen. Dorgan has co-authored a letter with Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to the FCC calling for a more transparent and open public review of the media ownership rules.

“We do not believe the Commission has adequately studied the impact of media consolidation,” wrote Sens. Dorgan and Lott. “The FCC should not rush forward and repeat mistakes of the past. The Commission is under considerable scrutiny with this proceeding. We strongly encourage you to slow down and proceed with caution.”

Later, Dorgan said, “If the chairman intends to do something by the end of the year, then there will be a firestorm of protest and I’m going to be carrying the wood.”

Chairman Martin has preferred to operate in secret and broker deals that benefit major media conglomerates at the expense of the public interest. It's not likely that you'll hear much about this in newspapers or TV stations owned by those same conglomerates (Kudos to the New York Times for printing this, even if it came out in a public Congressional session).

Free Press has more. This is a big deal, and with telecom companies increasingly trying to insert themselves into media distribution as well, all of these bills are interrelated. A telecom industry immunized from lawbreaking could soon be owning the media that you watch - and they could be charging Web content producers in exchange for speedier access. The drive to beat back media ownership, net neutrality, and all of these deprivations is a classic case of people versus the powerful who have no intention of working in the public interest.

The FCC has a contact page. They should hear from you about this.

Australian Hearst

So we learn that Rupert Murdoch, the soon-to-be owner of the Wall Street Journal, which he can add to the rest of his media empire, called Tony Blair 3 times in the 10 days before the start of the war in Iraq.

The telephone conversations were among six calls between the two men detailed by the cabinet office in response to a freedom of information request by the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Avebury [...]

No details were given of what subjects Mr Blair and the News Corporation chairman discussed in the calls on March 11, 13 and 19 2003, ahead of the launch of US-led military action in Iraq on March 20.

Lord Avebury said: "Rupert Murdoch has exerted his influence behind the scenes on a range of policies on which he is known to have strong views, including the regulation of broadcasting and the Iraq war. The public can now scrutinise the timing of his contacts with the former prime minister, to see whether they can be linked to events in the outside world."

I have a feeling that I know the nature of those three conversations:

"You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

Media concentration is so completely dangerous, and this is a textbook example of why.