The Dilemma we Face in an Era of Right Wing Control of our News Media

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Sun May-17-09 05:00 PM
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The Dilemma we Face in an Era of Right Wing Control of our News Media

Most Americans do not share the values of the Republican Party, blue dog Democrats, or our corporate news media: Most Americans would like their government to provide a national health care plan; most believe that women should not be branded as criminals for choosing to have an abortion; most believe we should have laws to require a higher minimum wage than we have; the list goes on and on. So right wingers need something other than their policies to get the votes they need to win elections.

Our Founding Fathers, recognizing that a free flow of information is essential for the maintenance of democracy, enacted the First Amendment to our Constitution in order to address that need. Such a free flow of information would be instrumental in exposing the Republican Party and its allies for what they are.

But the virtual monopoly by supporters of the Republican Party on the ownership of major news sources in our country does much to stem the free flow of information. In the lead-up to the Iraq War, our corporate news media failed to explain to the American people that the Bush administration�s case for invading Iraq was based on little or no evidence; even now they refuse to inform us in any detail of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths resulting from our invasion and occupation of their country.

During both the 2000 and 2004 elections they did everything they could to elect and re-elect George Bush to the presidency: They failed to follow-up on clear evidence that Bush had failed to fulfill his National Guard commitments; and they failed to explain to the American people that the proposed Bush tax cuts would benefit only our wealthiest citizens. In marked contrast to their protection of Bush, they did everything they could to destroy Gore�s and Kerry�s candidacies: During the 2000 Presidential race, Al Gore, one of the most decent men to ever run for the U.S. Presidency, was recast as a liar and an egomaniac. His resounding victory over George W. Bush in debate after debate was recast by our corporate media as a humiliating defeat by repeatedly emphasizing his sighs, rather than the numerous Bush lies that were the cause of those sighs. In 2004, John Kerry, a legitimate war hero, was recast as a fraud, through the constant repetition of lies promulgated by an organization with close (but unrevealed at the time) ties to George W. Bush.

The rise of the corporate (phony) news media in the United States

Though national news in our country has always been slanted in favor of the privileged over the vulnerable, it has nevertheless long been recognized in our country that the use of the public airways is a privilege rather than a right. That is why, as early as 1927 our government began requiring licenses for use of the public airways, in the Radio Act of 1927, which was expanded in the Communications Act of 1934. Since then, the underlying standard for radio and television licensing has been the �public interest, convenience and necessity clause�, which is explained here by Sharon Zechowski:

The obligation to serve the public interest is integral to the "trusteeship" model of broadcasting � the philosophical foundation upon which broadcasters are expected to operate. The trusteeship paradigm is used to justify government regulation of broadcasting. It maintains that the electromagnetic spectrum is a limited resource belonging to the public, and only those most capable of serving the public interest are entrusted with a broadcast license�

But with the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, we began to see a rapid decline in the quality of the news we receive. By relaxing rules that prohibited monopoly control of telecommunications, that Act led to the concentration of the national news media of the United States largely into the hands of a very few wealthy corporations, to an extent never before seen in our country. This, more than any other event, has allowed the content of the news received by American citizens to be determined by a small number of very wealthy and powerful interests. Hence the pervasive blackout of meaningful news.

David Podvin and Carolyn Kay explain how Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, put this process into play at NBC:

The new dimension that Welch introduced was the concept that the mainstream media should aggressively advance the political agenda of the corporations that own it. He did not see any difference between corporate journalism and corporate manufacturing� Business was business, and the difference between winners and losers was profit� From Welch�s perspective, it was insanity� for the corporate owners of the mainstream media to restrain themselves from using all of their assets to promote their financial well being. In general, he saw corporate news organizations as untapped political resources that should be freed from the burden of objectivity.

The implications for democracy

The implications for national politics have been quite unfortunate, as Democrats feel the need to move further and further to the right, lest they risk being ignored, mocked, or attacked by our corporate news media.

This situation is intolerable. A free and independent press, which provides unbiased accurate information to the people, is crucial to a healthy functioning democracy. When most of the press is under the control of corporate interests, which strive to tilt elections in their favor, democracy becomes nothing but a fig leaf. The result is not only a playing field tilted heavily towards the conservative (Republican) Party, but also that the more progressive (Democratic) Party is intimidated into moving way to the right. The American people suffer for that because the corporate interests are served at the expense of the vast majority of people.

An article by Eric Alterman in The Nation makes this point. With respect to the so-called �mainstream news media�:

Its members consistently defer to conservative Republican Presidents with a history of deliberate deception, allowing them to define their terms� Its members invite Republican Congressmen, known to be not merely unreliable but delusional, to lie about Democratic Congressmen. When challenged, they reply that they cannot be bothered to discern the truth�

What might this have to do with President Obama�s tilt to the right?

President Obama has (unfortunately in my opinion) been no exception to the Democratic Party�s tendency to move to the right: He has exhibited little interest in prosecuting Bush administration officials for their many crimes, despite frequent criticism of those crimes in the past; he has continued the Bush denial of the right of habeas corpus to our detainees; his reversal of his pledge to release torture photos is reminiscent of Bush administration stances on government secrecy; he has escalated our war in Afghanistan; he has continued the Bush administration policies of bailing out Wall Street, despite the warnings of several progressive economists that such policies are dangerous and do not serve the public interest, while refusing to support comparable relief for ordinary citizens victimized by home foreclosures; and he has given numerous http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/us/politics/06web-health.html&OQ=_rQ3D2&OP=17978840Q2FQ2AlpQ25Q2A(_0bQ7D__FQ22Q2AQ22aa3Q2Aa2Q2AaIQ2AQ20bQ2AK_MeFe0bQ2AaIlpQ25ctpYMFtRtFkM">signs of backtracking on his campaign promise to provide a Medicare-like public option for health care to those who need it.

To be fair to President Obama, I feel certain that he must face tremendous pressure from our corporate news media, as well as his military and CIA, to do the things noted in the above paragraph. I have little doubt that if he hadn�t done some or all of those things he would have been ruthlessly castigated by all of those entities. Even as it is, right wing forces have managed to successfully portray him, among certain segments of our population, as the most liberal/socialist President we have ever had. If he went against those forces too aggressively he would be embroiled in a vicious political fight. And it is also relevant that as our first black President he is susceptible to virulent racism among some segments of our population.

There has been a great deal of heated (to put it mildly) debate on DU about Obama�s motivations for many of his actions (or inactions). I don�t want to get involved in an argument over what his motivations are because I don�t know what they are. But the following possibilities come to mind: 1) He has internalized the rationale of the right-center; 2) He has succumbed to the political pressure noted above; 3) He has some grand political strategy in mind, in which by giving initial ground on these issues he will build up political capital to the point where he will eventually be able to fulfill the hopes that many of us progressives/liberals had for him; and 4) some combination of the above.

My own feeling on the matter is that to the extent that options 1 or 2 apply, I am very disappointed in President Obama. To the extent that option 3 applies, I simply disagree with his approach � though I can�t be certain that it isn�t the best one available. In any event, whether we consider him a disappointment, or whether we simply disagree with his actions, if we want to have any influence on our nation�s policies we should criticize those actions that we disagree with.

What to do?

Our corporate news media will attack progressives/liberals whether or not they aggressively fight back. So why not change the rules of the game and expose those corporate shills for who they are? If they want to attack us for that, fine. But they�re doing that anyhow, and I don�t believe that they could do a better job of it than they are currently doing. I realize that some progressives might consider such advice to be reckless. But with an open fight between progressives and the corporate news media, at least Republicans will have a hard time trying to sound legitimate when they whine about the �liberal media�.

Not all politicians and journalists hesitate to tell the truth in the face of intense pressure not to do so. Representatives Kucinich and McKinney introduced Articles of Impeachment against George Bush, despite intense pressure not to do so. Whereas they took great risks in doing that, and probably hurt their political careers more than they helped them, those actions were nevertheless the right thing to do. By doing these things they helped (by how much is hard to say) to increase the awareness of the American people about terrible crimes, and thereby helped to keep these issues alive. Here are some more courageous examples:

John Quincy Adams� long fight against slavery
Two years after failing in his bid for re-election to the U.S. presidency in 1828, John Quincy Adams spent the remaining 18 years of his life as a U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts. During that time he became the predominant opponent of slavery in the U.S. Congress, in the face of great political opposition, which included three attempts to censure him (See section on �Resolutions for censure: Adams charged with gross disrespect�).

The first occasion of an attempt to censure Adams arose when he requested permission to present a petition from slaves. The slaveholders became apoplectic at this suggestion, and some even wanted to expel Adams from the House for this great insult to their �honor�. In response, Adams eloquently defended the right of slaves to petition the government:

If this House decides that it will not receive petitions from slaves, under any circumstances, it will cause the name of this country to be enrolled among the first of the barbarous nations� When you establish the doctrine that a slave shall not petition because he is a slave, that he shall not be permitted to raise the cry for mercy, you let in a principle subversive of every foundation of liberty, and you cannot tell where it will stop.

His efforts eventually resulted in 1844 in the repeal of the infamous �gag rule�, which had prohibited any discussion of slavery in the U.S. House of Representatives.

For more information on this story see William Lee Miller�s book, �Arguing About Slavery � John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the U.S. Congress�.

Keith Olbermann takes on George Bush
During the Bush administration, Keith Olbermann was the most outspoken and highest profile news person to criticize and tell the truth about the Bush administration in unequivocal terms. I have little doubt that the first time he did that he took a great risk of losing his job.

One of many examples is his special comment on Bush lying us into war. Most Americans now know that George Bush�s excuse for the invasion of Iraq, that their (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent risk to our country, was factually incorrect. But still, you rarely hear a politician or journalist say that Bush actually lied to us to bring us into war. Keith had no qualms about saying that:

You, Mr. Bush, and your tragically know-it-all minions, threw out every piece of intelligence that suggested there were no such weapons. You, Mr. Bush, threw out every person who suggested that the sober, contradictory, reality-based intelligence needed to be listened to, fast� The fiasco of pre-war intelligence, sir, is your fiasco�

Mr. Bush � you destroyed the evidence that contradicted the resolution you jammed down the Congress�s throat, the way you jammed it down the nation�s throat. When required by law to verify that your evidence was accurate, you simply re-submitted it�

And as a final crash of self-indulgent nonsense, when the incontrovertible truth of your panoramic and murderous deceit�

Bill Moyers to U.S. Military Academy: Before you Assume that I am Calling for an Insurrection�
Bill Moyers is another journalist who tells the truth no matter what. Even in a speech to cadets of the Military Academy at West Point (from his book, �Moyers on Democracy�), he warned the cadets that our Iraq War troops were being used cynically for the furtherance of the Military-Industrial Complex:

The cheerleaders for war in Washington, who at this very moment are busily defending you against supposed �insults� or betrayals by the opponents of the war in Iraq, are likewise those who have cut budgets for medical and psychiatric care; who have been so skimpy and late with pay and with provision of necessities that military families in the United States have had to apply for food stamps; who sent the men and women whom you may soon be commanding into Iraq under-strength, under-equipped, and unprepared for dealing with a kind of war fought in streets and homes full of civilians against enemies undistinguishable from noncombatants; who have time and again broken promises to the civilian National Guardsmen� by canceling their redeployment orders and extending their tours. You may or may not agree on the justice and necessity of the war itself, but I hope that you will agree that flattery and adulation are no substitute for genuine support.

Much of the money that could be directed to that support has gone into high-tech weapons systems� that are useless in a war against nationalist or religious guerrilla uprisings that, like it or not, have support� among the local population. We learned this lesson in Vietnam, only to see it forgotten or ignored by the time this administration invaded Iraq, creating the conditions for a savage sectarian and civil war with our soldiers trapped in the middle, unable to discern civilian from combatant, where it is impossible to kill your enemy faster than rage makes new ones.

And who has been the real beneficiary of creating this high-tech army called to fight a war conceived and commissioned and cheered on by politicians and pundits not one of whom ever entered a combat zone? � The real winners of the anything-at-any-price philosophy would be the �military-industrial complex��

A rant from TvNewsLIES.org

I�ve already expressed my view that our best way out of this dilemma is to meet our corporate news media head-on, in order to combat their lies and abuses of their privilege. I don�t deny that this will take a great deal of courage. And since I have never been a politician or a journalist, I can�t claim that I would have the courage to do this myself if I were in their position. But having said that, I�ll end this post with some excerpts from a rant from TvNewsLIES.org, which I believe is right on target:

Incompetent journalists, criminally negligent journalists or liars who are complicit in the mass deception of the American people; there are no other ways whatsoever to describe the men and women who comprise the corporate news institutions of the United States�.

Jesse goes on to make an offer to publicly debate any member of the corporate news media, and then continues:

The members of today�s news media warrant outrage from the people of the world who have fallen victim to their despicable practices. With each new day brings new crimes while a false sense of reality is passed to the American people via our media�. I (we) should be angry�. The good people who are trying to address the problems with the media have been dignified, intellectual, soft spoken and IGNORED. IT IS TIME TO GET LOUD! It is time to get angry! It is time to stop the madness! �

With dignity and fairness we (the media critics and watchdogs) tried to alert the public of the information being withheld by our news media. Dignified and standard methods of communication can not defeat the behemoth of false reality that emanates from our TVs� We must become enraged! We must get loud! �

He goes on to mention numerous things that have not been addressed by the corporate news media, despite repeated �dignified and fair� efforts to convince them to do so, including: stolen elections; the repeated lies about Al Gore; the �creation� of George W. Bush; Dick Cheney�s secret energy meetings and his �disturbing tendencies to increase executive privilege, increase government secrecy and eliminate accountability in essence pushing our government towards a dictatorship�; unverifiable elections; PNAC; and the environmental terrorism and destruction of our political process by the Bush administration. Then he ends:

The fact is that the American public can not believe there is a reality other than the one presented on their televisions and radios. This, in essence, gives the broadcast media the power to control perceived reality. They abuse this power�.

I am furious at the members of the media. You should be furious. You should feel rage. You should do something. At least spread the word! Pass my challenge around. I�ll confront any one of these criminals. I�ll expose them for who they are. I will speak at your schools, community centers, and places of worship, anywhere. We have to educate the public about the people who lie to them every day.