Stop the Next War Now (21 page)

More recently, the
New York Times
persisted in describing civilian casualty figures from the April 2004 U.S.-led attack on the Iraqi city of Fallujah as “unconfirmed,” without offering any explanation as to why the numerous accounts of widespread death are to be disbelieved. An independent press corps would fearlessly investigate all of the impacts of war, so that the public could know what is being done in its name.

QUESTION THE POWERFUL.

Reporters can’t be afraid to ask tough questions of political leaders. But the U.S. press failed to demand a credible and coherent accounting from the Bush administration with regard to the case for the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, as subsequent editorial mea culpas from outlets like the
Washington Post
and the
New York Times
partially acknowledged.

Journalists’ failure to challenge the politically powerful is a reflection of the unhealthy closeness that exists between the government and the corporate-owned media. But it also results from the attitude of many reporters who see no problem with shedding their journalistic independence in a “crisis.” As a guest on David Letterman’s show in 2002, TV and radio pundit Cokie Roberts announced that she was “a total sucker for the guys who stand up with all the [military] ribbons on and stuff,” explaining that “when they say stuff, I tend to believe it.” And who can forget veteran CBS anchor Dan Rather’s declaration: “George Bush is the president, he makes the decisions.... Wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me where.” The notion that patriotism is best served by the media’s uncritical treatment of powerful figures is the opposite of a democratic value.

PRESENT A WIDE DEBATE.

In October 2002,
Time
magazine ran a pair of opinion columns to illustrate the debate on the imminent invasion of Iraq. Their headlines read, “Let’s Wait to Attack” and “No, Let’s Not Waste Any Time.” Indeed, media debate over the Afghanistan and Iraq wars was generally limited to questions of strategy and tactics; the deeper questions of the soundness of the rationales offered for war, as well as the wars’ legality and myriad potential impacts, were off the major media’s radar, despite being very much on the public’s mind.

A fair (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) study of network newscasts on ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS in the weeks before the Iraq invasion found that, of 393 on-air sources in news stories about Iraq, just 3 were opposed to the war. At the time, CNN and Gallup polls were showing some 27 percent of the public critical of the war. The truncated debate was the predictable result of commercial media’s overreliance on official sources: 76 percent of all sources on the four networks were current or former government officials. That didn’t leave much room for independent or grassroots voices.

Resist demonization: Everyone knows there’s a tendency for governments to “dehumanize” official enemies, especially in a time of war. Journalists, however, have a responsibility to resist such oversimplified characterizations of people and history. In contrast to the thoughtful, culturally sensitive conversations we might have had in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, many in the U.S. press were nearly hysterical in banging the drums for war. “Let them eat sand,” declared Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, calling—on September 17, 2001—for the United States to bomb not just Afghanistan but Iraq and Libya as well. “The U.S. should bomb the Afghan infrastructure to rubble—the airport, the power plants, their water facilities and the roads,” he said. On September 13, 2001, the popular TV pundit and
National Review
editor Rich Lowry used the op-ed page of the
Washington Post
to declare, “If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, that is part of the solution.” It seems a minimum expectation for a democratic society that the debate in the dominant media not give pride of place to calls for widespread war crimes.

Activists pushed for improvements in the U.S. media’s post-9/11 coverage, and sometimes won. For example, the
New York Times
and NPR ran stories seriously undercounting the size of the crowd at a Washington, D.C., protest against the Iraq war in October 2002. After complaints from hundreds of activists, as well as critical attention in the alternative press, NPR corrected its story, and while the
New York Times
did not acknowledge its error, the paper took the highly unusual step of running a second, more accurate and inclusive article about the demonstration. Another fair campaign led to HBO’s adding a disclaimer to its movie about the first Gulf War,
Live from Baghdad
, clarifying scenes that seemed to endorse the fraudulent stories about Iraqi soldiers removing Kuwaiti babies from incubators.

Such efforts may seem quixotic, but they matter: they encourage people to consume media reports critically and actively, and they put the media on notice that the public expects, and increasingly demands, better, more complete, more honest, more inclusive reporting—not just in times of war but always.

Like anything else important, a more democratic media system will not simply evolve but will result from organized effort. We, as citizens, can bring it closer by speaking up to the press when they let us down, by calling for broader structural reforms to diversify the ownership of media outlets and make them more accountable, and by supporting those truly independent and alternative outlets that try to do things a different way.

That’s a long fight, and a worthy one. But until we have a media that more fully reflects our society, we have to do something else, too: there’s just no substitute for informing yourself independently, for looking beyond the newspapers and the television for an understanding of the world. If the question is, What can we do about the media? then actions like reading this book and talking about it with friends and family are a big part of the answer.

BE

THE MEDIA

ANDREA BUFFA

Andrea Buffa is the peace campaign coordinator at Global Exchange; she was previously the executive director of Media Alliance.

U.S. news reports of the assault on Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004 epitomized the problems with the corporate media coverage of war and showed how much those of us working for peace need to change the media if we are ever to stop the next war before it starts. U.S. warplanes dropped bombs on Fallujah’s neighborhoods, decimating homes, government buildings, and mosques; and thousands of U.S. troops stormed the city, shooting at anything in sight. Thirty to sixty thousand Fallujans were barricaded into their houses, without access to running water, electricity, or food.

Rather than show the reality of what must have happened in Fallujah— destruction that ended the lives of some seventy-one soldiers and two thousand Iraqis—reports from embedded journalists revealed hardly a drop of blood. There was never a mention of the tens of thousands of civilians still in Fallujah during the assault, much less an attempt to determine how many were killed.

But the distortion of the Fallujah attack is only the tip of the iceberg. From the beginning, the U.S. media consistently underplayed the human costs of the Iraq war, ignored or ridiculed antiwar activists who argued that war would leave Americans less safe than before, and even left media consumers confused about the basic facts: to this day, many still believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks and that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.

If Americans are ever to be convinced of the need to change the government’s militaristic policies, they must be informed about the devastating consequences of war and educated about peaceful alternatives. We cannot reach people without access to mass communications. We need to stop our media from acting as a mouthpiece of the Pentagon and make it start telling the truth, unpleasant as the truth may be.

Convincing Americans of the importance of peace and justice requires peace activists to be media activists as well. When Michael Powell, the head of the FCC, was about to relax the rules and give even more power to the news outlets that were cheerleading for the war, peace activists sprang into action to try to stop it.

MoveOn.org, United for Peace and Justice, and codepink encouraged supporters to bombard the FCC with phone calls and e-mails opposing Powell’s media-deregulation plan. Four days before the FCC vote, organizers mounted protests in a dozen U.S. cities outside radio stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, the poster child for what’s wrong with media deregulation. Clear Channel owns some fourteen hundred radio stations nationwide, and its monopolistic practices have accelerated the homogenization of the airwaves. The company used its stations to promote a conservative political agenda when it sponsored pro-war rallies in cities around the country before and during the Iraq war.

Although the FCC ended up voting in favor of the radical media deregulation, a lawsuit by media activist groups has stopped the deregulation from being implemented, and widespread opposition has grown. But stopping the ruling didn’t undo the fact that a handful of corporations controls 80 percent of what the American public sees and hears.

The most fundamental problem with the U.S. mass media is the way it is structured. Broadcast outlets are supposed to be regulated to operate in the public interest, but the FCC has instead worked for the interests of corporate profits. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 eliminated many of the previous restrictions on media-company ownership, and the deregulation proposal of 2003 would have done away with the few remaining restrictions if there hadn’t been such a huge outcry.

Meanwhile, public radio and television are just as bad. Their funding depends on the benevolence of Congress, which means that public radio and TV managers are reluctant to be too critical of government policy. Congress could propose to eliminate funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting at any time, which is what Newt Gingrich’s Congress attempted in 1995.

A radical restructuring of media ownership would certainly be nice, but there are more realistic reforms that would also improve the quality and quantity of programming. Taking the following actions could significantly improve the coverage of community and social-justice issues, including war:

Bring back the Fairness Doctrine
. From 1949 to 1987, the “Fairness Doctrine” required broadcast media outlets to offer opposing viewpoints on issues and to do so in a “fair” manner. If the Fairness Doctrine were in effect today, right-wing radio hosts would be required to provide some balance and to interview people whose views differed from theirs on issues like the Iraq war.

Push for the licensing of additional low-power FM radio stations
. It’s not likely that any peace groups are regular guests on commercial radio stations, but peace activists are often interviewed on community radio. Low-power FM stations are small radio stations run by nonprofits and community groups. They fit in between commercial stations on the radio dial. In 2000, the FCC approved licenses for a limited number of low-power FM radio stations, bringing a slew of political and music programming to the airwaves. With more licenses, there could be community radio stations everywhere in America.

Make broadcasters pay for their use of the spectrum.
It’s crazy, but corporations that make millions of dollars get to use the public airwaves for free. These corporations should have to pay for their broadcast licenses, and the money that’s collected for the licenses could go toward public media or the development of independent programming.

Bring back requirements for local programming and more public affairs programming.
Americans need and want programming that educates them about the issues that affect their lives. If the broadcasters aren’t going to pay for their licenses, they should at least be required to meet basic requirements like providing several hours a day of local and public affairs programming.

Set aside part of the dial for community and nonprofit stations
. The airwaves are owned by the public and should be regulated in the public interest. Because for-profit media outlets are always going to prioritize the bottom line over the public interest, a good part of the broadcast spectrum, including the digital spectrum, should be set aside for nonprofit, community-based media.

Defeat the new Telecommunications Act!
Unfortunately, rather than a strengthening of ownership regulations, in the next few years we’re looking at a probable attempt to roll them back. The big media companies and major telephone companies have persuaded Congress to rewrite the Telecommunications Act of 1996, starting this year. Any telecommunications act created under the Bush administration and the Republican-dominated House and Senate is bound to be a boon for corporate interests and a disaster for the rest of us.

During the next four years, peace activists must not only fight to end the occupation of Iraq but must also rally to take back the country’s media. To make a real difference, the people need to be the media.

It is unrealistic to depend on Fox News and the
Washington Post
to adequately cover the war and the antiwar movement. New media must be created to expose violence and injustice and to express a variety of perspectives on how things can be done differently. More and more activists are doing just that, through Web sites, low-power FM radio stations, and public access TV shows. Since there is so little local news coverage on TV and radio these days, local groups can fill the gap by reporting on local issues and activism.

Not enough people know about alternative news sources such as local independent newsweeklies; Web sites like AlterNet (www.alternet.org), Common Dreams (www.commondreams.org), the Independent Media Centers (www.indymedia.org), TomDispatch (www.tomdispatch.com), TomPaine.com (www.tompaine.com), and ZNet (www.zmag.org); pioneering television programs such as those on Free Speech TV (www.freespeech.org) and Link TV (www.worldlinktv.org); and progressive radio networks like Pacifica Radio and Air America. And the award-winning daily news program
Democracy Now
!