“…we no longer live in a traditional democracy but rather a
media-ocracy, a land in which media drives politics and
promotes the military…”
That’s one of the controversial statements Danny Schechter
makes in his book
Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception: How the Media Failed to
Cover the War on Iraq (2003, Prometheus). Danny
Schechter is an award winning journalist, writer, and
filmmaker on media issues. He is also a founder of
Globalvision, Inc., an award-winning media company formed in
l987, and the executive editor of
MediaChannel.org, a website dedicated to media
issues. His broad experience includes being the news
director and principal newscaster for WBCN-FM and working as
a news program producer and investigative reporter at CNN
and ABC. His articles have appeared in many publications
such as Newsday, Boston Globe, Columbia Journalism
Review, Detroit Free Press, Village Voice, and others.
Alexander Dake spoke with Danny Schechter about Embedded
and his upcoming documentary of the same title, as well as
the state of the US media.
The Media & Iraq
AD: In your book
Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception you describe
the media coverage of the war in Iraq in a critical way:
“Mainstream media coverage helped America prepare for this
war, and it was promoted through uncritical reporting….The
media was a communication collaborator…and functioned as
weapons of mass deception.” How did you come to these
conclusions?
DS: When the war began, I embedded myself in my
living room and began watching television coverage, which is
how most Americans are informed about the news and the war
in Iraq. I began to compare coverage among the American
networks and overseas channels: the
BBC,
CBC,
CNN
International and several other international channels.
I began to see that there was a great gap between the
American channels and other channels. The American channels
had a uniformity of perspective toward the war. They
basically supported the war and they replaced journalism
with jingoism. They were selling the war instead of telling
people about the war. While we used to know the media as the
Fourth Estate, US commander of the war on Iraq,
General Tommy Franks spoke of the media as the fourth
front in the war, acknowledging that in order to get support
for the war and sustain that support, public opinion needed
to be organized along the military’s themes of the war.
Those themes were: inevitability of the war; that the US was
at immediate risk; and the implicit links between
Saddam Hussein and
Osama Bin Laden. American viewers bought this message.
My response to this was that I wanted to show what was going
on on a daily basis, and how the media and the government
were often acting together. I first published this in my
book, and now also released a documentary
WMD:
Weapons of Mass Deception.
AD: Could you give an example of how the US media
influenced the war coverage?
DS: Before the war the polls in the US showed a
tremendous divide in public opinion. On February 15, 2003,
the New
York Times described this by saying there were two
major forces at play: one, the power of the American
military, and the other, the power of global public opinion.
This divide was not at all reflected in the TV coverage: out
of the 800 experts interviewed on TV only six opposed the
war. People in other countries compared this to
old-fashioned state media; only in our case it’s not state
media, but private media that has an interest in going along
with the government. Many media felt they would lose viewers
if they were not patriotic enough. But it is also because
many media are part of an increasingly concentrated media
structure, which is not conducive to diversity. When Ben
Bagdikian wrote his first edition of his classic
The New Media Monopoly 20 years ago 50 companies
were controlling the media, and now that number is down to
probably five companies.
AD: You quote Christina Lamb of the
London
Times saying that “embedded journalists with the
military…are giving a more positive side, because they are
with the troops and they’re not out in the streets or out in
the countryside seeing what’s actually happening there.” Do
you think that embedded journalists offer any benefits to
news reporting?
DS: If the “embeds” were also embedded with the
CIA, also
embedded with the
Red Cross,
or also embedded with other institutions. If they made some
attempt to have relationships with Arab broadcasters so that
other points of view could be heard, then I would say fine.
Being embedded with the military gives you a very good
perspective inside the military and much more graphic war
reporting. But if you are only doing one-sided coverage and
not covering anything else, such as the civilian casualties
or other impacts to Iraqi culture and society, then your
reporting is very limited.
AD: How do the latest developments in Iraq confirm
your earlier observations?
DS: The military campaign as we now know was
successful in reaching its initial objective of reaching
Baghdad and toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime. But it didn’t
win the war: the war is still going on. We were told that
this was going to be a quick war and everybody signed up for
that. The American media were not interested in the country
of Iraq: they were only interested in one person, Saddam
Hussein. Even though the Iraqis didn’t like Saddam, the
media didn’t know that the Iraqis wouldn’t like a foreign
invasion either. Now that has become abundantly clear.
The State of the US Media
AD: Looking at the big picture of the US media
landscape, how do you see the media-ocracy developing? Do
you expect further consolidation of the media?
DS: I think there is going to be further
concentration.
Rupert Murdoch made the prediction that by 2010 only
three media companies would be left. We are already in what
I call a post-journalism environment, where news is merging
with entertainment.
Time
magazine for example is talking about “militainment” in
terms of the war or “electotainment” in terms of the
elections. Most of the coverage of the presidential
elections is no longer on the main channels, but has moved
to cable channels. On cable, pundits are replacing
journalists. Cable is reacting much more to advocacy groups
like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but do only very
little investigative reporting. The paradigm of the war
coverage is becoming the ongoing characteristic of our media
system.
AD: What do you think should be done about this
development?
DS: The main issue is that many people don’t
recognize this situation and should be made aware that this
is happening. Journalist
Michael Wolff describes our political system as a subset
of our media system. He says that political parties are
primarily media organizations. Their main focus is
generating coverage for their candidates. Because the
changing character of our media is changing the character of
our democracy, this discussion about the media is so
important. This is not just an academic or historical
discussion; it’s about what is going on right now. It is a
media system, which is subservient to commercial interests,
making our media system one of the most conservative in the
world. When I joined the media I did that to spotlight the
problems of the world, but now I see that the media are one
of those problems.
AD: Could you elaborate a bit more on why the US
media are so conservative?
DS: First of all, you need to understand that the US
has a conservative culture and a conservative political
system, so to a large extent that is also what the media
reflect. However, at the same time there is also a
fragmentation of the media happening: there are more
single-theme channels with sports, films, sex, and reality
entertainment. The audiences are also fragmenting. You see,
for example, young people turning to the comedy channels for
their news. In other words, people are opting out of the
mainstream news. Although conservative channels, such as
Fox News,
are creating a disproportionate amount of attention, they do
not draw huge audiences. So even though it looks like one
media system, people are increasingly looking for and
finding their own sources for news and information.
AD: Do you believe there is a role for liberal media
networks such as
Air
America Radio with
Al Franken or others in countering the conservative
media bias?
DS: The left wing is notoriously fragmented and
that’s reflected in how they approach the challenge of a
biased media system. The left wing follows the so-called
Salvation Army approach: “help the poor, go out and feed the
people” -- basically a diversified message. The
conservatives follow the Marine Corps approach: “attack,
seize the hill” -- basically one slogan. This does not just
reflect a different political approach; it is a clash of
cultures and of ideas. However, more and more progressive
people start recognizing that the media are an issue worth
fighting for. Three million people wrote to the FCC opposing
plans for media deregulation. Websites like
MediaChannel.org are attracting audiences interested in
what is going on with the media. When we announced plans for
“a
media for democracy” movement to monitor mainstream news
coverage of the 2004 elections, we attracted 65,000 members
in a few months. This all shows that besides the political
debate going on in this country, now increasingly a media
debate is gaining attention.
Alternative Media Sources
AD: What did you mean with your statement that
“making sense of the news in America requires that you leave
America, if only through the Internet to seek out
information and perspectives missing in the TV news
accounts”?
DS: This is what I alluded to earlier, that because
of the one-sidedness of the mainstream media, I went looking
for other news sources. These were foreign news channels and
the Internet. From various research it is clear that I am
being joined by an increasing audience that is using the
Internet as a frequent news source. [AD: see for
example the Pew Research Center’s
Biennial News Consumption Survey.]
AD: How do you view the role of the newspapers in
this whole media debate?
DS: All newspapers are terrified, as they are losing
readers at a fast pace. The average age of readers of
newspapers is in the sixties. Young people don’t read
newspapers anymore, so the advertising base is shrinking. If
this trend continues, there will be a day soon when
newspapers no longer exist. That’s where 24-hour cable news,
the Internet, and other new information technologies are
taking over.
AD: Although you are describing some worrisome
developments in the major media, you also sound quite
optimistic about the increased interest in the media. Why?
DS: Well, it’s like
Antonio Gramsci spoke about “optimism of the will,
pessimism of the intelligence.” Analytically, I’m terrified
about many issues which are getting worse -- in the media,
in politics, increased inequality, dangers of war, the
militarization, etc. On the other hand, several years ago
only small audiences were aware of some of these
developments, and now that number is growing. That’s how
change happened with the civil rights movement, with the
Vietnam War, with apartheid in South Africa, and hopefully
now with the state of the media. I invite your readers to go
to our websites and become better acquainted with the issues
and see for themselves how they could get involved.
AD: Thank you.
Books by this author
Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception, How the Media Failed to
Cover the War on Iraq
Media Wars: News at a Time of Terror
News Dissector
The More You Watch, the Less You Know: News Wars/Submerged
Hopes/Media Adventures
Other books about the media
The New Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian
Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against
Corporate Media by Robert McChesney and John Nichols
Into the Buzzsaw by Kristina Borjesson et al.
The Copycat Effect by Loren Coleman
See for more books on the media:
http://www.mediachannel.org/bookcorner
Relevant websites
MediaChannel
Media for Democracy
WMD:
Weapons of Mass Deception, the film the major media do not
want you to see
Pew Research Center’s Biennial News Consumption Survey
© 2004 Alexander M. Dake |
