I think it’s time for a self-imposed media blackout, and for me to go back to watching The Simpsons, Scrubs and hockey. The news coverage of the day is just too upsetting.
I’m not talking about the actual war footage, although that’s horrific enough. My problem has to do with the tone of the reporting of this conflict, at home and abroad. Never have I seen so much one-sided, sensational and distorted coverage of the day’s events. In my estimation, the media has sunk to a completely new low.
It all started months ago, before the bombing even started. Millions upon millions of peace marchers around the world and in the U.S. took to the streets to protest this war, bolstered by the support of famous artists and intellects. It was the biggest mass protest in the history of the world, and aside from a few incidents, the marches were peaceful and focused.
Yet the media gave little or no attention to the story, and the news organizations that did cover the marches focused on a few weirdos in the crowd. Their cameras missed all the mothers and children out there marching, as well as the seniors, union members, businessmen, war veterans, and families of 9/11 victims. They did however manage to find groups of incoherent college students in rainbow wigs, radical lesbians, anarchists who thought they were at a WTO protest, and communist party members.
The media has also had an irritating tendency to report events as they unfold, including any unfounded, sourceless claims made by the U.S. government, and then move on without any clarification or retraction when those reports turn out to be false.
The Scud missiles that apparently landed in Kuwait on the eve of the bombing campaign? It probably never happened. Those barrels of buried VX and Sarin nerve agents unearthed outside of Baghdad? They turned out to be pesticides.
In some cases the media have implied one thing in a headline, only to refute the very thing they claimed in the body of the story. The danger is that if you don’t bother to read the small print, you’re going to get a very skewed idea of exactly how things stand.
A few days ago CNN.com ran a story with a headline claiming that a suspicious powder was found in Iraq. The writer said that the powder could be used to deliver Saddam’s biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, but if you hung around until the end of the story you would have read an expert statement from the U.S. military that the powder was most likely being used for conventional explosives.
Another intriguing headline was "Pearl Jam war criticism prompts walkout." I’m a huge fan of the band, and none of their fans should have been surprised by their pro-peace and anti-Bush leanings.
When you read the headline for this story, and you get the impression that concert-goers simply walked out on the band, disgusted when Pearl Jam front man Eddie Vedder impaled a George W. Bush mask on his microphone stand. But when you read further, you discover that only a few fans booed, and just "dozens" of fans were upset enough to walk out of the show. You’ll also read that Vedder stated his support for the troops, if not for the current administration.
The Pepsi Center holds 21,000 people for concerts, and Pearl Jam was sold out. If even 100 people walked out of the show in disgust, that still leaves 20,900 fans who either agreed with Pearl Jam or weren’t all that offended by their statements. To me, the big news wasn’t the number of people who walked out, but the number of people who stayed.
Yet the newpapers didn’t report on the size of the crowd, just on the dozens who walked out.
Bowling for Columbine director Michael Moore experienced the same kind of media imbalance when he made his infamous remarks about the war and President Bush at the Academy Awards.
A few vocal people booed his acceptance speech, then a few others in the crowd turned around to boo the booers. Yet every newspaper and television network reported that Moore was booed by the audience before he was yanked off the stage.
In a story on the state of comedy in America since the start of the war – eerily familiar to a story on the state of comedy since 9/11 – CNN.com (I’m not picking on CNN on purpose, I just happen to visit their Web site often) even referred to Michael Moore as the director "who was booed when he criticized President Bush at the Academy Awards."
Other stories that have slipped through the cracks since this war began include: The coalition bombing of a Baghdad market, the use of cluster bombs in and around civilian areas, the selection of companies already short-listed to rebuild Iraq, the fact that no prohibited weapons have been found or used in the conflict, the conflicting reports of who controlled Basra and the port of Umm Qasr at the start of the war, the true account of what happened to that van full of women and children at Najaf (there was no warning shot or bullet into the engine block it seems), the true extent of friendly fire incidents, the use of land mines and tear gas by the coalition forces, and the unnecessary censorship of media voices like Peter Arnett and Phil Donahue.
News organizations are supposed to operate under a veneer of neutrality, but instead they appear to be outdoing one another to show their patriotism.
When the fires are put out and the nation of Iraq is conquered – and it will happen – the pretext for the war and means used to fight it will be irrelevant. All that will matter is the victory.
The U.S. and U.K. were banking on this when they set out on this military adventure, and judging by the swing in support of the war in opinion polls, their ploy is working.
And that is exactly why the media should be held to a higher standard. With unprecedented military technology and a combined defence budget that is unrivalled in the world, the coalition did not need the media’s help to win this war. But we need the media’s help to make sense of it, and so far they haven’t done a very good job.
So I’m going to avoid news on the conflict for a little while, if I can. It’s not good for my sanity, and leaves me feeling as dirty and hopeless as a Baghdad hospital after an air raid. I said in a previous column that the truth will come out eventually. Until it does, I’m tuning out.
Is there anybody out there who can fill me in on what’s happening on ER?
