Does the corporate media keep us in the dark?

[John_Mace]

Because the leftist view is not a widely circulated one, there’s a large learning curve just to get someone to understand the issues. While I know there’s stories in larger newspapers that focus on foreign policy issues – even our nation’s bad policies – how can somebody refute that those stories are fleeting? Do you have any idea about our nation’s support of brutal dictators around the globe? Simply put, the U.S. supports brutal dictators rather than risk nationalistic governments.

Perhaps radical, far leftist views are not widely circulated, but to say that “leftist” views are not widely circulated has not been supported, and probably can’t be supported. How many of the major Newspapers in the US had an editorial policy in favor or the Iraq invasion?

[Jackmannii]

You tend to get “misunderstood” a lot, clucky. OK, I’ll accept that your “cute” remark was about the “anti-corporate media”. The fact remains that you completely evaded the points leading up to it, i.e. that arguably vast numbers of deaths in Iraq and neighboring countries were avoided through sanctions limiting Saddam’s power to kill. Just as you’ve evaded responsibility for your statements suggesting that the media hasn’t mentioned previous U.S. support for Saddam, has rarely talked about the human consequences of sanctions and “rarely” reports labor news.

Patently false and self-serving.

You’re still unable to get from point A (aspects of certain stories aren’t covered as much in the mainstream media as in avowedly left-wing media) to point B (corporate interests “suppress” these stories).
“I think” doesn’t cut it.

Kimstu: you’ll have to remind me which conservatives are “peddling conspiracy theories” about liberal bias in the media (you can select from the many debates on the subject in this forum as a starting point), as well as what “corporate media” have to do with the liberal vs. conservative axis - unless you want to fall back on the viewpoint that “corporate/profit-driven” = “right-wing”.

[John_Mace]

Jack:

Kimstu is probably talking about those in the camp of Bernard Goldberg, who wrote the book: Bias : A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News

[El_Kabong]

I can certainly agree in general with your concerns as stated in your most recent post, but I don’t know, either, what might be done about them. I too would prefer to see more balanced treatment of the leftist viewpoint in the major media, for one reason because IMO most of the alternative media I follow are, if anything, far more agenda-driven than than the corporate-owned outlets they set themselves in opposition to. Frankly, anything that smacks of propaganda turns me right off.

In the end, though, I think what we are dealing with here is a national trait, not something confined to the media. I look at the general level of discourse here, the range of opinions that get aired widely, and compare it to that of, say, France, where I lived for a time, and just have to laugh.

This is a weirdly conservative, anti-intellectual culture for the most part, and not just now but traditionally has been almost completely disinterested in foreign events which do not have a direct and major social or economic impact here. This particularly applies to things like US support for dictators (which, to be honest, is more a thing of the '50-80’s period than now). My impression is that most of our citizens simply don’t care one way or another about potential US contributions to the suffering of non-Americans, as long as they feel reasonably safe, and in all likelihood will continue to ignore these issues unless and until they either have it brought home forcefully by outside events (cf 9/11) or suddenly, magically wake up one day and realize that some of our country’s political policies may be endangering our security rather than enhancing it. Unfortunately, I am pessimistic that media reform alone is sufficient to change this complacency, and without some sort of concrete proposal for such reform, I am at a loss as to what I might say further.

[El_Kabong]

Uh, directed to Clucky, if that wasn’t clear.

[Clucky]

*Originally posted by John Mace *
**Perhaps radical, far leftist views are not widely circulated, but to say that “leftist” views are not widely circulated has not been supported, and probably can’t be supported. How many of the major Newspapers in the US had an editorial policy in favor or the Iraq invasion? **

John, what is a “leftist” view? It’s not a liberal view, which is allowed in the mainstream as left of center. A leftist view WOULD be considered radical by the mainstream, period. That it’s considered radical is precisely why it is marginalized – not included in the mainstream conscience.

This is a different discussion, I know. But, part of the leftist agenda is to address the fact that the mainstream media gives the U.S. a pass on its foreign policy.

More later. Have to go soon.

As for good, old, lovable Jack:

You tend to get “misunderstood” a lot, clucky. OK, I’ll accept that your “cute” remark was about the “anti-corporate media”. The fact remains that you completely evaded the points leading up to it, i.e. that arguably vast numbers of deaths in Iraq and neighboring countries were avoided through sanctions limiting Saddam’s power to kill. Just as you’ve evaded responsibility for your statements suggesting that the media hasn’t mentioned previous U.S. support for Saddam, has rarely talked about the human consequences of sanctions and “rarely” reports labor news.

As for “vast numbers of deaths were avoided through sanctions.” I think I did address this by explaining that sanctions could have been more humane while ALSO limiting Saddam’s power. Didn’t have to be an either/or proposition.

Well, the media HAS mentioned previous U.S. support for Saddam. If I gave the impression that I feel they haven’t “mentioned” it, mea culpa. But, “mentioning” isn’t exactly the same as reporting on this thoroughly. The leftist view is that this is important to point out to the average American, because otherwise they might be snookered into thinking that our government actually is acting out of concern for Iraqi citizens. Add to this the policy of deadly sanctions for 12 years, up until the time that the U.S. took over Iraq.

Certainly, there was little discussion as to how the U.S. blocked (through vetoes) water purification products from going to Iraq, after the U.S. deliberately bombed Iraqi civilian infrastructure during Gulf War I.

It’s all about context. A little story there, a little story there does not add up to the full picture.

Now, do me a favor: Answer my previous questions about your former newspaper’s policies on covering businesses and labor. Was there a Labor section? Was there a Business section? I’m truly interested. Maybe you can help set me straight.

[dal_timgar]

Arab terrorists tried to hijack a plane in 1994 with the intent of crashing it in Paris. I have seen this on 3 programs since 9/11, the first being FRONTLINE on PBS.

I find it curious that there has benn no discussion of what the FAA was doing for 6 1/2 years about reinforcing cockpit doors.

The bombing target of 1993 and the Modus Operandi of France 1994 equals WTC 9/11.

The writing was practially on the wall.

The books THE POWERS THAT BE and RULE BY SECRECY indicate the conspiracy theories are often just exaggerations not fantasies. Of course maybe the exaggerations are promoted by the conspirators as a smokescreen. Paranoia is such fun.

Dal Timgar

[Jackmannii]

Why clucky, I’m surprised you didn’t know that I was editor of the Oppressed Peoples section of the Daily Worker.

Seriously, it’s hard to understand what you think the point is of there not being sections in American newspapers entitled “Labor”. Perhaps the loss of manufacturing jobs and declining influence of organized labor has translated into less coverage, and that may distress you, the AFL-CIO or even the Daily Worker. But it’s still patently absurd to claim that labor strife, working conditions (like the furor over W.R. Grace’s vermiculite mining and asbestos exposure) etc. don’t get covered in mainstream media, and you provide no evidence that a “corporate” nature to media is responsible for what you see as omissions.
By your logic, since the old sections designated for women in newspapers have largely been replaced by “lifestyle” sections, there’s no longer any coverage devoted to women.

I’d still love to see you connect the dots as to how “corporations” somehow suppressed news of American perfidy re Iraq, as opposed to generating more heaps of innuendo, i.e. claiming that “no anti-war voices” have been heard on TV.*
*“If there’s only official sources on TV, for example, and no anti-war voices, then how often do you hear the horrors of U.S.-supported sanctions?”

[Kimstu]

JM: Kimstu is probably talking about those in the camp of Bernard Goldberg

Actually, I don’t know that name, and I didn’t mean to conflate the “liberal media bias” and “corporate media bias” issues. I was just idly wishing that the common blather about “liberal bias” would be as carefully scrutinized and tested as the allegations of “corporate bias” are being in this thread.

Jack: You’re still unable to get from point A (aspects of certain stories aren’t covered as much in the mainstream media as in avowedly left-wing media) to point B (corporate interests “suppress” these stories). “I think” doesn’t cut it.

Well, you may not think that anecdotal evidence from other journalists “cuts it” much better than anecdotal evidence from Clucky. But for what it’s worth, you might be interested in a recent book called The Business of Journalism: Ten Leading Reporters and Editors on the Perils and Pitfalls of the Press, which devotes a lot of space to the issue of journalistic self-censorship. From the linked review:

The [May-June 2000 issue of the] Columbia Journalism Review package listed three categories of reasons leading to self-censorship:

1.Conflicts of interests (pressure from advertisers; pressure from friends of the boss; pressure from the parent company, as in who within a newsroom owned by Disney is going to investigate pedophiles hired to work at Disney amusement parks?).

2.Market pressures (stories too complex or too dull for the audience, who will then tune out, thus decreasing audience share).

3.Personal reasons (cozy relationships with news sources; a desire to be respected by fellow journalists; concerns that forging ahead could endanger a newsroom career).
[…]

The examples in the book The Business of Journalism are more numerous […]
A former New York Times reporter now teaching journalism at New York University, [editor William] Serrin explains the context of self-censorship: […]

Newsrooms do not have written statements about what will and will not be covered. But the unwritten “will not” category within many newsrooms, Serrin says, sounds something like this: “Watch out when doing stories on people with money or position, or about businesses, meaning large businesses (small businesses don’t matter much). … Similarly, don’t push too hard for stories on the poor, the homeless, the labor movement or the working class. These, in most cases, go against a journalism corporation’s demographics, because journalism increasingly wants to attract only upscale readers and viewers. Be careful when covering matters you know are of interest to the publisher, the station manager or the network CEO, including their friends in the social world, charitable world or corporate world. … Stories outside the usual will be considered strange, even dangerous. Most editors would rather follow the pack rather than strike out on their own.” […]

[Chapter author] Ronnie Dugger, editor emeritus of Texas Observer magazine, explores the increasingly common complaint that when huge corporations such as Disney and General Electric own newsrooms, censorship, self-and otherwise, becomes a day-to-day reality. […]

[Chapter author] Sydney Schanberg, newspaper reporter extraordinaire, deplores the way news organizations reject covering themselves, thus censoring any mention of their self-censorship.

[t_leave]

Let’s get this really straight. Conspiracy theories are always indicators of system corruptability, regardless of whether the corruption has been used or is actively being used.

Even without evidence that these corruptabilities are being used, one can make very strong accusations of intent after a certain point.

When the root corruption that has spawned a particular conspiracy theory has been found by pulling apart the system peice by peice, lack of reporting becomes suspicous.

When the system has been analyzed by millions of hours of labor, to the point where the corruptability has been solved to the point that implimenting the solution actually saves money with regards to the stated purpose for using the system in the first place, then the case for not reporting becomes irrational. UNLESS the detected corruptability is being used to generate wealth in a manner of misdirection, that far exceeds the stated purpose for having the system.

When an investigation to a conspiracy theory has arrived this far, to the point of identifying the problem and having a brilliant and freely, publicly cultivated solution just sitting on the shelf, and no news coverage has occurred on the topic, this is an admission of guilt.

[E-Sabbath]

Okaaay. I theorize that t_leave is a hinking AI, out to confuse us. If a million dopers take an hour to read this thread, it becomes an admission of guilt that he is, indeed, a hinking AI.

Therefore, I should wait for the views to spike, and then, as there is no ad banner, so no weath generated, report the post.

I think that’s what it means. I’m not sure.

[Jackmannii]

Kimstu: So what are the specific examples of spiked stories, with memos or other hard evidence of tampering by corporate higher-ups? Is Disney hiring hordes of pedophiles to work at its parks and ordering the media not to report it? Sounds like BizarroWorld to me.

It would also be interesting if the ready skepticism that the Left brings to accusations of liberal media bias were applied to the claims of “corporate media” bias - which are generally vaguer, since they tend not to involve actual news reports, but stories which are purportedly not covered.

[Clucky]

*Originally posted by El_Kabong *
This is a weirdly conservative, anti-intellectual culture for the most part, and not just now but traditionally has been almost completely disinterested in foreign events which do not have a direct and major social or economic impact here. This particularly applies to things like US support for dictators (which, to be honest, is more a thing of the '50-80’s period than now).

Don’t be so sure. We can find out a lot about the U.S. support for dictators during that time period mostly due to declassified U.S. documents. But, today’s records are usually classified, if they have anything to do with U.S. relations with another nation.

What’s interesting is that you won’t find many mainstream stories, even today, that critically look at the issue of our nation’s questionable past in supporting blood-thirsty dictators in the name of national interests. When was the last time you saw a mainstream article or column looking at whether the nation was correct in propping up murderous dictators in order to brutally beat down any type of nationalistic movement.

Some cites on this type of past activity:

Our support of genocide in Guatemala

From the article:

In an explosive report released on February 25 by the United Nations’ Historical Clarification Commission (CEH), the US government and several American corporations were accused of complicity in the genocide of nearly 200,000 Mayan people during Guatemala’s bloody 36-year civil war.

…

Commission chairman Christian Tomuschat, a respected German lawyer and human rights expert, stated that the US was responsible for much of the bloodshed. “The United States government and US private companies exercised pressure to maintain the country’s archaic and unjust socioeconomic structure.” He noted that the CIA and other US agencies “lent direct and indirect support to some illegal state operations.” The support consisted of advising, training, arming and financing the overall operation.

The commission listed the American training of the Guatemalan officer corps in counter-insurgency techniques, including torture, as a key factor “which had a significant bearing on human rights violations during the armed confrontation.” The US Army School of the Americas (SOA) in Fort Benning, Georgia, was singled out for its role.

Specifically named was Guatemalan Military Intelligence (Ml) as the primary organizer of illegal detentions, torture, forced disappearances and executions. The report noted that most Ml officers were graduates of the SOA and maintained close and frequent contact with their US counterparts.

…

United Fruit and Coca Cola In 1954, the United Fruit Company (now known as Chiquita Banana) pressured the US government to stage a ClA-directed coup that overthrew President Jacobo Arbenz. This action put an end to the first democratically elected president in Guatemalan history and set in motion the civil war that followed.

In the 1970’s and 1980’s, a US-owned bottling company licensed by Coca-Cola waged a war against Guatemalan trade unions, in which scores of people were killed by the military. The CEH report cited other cases of transnational intervention and human rights violations.

An article written in 1998 about CIA abuses in Guatemala

A snippet:

Meanwhile, human rights in Guatemala continue to take a beating. A frightening trend that I am seeing is the army’s assault on the judicial system. The final peace accords did not grant an amnesty for any human rights violations carried out by either side. This apparently is a bitter pill for the army to swallow. The first strategy was the widespread claim that there was no point having any trials for war crimes because the guerrillas and the military were equally bad. Better to forgive and forget. Then in early 1998, Bishop

Gerardi reported in the REMHI findings that the army was responsible for 85% of the atrocities, and the U.R.N.G. for less than 10 percent. Gerardi was bludgeoned to death 48 hours after making this report public, and there is clear evidence linking the military to his brutal assassination (such as a call made to a military base from the house just after the murder was committed).

The military’s strategy is grim, although not exactly new. All the key cases are being blocked in the courts by bad faith manipulations. And the courts are literally under fire: judges, lawyers, plaintiffs, prosecutors, witnesses, and investigators are being attacked and are in fear for their lives.

A site dedicated to trying to close the U.S. School of Americas, which is mentioned in the snippet from the first article above. This is the military training grounds for brutal soldiers who kill innocent people in South America for the purpose of keeping those nations from undergoing a nationalistic, grassroots revolution. Those types of revolutions aren’t good for U.S. business.

Btw, Manuel Noriega was a graduate. Like Saddam, he was a good friend of ours, until he stopped taking orders.

From the site:

Background: The US Army School of Americas (SOA), based in Fort Benning, Georgia, trains Latin American soldiers in combat, counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics. Graduates of the SOA are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. Among the SOA’s nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Lower-level SOA graduates have participated in human rights abuses that include the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the El Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians. (See Grads in the News.)

On January 17, 2001 the SOA was replaced by the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC).
The result of a Department of Defense proposal included in the Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal 2001, the name-change measure passed when the House of Representatives defeated a bi-partisan amendment to close the SOA and conduct a congressional investigation by a narrow ten vote margin. (See Talking Points, Critique of New School, Vote Roll Call.)

In a media interview, Georgia Senator and SOA supporter, the late Paul Coverdell, characterized the DOD proposal as “cosmetic” changes that would ensure that the SOA could continue its mission and operation. Critics of the SOA concur. The new military training school is the continuation of the SOA under a new name. It is a new name, but the same shame.

From that same site, SOA grads in the news.

The latest grad in the news:

Last Updated 6/18/02

–SOA Graduate Army Major César Alonso Maldonado Vidales along with Captain Jorge Ernesto Rojas Galindo were detained, according to Human Rights Watch, “in relation to the December 2000 attack on trade unionist Wilson Borja.” Maj. Maldonado, assigned to army intelligence at Bogotá’s Thirteenth Brigade, had cell phone records that linked him to one of the assassins. A witness and former soldier also verified his relation to the attack and “named high-ranking officers who he claims approved it,” among them, was SOA Graduate, General Jorge Enrique Mora, who is currently the commander of the Colombian Army.

“On April 23, Colombia’s Attorney General, Luis Osorio, abruptly fired the human rights prosecutor handling the case. The prosecutor named as a replacement ordered Major Maldonado freed. Captain Rojas is currently charged with conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder, but the fate of the entire investigation is now in doubt.”

–According to Human Rights Watch, SOA Graduate Army Captain Juan Carlos Fernández López and Colonel Víctor Matamoros were indicted “for collaboration with and the formation of illegal paramilitary groups in 1997” and also between May and September of 1999 for “connection with a series of paramilitary massacres in and around La Gabarra, Norte de Santander.” More than 145 people were killed by the paramilitaries. “In May 2002, the Human Rights Unit prosecutor in charge of the case was fired, leaving the fate of the case in question.” The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed grief over the firing of key prosecutors, saying that it puts into question “the independence and autonomy of prosecutors working on investigations related to human rights violations, particularly when paramilitary groups and state agents are implicated.”

*Originally posted by El_Kabong *
**My impression is that most of our citizens simply don’t care one way or another about potential US contributions to the suffering of non-Americans, as long as they feel reasonably safe, and in all likelihood will continue to ignore these issues unless and until they either have it brought home forcefully by outside events (cf 9/11) or suddenly, magically wake up one day and realize that some of our country’s political policies may be endangering our security rather than enhancing it. Unfortunately, I am pessimistic that media reform alone is sufficient to change this complacency, and without some sort of concrete proposal for such reform, I am at a loss as to what I might say further. **

Well, I think if there was the same media blitz about our nation’s tendency to support brutal dictators in the Third World as there was in demonizing Saddam Hussein, things would be different.

I really think Americans just aren’t informed of what’s really going on. I find most people here compassionate, if they understand that an atrocity is taking place.

[El_Kabong]

Uh, Clucky, thanks for posting all that additonal text, but I am already aware of the history of US involvement in Guatemala, not just from reading but from having worked there in the 1980s. I really am though with this topic for now, but I just want to point out one thing:

What’s interesting is that you won’t find many mainstream stories, even today, that critically look at the issue of our nation’s questionable past in supporting blood-thirsty dictators in the name of national interests. When was the last time you saw a mainstream article or column looking at whether the nation was correct in propping up murderous dictators in order to brutally beat down any type of nationalistic movement.

Maybe that’s because they are old news. You apparently are a journalist, working for a US-based daily. Why on earth should this particular subject, involving foreign events years in the past, be given priority over any more current news? I mean, if you were arguing that more historical scholars should be publishing on this subject I could see it. But really, I’m failing to see your point, as phrased.

OK, so it never got the treatment its deserved. It’s a bit too too late now, isn’t it? And if you firmly believe the US government is currently propping up odious dictators in some location or other, well, you’re the reporter; go get the story and bring it back to us.

Sorry, but you are starting to sound more and more like one of our now-departed posters who was interested only in wallowing in what he saw as endless American perfidy.

[Clucky]

*Originally posted by Jackmannii *
Seriously, it’s hard to understand what you think the point is of there not being sections in American newspapers entitled “Labor”. Perhaps the loss of manufacturing jobs and declining influence of organized labor has translated into less coverage, and that may distress you, the AFL-CIO or even the Daily Worker. But it’s still patently absurd to claim that labor strife, working conditions (like the furor over W.R. Grace’s vermiculite mining and asbestos exposure) etc. don’t get covered in mainstream media, and you provide no evidence that a “corporate” nature to media is responsible for what you see as omissions.

My point was simply that media report from a corporate mindset. That simple. If you report from a corporate mindset, then you are part of a system that does not value labor unions as much as you would otherwise. I thought Kimstu provided some interesting info about this. I didn’t have time to go looking.

At any rate, I’ve tried to focus more on U.S. foreign policy. Perhaps I’ll get back to labor issues later. Please read my previous response to El_Kabong. That you reject on its face the idea that the “anti-war” side didn’t have a voice in the media during the war tells me that you aren’t likely to accept any premise in this argument, no matter the evidence. You’re pretty good at avoiding any good point I might have in favor of chipping away at some of my admittedly sweeping statements, such as:

“If there’s only official sources on TV, for example, and no anti-war voices, then how often do you hear the horrors of U.S.-supported sanctions?”

Tell me, Jack, how WAS a majority of U.S. residents convinced that war against Iraq was a necessary matter, and that Iraqi liberation was one reason for it?

Now, connecting the dots from reporting to “corporate” America. That’s difficult to explain to someone who rejects it flatly on its face. Here’s more of that MediaLens article I quoted from in the OP, followed by some specific instances of how reporters run into roadblocks:

[MediaLens responding to the Independent reporter:]You write: “i can’t remember one ocassion in the last five years - including the two months i spent unembedded during the war in iraq where i was asked to skew, bury, or supress anything.”

Channel 4 presenter, Jon Snow, said much the same in an interview with us:

“Well where are these pressure coming from - identify them for me? I can tell you if somebody rings me up from Pepsi-Cola - and I must say I don’t think I’ve ever been rung by any corporation, would that I was! - I’d give them short shrift!” (Interview with David Edwards, January 9, 2001, www.medialens.org)

Snow was passionate in rejecting the argument:

“Oh this is bollocks! Total bollocks!.. I just don’t travel with +any+ of this crap!”

US press critic, George Seldes said it well as far back as the 1930s:

“The most stupid boast in the history of present-day journalism is that of the writer who says, ‘I have never been given orders; I am free to do as I like’. We scent the air of the office. We realise that certain things are wanted, certain things unwanted.” (US press critic, George Seldes, quoted Extra! November/December 1995)

Nicholas Johnson, former US Federal Communications Commissioner gives a small example of how journalists do what they are required to do without being given orders:

“A reporter who first comes up with an investigative story idea, writes it up and submits it to the editor and is told the story is not going to run. He wonders why, but the next time, he is cautious enough to check with the editor first. He is told by the editor that it would be better not to write that story. The third time he thinks of an investigative story idea but doesn’t bother the editor with it because he knows it’s silly. The fourth time he doesn’t think of the idea anymore.” (Quoted FAIR, Extra! November/December 1995)

Or as Orwell famously wrote:

“Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip.” (Quoted, Jeff Cohen and Norman Soloman, Media Beat, September 13, 1995)

We recently quoted American journalist Gary Webb, formerly of the San Jose Mercury News who, previously, was of exactly your opinion:

“In seventeen years of doing this, nothing bad had happened to me. I was never fired or threatened with dismissal if I kept looking under rocks… So how could I possibly agree with people like Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian, who were claiming the system didn’t work, that it was steered by powerful special interests and corporations, and existed to protect the power elite? Hell, the system worked just fine, as I could tell. It +encouraged+ enterprise. It +rewarded+ muckracking.” (Webb, ‘The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On’, in Kristina Borjesson, ed., Into The Buzzsaw - Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press, Prometheus, 2002, pp.296-7)

Then something went wrong:

“And then I wrote some stories that made me realise how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I’d enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn’t been, as I’d assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job. It turned out to have nothing to do with it. The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn’t written anything important enough to suppress.”

http://www.narconews.com/webbletter.html]This site explains Gary Webb’s dilemma. From the site:

Not long after I wrote a series for the San Jose Mercury News about a drug ring that had flooded South Central Los Angeles with cheap cocaine at the beginning of the crack explosion there, a strange thing happened to me. I was silenced.

This, believe it or not, came as something of a surprise to me. For 17 years I had been writing newspaper stories about grafters, crooked bankers, corrupt politicians and killers – and winning armloads of journalism awards for it. Some of my stories had convened grand juries and sent important people to well-deserved jail cells. Others ended up on 20/20, and later became a best-selling book (not written by me, unfortunately.) I started doing television news shows, speaking to college journalism classes and professional seminars. I had major papers bidding against each other to hire me.

So when I happened across information implicating an arm of the Central Intelligence Agency in the cocaine trade, I had no qualms about jumping onto it with both feet. What did I have to worry about? I was a newspaperman for a big city, take-no-prisoners newspaper. I had the First Amendment, a law firm, and a multi-million dollar corporation watching my back.

Besides, this story was a fucking outrage. Right-wing Latin American drug dealers were helping finance a CIA-run covert war in Nicaragua by selling tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods in LA, who were turning it into crack and spreading it through black neighborhoods nationwide. And all the available evidence pointed to the sickening conclusion that elements of the US government had known of it and had either tacitly encouraged it or, at a minimum, done absolutely nothing to stop it.

And that’s when this strange thing happened. The national news media, instead of using its brute strength to force the truth from our government, decided that its time would be better spent investigating me and my reporting. They kicked me around pretty good, I have to admit. (At one point, I was even accused of making movie deals with a crack dealer I’d written about. The DEA raided my film agent’s office looking for any scrap of paper to back up this lie and appeared disappointed when they came up emptyhanded.)

To this day, no one has ever been able to show me a single error of fact in anything I’ve written about this drug ring, which includes a 600-page book about the whole tragic mess. Indeed, most of what has come out since shows that my newspaper stories grossly underestimated the extent of our government’s knowledge, an error to which I readily confess. But, in the end, the facts didn’t really matter. What mattered was making the damned thing go away, shutting people up, and making anyone who demanded the truth appear to be a wacky conspiracy theorist. And it worked.

As a result, the CIA was allowed to investigate itself, release a heavily censored report admitting that it had worked with cocaine traffickers, and simultaneously declare itself innocent of any wrongdoing. And that’s where our firebrand national news media has let the matter lie to this day.

More on this topic from PBS.Webb answers questions in 1996 in a forum.

Another story about the reaction to Webb’s piece. From the article:

Webb’s series explained how a San Francisco Bay area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to street gangs in Los Angeles and funneled the profits to the Nicaraguan Contras, the CIA-backed anti-Communist rebel group that Ronald Reagan called the “moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.” Webb did not say directly that the CIA knew about the Contras’ drug dealing, but he suggested that the agency helped to protect the Contras from prosecution.

The implications of the series were stunning: As two Republican presidents urged Americans to “just say no,” agents of the federal government had aided and abetted criminals who were flooding the nation’s ghettos with crack cocaine. One might think that many of the nation’s top journalists would compete to advance the story.

One would be wrong.

The East Coast prestige newspapers and newsmagazines largely ignored the Mercury News’ charges for a month, rising from their lethargy only to report reactions from official sources (“Drug director urges investigation”). Then, after months of being battered by the media giants, Mercury editor Ceppos decided to issue his mea culpa.

A CIA spokesman said he found the reaction of elite newspapers to the Mercury’s stories “gratifying.”

Indeed, the CIA historically has had many opportunities to be “gratified” by the establishment media’s reaction to stories critical of the agency.

**In 1975, CIA Director William Colby was able to convince leading newspapers and networks for two months not to report on the agency’s expensive, unsuccessful efforts to raise a sunken Soviet submarine. In another incident a year later, Daniel Schorr lost his job at CBS News for leaking a secret congressional report critical of the CIA.

[But perhaps the best parallel for the “Dark Alliance” stories is Seymour Hersh’s exposure of the CIA’s “Operation CHAOS” in December 1974.

Hersh, a famed investigative reporter, wrote in the New York Times that the CIA had operated a massive and illegal domestic spying program. The story helped to launch the Church and Pike committee investigations of the secret agencies in 1975.

These investigations later confirmed Hersh’s story. But at the time, the nation’s other elite newspapers and newsmagazines rushed to disparage him and his charges. “I was reviled,” Hersh remembered. He was attacked and ridiculed in the Washington Post, Newsweek and on editorial and op-ed pages across the country. **

Perhaps the most telling observation came from Time. The magazine reported of Hersh’s charges: “Many observers in Washington who are far from naive about the CIA nevertheless consider its past chiefs and most of its officials highly educated, sensitive and dedicated public servants who would scarcely let themselves get involved in the kind of massive scheme described.”

After Webb’s stories ran, Time columnist Jack E. White compared the Mercury’s charges to conspiracy theories that the government deliberately spread the AIDS virus and that a secret ingredient in fried chicken causes sterility in black men. He went on to report the reaction of Time’s specialist on the drug war, correspondent Elaine Shannon, to Webb’s series.

In an eerie echo of the magazine article that had doubted Hersh’s charges, she told her colleague, “Even sources who are routinely skeptical of the official line on the Contras agree that the idea that the agency was behind drug smuggling by the Contras is fantasy.”

After the disclosures of the Church and Pike committees, after the revelations of Iran-Contra, many Americans have become much more skeptical of their government. But some elite journalists still find it difficult to believe that the honorable men at the CIA would ever become involved in dishonorable activities.

Notice that I bolded the parts of that last article that give more examples of how the corporate media can simply take the government line. As I said before, the media take their cue from the military/government.

Why is the corporate media servile to the government on certain matters that the government claim are of “national interest?” Corporations want the status quo. They want to grow, they want what they feel is best for the U.S. corporate world, which includes “globalization.” Have to grow the market in other nations, and that means keeping the Third World from nationalizing.

There’s no meetings on this subject. No grand conspiracy plan. Just an understanding that “government interests” are “national interests” are “corporate interests.” This goes back a long way in the history of this nation. The Phillipines was an imperial conquest. The war with Spain was much the same. The United Fruit Company wanted the government to make Guatemala free for business, whether genocide was necessary or not.

As Gary Webb’s story illustrates, once a reporter blows the wrong cover, you’re on your own. You think other national reporters didn’t learn from Webb’s experience? Learn something about the CIA that will be controversial, you better keep your mouth shut. Hell, much of the criticism of the Bushies’ approach to Iraq came FROM the CIA. I read Newsweek, and they would willingly put in comments from CIA sources about how attacking Iraq will not help their jobs. That’s all internal there. That’s allowed.

Certain voices and viewpoints are attacked, vigorously, to keep the status quo and make the world free for U.S. corporate globalization.

[Clucky]

*Originally posted by El_Kabong *
**Maybe that’s because they are old news. You apparently are a journalist, working for a US-based daily. Why on earth should this particular subject, involving foreign events years in the past, be given priority over any more current news? I mean, if you were arguing that more historical scholars should be publishing on this subject I could see it. But really, I’m failing to see your point, as phrased.

OK, so it never got the treatment its deserved. It’s a bit too too late now, isn’t it? And if you firmly believe the US government is currently propping up odious dictators in some location or other, well, you’re the reporter; go get the story and bring it back to us.

Sorry, but you are starting to sound more and more like one of our now-departed posters who was interested only in wallowing in what he saw as endless American perfidy. **

Well, I WAS a reporter. I’m worse now. I’m in P.R. But, that’s beside the point. I am very much interested in the media and how it presents information to the masses.

I’m not wallowing, rather trying to wade through the facts to get to the truth. What you call “old news” usually is part of an article’s “background.” To fully develop a story, reporters have to use a certain amount of background to bring the readers up to speed on the subject. I’m sure you know this, but it might not have crossed your mind when you responded. Some things don’t have to be part of the background, because they’re implied. Such as the common implication that the U.S. is always trying to do what’s best to advance freedom and democracy.

Take Iran for example. When there’s articles about the U.S. and its relationship with that nation, where’s the obligatory background paragraph pointing out that the CIA helped overthrow a democratic regime 50 years ago, sending that nation into turmoil? From this book review of “All the Shah’s Men”:

Mossadegh’s overthrow in 1953 undermined Iran’s progress toward democracy and independence, shored up a dictatorial monarchy backed by the United States and ultimately strengthened the only opposition the shah could not suppress — the Islamic opposition. Although Mossadegh’s government was more popular than today’s Iranian regime, it was depicted in the U.S. media as unpopular, and the coup against it was portrayed as a popular victory.

The coup was the first of a series of secret U.S. interventions to overthrow popular elected governments, including those in Guatemala (1954) and Chile (1973), and to replace them with regimes that were, like the shah’s, oppressive and unpopular. Kinzer’s detailed examination of this paradigmatic intervention (whose consequences continue to reverberate) is instructive.

On Aug. 19, 1953, Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup led by U.S. agents in a plan devised by the British Secret Service. Though a few Americans and many Iranians blamed the United States and Britain, the official and widely accepted American story was that this was a spontaneous popular uprising. In fact, as Kinzer convincingly relates, the coup was the product of careful planning and some on-the-scene improvisations by its chief U.S. agent, Kermit Roosevelt Jr., grandson of Theodore Roosevelt.

The coup transformed a constitutional monarchy with real political parties into an absolute monarchy in which elections and parliament were completely subject to the will of the shah. Because growing dissent had no licit political outlet, Ayatollah Khomeini and those clergy who followed him grew stronger and, in 1978, encouraged the series of popular demonstrations that led to the shah’s overthrow in February 1979.

In essence, our nation’s involvement indirectly led to the type of government they have there now. Add to that the fact that our nation helped propped up Saddam until he no longer proved to be a friend to our government.

I think if these types of things became part of the collective consciousness, we wouldn’t have the Iraq mess right now. We wouldn’t so easily trust a politician’s promise to “liberate” other nation’s citizens.

That’s my thrust on this. How to fix it? Heck, I’m still trying to decipher how it all happened. I am advancing ideas and assertions, knowing full well that they will be attacked, because I want to think more about this, and want others to think a little more about this situation.

Anyway, I understand if you want to drop the subject. Appreciate the back-and-forth. I’ve stayed away from this place in the past because it seems to be mean-spirited in ways. I appreciate people who can have a civil conversation. Only recently have I had this whole “leftist conversion,” and have returned with some trepidation, knowing that I’m out past the left field foul pole in the political/economic landscape. Things here seem to be presented as liberal v. conservative, with no leftist input.

Anyway, I’m gonna try to find some more sources about recent U.S. support of dictators. I might do that and post a new thread. I’ve seen the evidence, just have to find it again. Btw, did you find any of the School of Americas stuff interesting? It’s still up and running and training brutal killers.

[Jackmannii]

*Originally posted by Clucky *
**Certain voices and viewpoints are attacked, vigorously, to keep the status quo and make the world free for U.S. corporate globalization. **

You see, this is what makes arguing with you hopeless.

One can recognize, without necessarily agreeing with the absolute veracity of all the revelations you’ve posted, that various organizations (governmental and private), companies and powerful individuals have historically been interested in how they’re portrayed in the press and have sometimes lavished favors or pressure on news organizations and/or reporters to see that favorable things about them were reported or embarassing stuff minimized. What on earth this has uniquely to do with corporations, the corporate media, “corporate globalization” or whatever the corporate bogeyman is called by elements of the Left, God only knows.

Who do you do P.R. for? Surely not a corporation.

[El_Kabong]

Anyway, I understand if you want to drop the subject.

Oh, It’s not that I wish to drop it, but I’m pretty much talked out on it at this point, plus my time is somewhat limited here, despite appearances to the contrary. Carry on, of course.

[Clucky]

*Originally posted by Jackmannii *
**You see, this is what makes arguing with you hopeless.

One can recognize, without necessarily agreeing with the absolute veracity of all the revelations you’ve posted, that various organizations (governmental and private), companies and powerful individuals have historically been interested in how they’re portrayed in the press and have sometimes lavished favors or pressure on news organizations and/or reporters to see that favorable things about them were reported or embarassing stuff minimized. What on earth this has uniquely to do with corporations, the corporate media, “corporate globalization” or whatever the corporate bogeyman is called by elements of the Left, God only knows.

Who do you do P.R. for? Surely not a corporation. **

Well, at least you see that that the media will bend to the will of the organizations they are supposed to be covering. The reason it happens is certainly debatable, and that’s one of the things I wanted to explore. I feel that I’ve failed in really drawing a good conversation about this particular aspect. Perhaps I should have just said mainstream media, since it’s just about the same thing, especially in the U.S.

I do P.R. for a government entity. I could just as well do it for a corporation. I could just as well get a job out of the field tomorrow. My opinions would remain unaffected. I’m not married to them, either, but this is how I think, at this particular juncture in my life, from what I’ve seen and heard and have been able to ascertain.