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The Entertainers "My
son was killed in Iraq. Last night I saw George Bush laughing about that." by
Dom Stasi, Information Clearing
House, March 29, 2004 Readers often take issue with my referring to the greater part of mainstream American news media as comprising a bunch of credulous morons.1 Further, in my articles I've found occasion to describe many in that quivering sycophantic remnant of what was once the proud White House Press Corps as a gaggle of worthless whores.2 As if to validate my vitriol, both Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan - George W. Bush's former and current Press Secretaries - have put the D.C. press corps members on notice to that effect. If a reporter expects to sit up front, and if he or she expects to have his raised hand even occasionally acknowledged at press briefings, that reporter had better not ask probing questions about the behavior of this administration. Needless to say then, of the "journalists" who still attend White House briefings, only those who've endeavored mightily to please their censors, get to ask the questions, and get to see what they've written eventually printed in their corporate masters' ink. Growing numbers of these reporters have thus been very good boys and girls during this administration's strange tenure. It matters but little that their reports are usually as childlike as is their behavior. It's not just about selling papers or informing the public anymore. But at least in the print media, there remains a page devoted to opinion and editorial. Generally written by someone who is not a beholden reporter, these missives are generally balanced and tame, but at least the op-ed page is where a discriminating reader might find refuge in reportage occasionally approaching the analytical. Thus the print media, for all its failings, does endeavor to exhibit some redeeming virtue. It is in that which passes for news on the popular radio and television outlets, where the situation is truly dismal. In my lifetime - the past 25 years of which have been spent working in the electronic mass media - I've seen the profession of such magnificent forebears as Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, and David Brinkley degenerate into something I cannot describe with proper words. While their few worthy successors such as Bill Moyers, or Amy Goodman soldier on in the media hinterlands of PBS or NPR, try as I might, I've not yet been able to anything but dignify the contemporary best of popular broadcast and cable network "news" with even the most vile of epithets. In fact, to paraphrase Isaac Newton, though they stand on the shoulders of giants, they see nothing. Beyond that, there are no words. There simply are no words. Every network seems to think that journalistic objectivity as that concept applies to national political news means giving equal treatment to both sides of a story. They endeavor to rationalize this as "balanced reporting" even when only one rational side exists. In its silly naiveté, when it comes to national politics, the electronic media has confused objectivity with the concept of equal time. By that I mean they do not report, but instead strive to balance. One network goes so far as to put the word in their slogan. If radio and television news existed at the time of Jack the Ripper, they would no doubt feel compelled to balance their reportage of his crimes with equal coverage of his positive effect on the overcrowding problems of London's Whitehall district. After all, they would not want to offend any serial killers who might be watching, thus dissuading them from considering a sponsors' products. This form is not journalism, but propaganda. It is designed not to inform, but to sell things. Any reporter who acquiesces to it is either fooling himself or trying to fool his readers. What sparse lame editorial opinion is offered in the ethereal medium, is not opinion at all but a desperate servitude to ratings. Neither objective, intelligent, nor analytical, what passes for editorial content on radio and television news shows is little more than strident, simplistic, partisan exploitation. Pundits of known opinion, telling their minions how to think hardly qualifies as editorial. Even that is veiled as "commentary," and offers no critically considered opinion or - heaven forbid - editorial position. Such a label as "commentary" neuters editorial opinion into preformed and predictable posturing, as bland and unnourishing as the products it is designed to sell. Endeavoring to describe this junk, one must reach back to a time that preceded Fox News or CNN, a time when network news was still produced by a network's news department (not its entertainment division as is often the case today in order that it better compete with the aforementioned). This was also a time when popular music was still written and performed by actual musical artists. In 1981 one such artist, Don Henly, made a yeoman's effort at describing the electronic media correspondent as show-biz personality. In his darkly humorous musical satire entitled Dirty Laundry, Henley sings of "…the bubble-headed-bleached-blonde who comes on at five. She will tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eye." His decades-old lyrics remain far more powerful and illustrative than anything proceeding from my humble efforts at description. But even Henley's brilliantly caustic words, however prescient, fall short today. There simply are no words to describe the travesty that is the enormously influential vacuum known as the American radio and television news media. A perfect example of why this is so, of why radio and television journalists are hardly journalists at all, occurred just this week. On Wednesday evening, the Radio & Television Correspondents' Association held their 60th annual dinner in Washington. The formal event, always a raucous affair, and usually attended by the President of the United States, was - in that respect - no different this year from its 59 predecessors. As usual the current US President gave the keynote speech to the room full of reporters. As usual at the event, he was funny and raucous himself. George W. Bush, like all of his recent presidential predecessors, can be deliberately very funny, especially when self-deprecating. But, deliberately is the operative word here. Keep it in mind: "Deliberately." For what was different this year is this. The sitting President of the United States, the self-described War President, and UCMJ-described3 military miscreant George W. Bush, used the forum - a room full of reporters - to poke fun at the expense of the dead, maimed, and deployed U.S. troops of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Not content to be merely verbally abusive, the insensitive Bush chose to augment his patent blasphemy with a slide show. He used a power point slide show to make people laugh at his fallacious alibi for mass murder - the non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Nearly 600 US soldiers, and some 10,000 Iraqi civilians - most of them women and children - have died horribly violent deaths so far because of this man's blundering lie about WMD, yet he finds it fodder for comedy. The incredible and vulgar fact of the matter though, is this. Despite that the president was mugging before a room full of reporters, laugh they did. Hardee-har-har-har! Slide after slide of a befuddled George W. Bush ostensibly looking for weapons of mass destruction was flashed on the screen before this room full of laughing reporters. The slides would show George looking under his Oval Office desk: "Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere!" George would look out the White House window: "Nope. No weapons there," George would say. Har-dehar-har-har! The room was fairly erupting with laughter. I saw the thing on C-Span. So did the parents and families of a lot of dead and mangled GIs. Like me (and Condoleeza Rice), they've been watching C-Span this week for its wall-to-wall coverage of the Senate 9-11 hearings. But instead of the hearings, there, before my disbelieving eyes was the President of the United States (which meant it couldn't possibly be the 9-11 hearings). But there he was, mugging for the camera, showing slides of himself prancing around the oval office, and yukking it up with his homeys from the press about not finding weapons of mass destruction. My god, thought I. How can this guy be so foolish that he would do this in front of a room full to the rafters with radio and television reporters?! He must have a political death wish. These guys are gonna crucify him on their radio and television news broadcasts tomorrow. Right? Don't cha think? I couldn't sleep that night. Got up before dawn. In anticipation of what I was certain would be the lead story of the day, coffee in hand, I flipped on the kitchen TV. Tuned it to the Five O'clock News. First came the dramatic fanfare to assure me that this was serious business. Then the "anchorman" came on, looking adequately serious. He introduced the various sweater girls with whom he shared the telecast, and said, "Let's get right to today's top story." Here it comes, thought I. "We'll go live to Newport Beach," said the anchorman, "where our correspondent (we'll call her Fifi) is standing by with breaking news. Go ahead Fifi." Newport Beach? "This is Fifi at the Newport Beach High School where we're awaiting the arrival of the first students. In a surprise move yesterday, the principal of this high school banned the wearing of any clothing bearing the color pink…" Dumbfounded, I picked up the remote. Began to throw it, then simply pressed "off." I wandered into the study and went on line. Okay, even though the Bush performance was given before a radio and television correspondents' event, surely one newspaper, the Washington Post would have something on the top banana's comedy act right in their home town. Pulling up the Washington Post to which I subscribe, I was not disappointed. There it was, the headline read, "George Bush: Entertainer In Chief." The article spent most of its ink quoting Bill O'Reilly criticizing Richard Clarke, and commenting on Donald Trump's hair. In the spirit of the evening, the correspondent wrote kindly about the president's truly clever barbs and jabs before turning her critical journalist's attention to the president's power point presentation, and I quote: Mostly, though, he put up dorky-looking pictures of himself. A recurring joke involved photos of the president in awkward positions -- bent over as if he's looking under a table, leaning to look out a window -- accompanied by remarks such as "Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere!" and "Nope, no weapons over there!" and "Maybe under here?"4 No further assessment of the spectacle was noted beyond this single paragraph in a 21 paragraph article. Balanced reportage. Balanced. Scanning the web, I could find but one reporter who was critical of the president's display of insensitive hubris that morning. David Corn, writing in The Nation magazine relates his reactions as a spectator, journalist, and human being in his The Nation piece entitled, Capitol Games.5 He must have stayed up all night too. His words are worth a long, hard look (see footnotes). Summary: So what has happened to radio and television journalism in the United States? Why has so very much of what is purported as the news degenerated into unabashed entertainment? Well, beyond the obvious, which is the objective of keeping viewers in the mood to buy their sponsors' products, there is a more chilling reason why network executives are censoring editorial content. It's called Deregulation. To fully understand the reasons why this issue is central, one must first gain an insight to how perception versus fact among the practitioners of pop media and their corporate and government overseers. I am not saying that my perceptions of the day's reporting of Bush's clown act are statistically accurate. I'm certain they are not. They are my perceptions. Nothing more. But surely nothing less. For it is perception - public perception - formed by the media that is central to the issue of deregulation. There is a 25 year old standing rule in United States communications law. The law limits - severely limits - common ownership among newspaper, broadcast, and radio stations both nationally, and in single markets. The reasons for this are obvious once explained. If a single outlet - such as Newscorp (Fox) or Clearchannel (or Pravda, al Jazeera, Trinity, CBN, so on) owned all or most of the newspapers, radio and television outlets in your city, whose opinions would shape the news that you receive? Would it be "fair and balanced?" How would you know what was fact and what was mind-control? Simple. You wouldn't. That's why there is federal regulation in the media. Not local, not private or "free market," but federal regulation. For example General Electric, an outstanding American corporation, owns NBC. It also makes weapons and pollutants. General Electric has a huge stake in government military contracts and environmental law. Such an entity - however honest or well meaning - should not be a region's only source of news and information. In fact there should never be an ONLY source for news and information. But this administration would have you think that media ownership regulation is tantamount to government control. It is just the opposite. To complicate (or simplify, depending upon ones point of view) matters, George W. Bush is not the only "Junior" in his administration. Michael Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, is Bush's Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). A former executive of Time-Warner (as is this writer), Powell contends that allowing virtually unlimited media mergers and acquisitions would actually enhance diversity of opinion. As with most of this administration's assertions, no viable reasons are offered to validate the statement. Blind faith in ones leaders is expected. Powell attempted to overturn the rules in June of 2003. In an unprecedented public response, his office received over 200,000 letters of protest from private sector Americans. This overwhelming response from the public (we own the airwaves, by the way) forced the legislature to stall Powell's bill forcing the Chairman to water down its ownership provisions to almost no change from those extant. But while this might seem a fine example of democracy in action, the Bush administration is very content with this turn of events. They will now be free to leave deregulation alone until after the 2004 presidential election. That means, with stated and aggressive opposition to the Powell bill by legislative Democrats, the only hope media conglomerates have to realize this windfall, is to see to it that Bush is reelected. Once back in office he and Powell are sure to push the bill forward - but not a moment before. So ask yourself these questions. If you owned a media conglomerate, how seriously would you allow your reporters to criticize Bush and company in an election year? If you were one of those reporters how would your work reflect your boss's interests? Every profession has its ethics. As an engineer I have the luxury of knowing that I would not design a system that was inherently unsafe or unreliable in order to cut costs or acquiesce to the dictates of a greedy or criminal boss. I've already stood that ground and it's already cost me a good job. At the time I came to consider myself a self-absorbed jerk for quitting a good job and putting my young family at financial risk over a matter of principle. But now, at the twilight of my career, reflecting upon my actions as a young man, I would change nothing. Not for all the tea in China. Conclusion: At the start of this article, I spoke of my disdain for the corporate press, a disdain often manifest as words: vile, unflattering words. I've called journalists who hide or dilute or misinterpret the truth worthless whores and credulous morons. But all that has changed now. I've seen the light. My words were tasteless. My words were insulting. So I offer my sincere and heartfelt apology. I apologize to every genuine credulous moron, and truly worthless whore in the entire world for reducing you to comparison with the traitorous purveyors of propaganda who continue to fondly consider themselves the mainstream American news media. I'm sorry whores and morons. I'm truly sorry. I still however, cannot find the words to adequately describe the growing majority of those who call themselves radio and television journalists. This is especially true of those present at that dinner and who saw only humor in Bush's remarks and pictures. The one word I am certain that does NOT describe them however - and I'm certain of this beyond even an unreasonable doubt - is the word Journalist.
Footnotes & References 1. http://www.bigeye.com/chicken.htm 2. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5791.htm 3. UCMJ: Uniform Code Of Military Justice 4. Washington Post. Thursday, March 25, 2004. Jennifer Frey 5. The Nation On Line, March 25, 2004. David Corn. © 2004 Dom Stasi |
