Nancy Chang and Danny Schechter on Media Silence (add your own voice to the mix)

We've got some points to make in this feature. But we're starting out with a lengthy excerpt. It's from Nancy Chang's Silencing Political Dissent (2002). Nancy Chang is a member of the Center for Constitutional Rights so hopefully that makes you look forward to an excerpt of any length. Her book includes a foreword by Howard Zinn, mabe that perks you up. Included in the excerpt is a reminder of Bully Boy's actually behavior on 9/11. Here we go, pages 129-131:

Historically, the press has played a crucial watchdog role over government operations. In 1971, the Supreme Court refused to block the New York Times and the Washington Post from publishing, over the strong objections of the Nixon administration, a classified study of the Vietnam War that exposed the government's use of secrecy and deception to gain the public's support for the war. The study, which has come to be known as the Pentagon Papers, had been commissioned by President Johnson's secretary of state, Robert McNamara, and was leaked to the press, in an act of civil disobedience, by Daniel Ellsberg. As Justices Hugo Black and William Douglas explained in their concurring opinion:

In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. . . . The press was protected [from government censorship] so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilites of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.

The Bush administration's strict supervision over the release of information concerning its military campaign has prevented the press from "bar[ing] the secrets of government and inform[ing] the people." And the press, for its part, has shown itself far too willing to comply with White House requests that it limit its news coverage. On October 10, 2001, the five major television news organizations -- ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the Cable News Network, and Fox News Channel -- announced that they had reached a joint agreement to abridge future videotaped statements from Osama bin Laden and his followers. The organizations were persuaded to enter into this unprecedented pact by National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, who had offered her unsubstantiated speculation that the videos could contain coded messages. But as pointed out by a network executive who chose to remain anonymous, "What sense would it make to keep the tapes off the air if the message could be found transcripted in newspapers or on the Web? The videos could also appear on the Internet. They'd get the messages anyway."
Emboldened by Rice's success with the television news organizations, the next day, October 11, 2001, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer announced that he would ask newspapers to enter into an agreement similar to that reached by the television news organizations. The response of Howell Raines, the editor of the New York Times, was equivocal. While Raines stated that "our practice is to keep our readers fully informed," he also added that "[w]e are always available to listen to any information about security issues."

Even more troubling than the timidity of the television news organizations are signs that the press has been censoring itself. At least two newspaper columnists were fired for criticizing President Bush's actions on September 11. Dan Guthrie, an award-winning columnist for the Grants Pass Daily Courier in Oregon, wrote a column entitled "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tender Turn Tail," in which he accused President Bush of "hiding in a Nebraska hole" on September 11, in an act of "cowardice." A week later, the paper's publisher fired Guthrie, and the editor ran a front-page apology for having printed Guthrie's column. In a similar scenario, Tom Gutting of the Texas City Sun was fired for writing a column in which he accused President Bush of "flying around the country like a scared child" on September 11, and the paper's publisher ran a front-page apology for having printed Gutting's column. These attacks on journalistic freedom send a clear message to all members of the press that they would be wise to fall in line behind White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and "watch what they say."

Great book, we recommend it and we love it anytime we can remind everyone that Bully Boy -- The Great "Protector" -- ran like a 'fraidy cat while the nation tried to sort out what happened. Maybe in the famous footage where he's seen sitting and sitting in the Florida classroom after learning of the strike, he's frozen to his chair in fear? He certainly behaved like a scaredy cat when he did get in motion.

But we chose that excerpt for a reason, to remind you how bad it was. It's slightly better now. Columnists can express criticism of the Bully Boy, in some cases, without fear of being fired.
The news remains muzzled. What you gonna' do?

Danny Schechter offers an idea [NOTE ADDED: ON MONDAY, AFTER THIS PUBLISHED SUNDAY, THE DATE OF THE FOLLOWING EVENT CHANGED TO MARCH 15TH. READ DANNY SCHECHTER'S "Why Protest Media Coverage Mar 15?" FOR MORE]

Protests Planned Against Media War Coverage
ANNOUNCEMENT: UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE IS PARTNERING WITH MEDIACHANNEL.ORG TO FOCUS ATTENTION ON MEDIA COMPLICITY IN THE IRAQ WAR.
Last week, new photographs of detainees abused by US soldiers in the infamous Abu Ghraib gulag in Iraq surfaced. They were discovered by the American Civil Liberties Union. The story was covered on TV in Australia!
The most elaborate statistics on the abuse scandal appeared in the press.
· 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse
· 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse
· 660 images of adult pornography
· 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees
· 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts
This information made headlines in the Guardian newspaper in England!
Meanwhile, in the United States, all of the networks covered a speech by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the man who once famously said, "As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know."
Now, the Pentagon's Rumsfeld is declaring a new war - on the press. The Washington Post reports:
"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Friday called for the U.S. military and other government agencies to mount a far more aggressive, faster and nontraditional information campaign to counter messages of extremist and terrorist groups in the world media. Rumsfeld Š lashed out at the U.S. media, whose coverage he blamed for effectively halting recent military information initiatives, such as paying to place articles in Iraqi newspapers."
Rumsfeld's attack on the media for mildly questioning propaganda posing as news is consistent with the Administration's management of war news through a billion dollar "information warfare" program that engineered positive media coverage for the invasion.
That continuing coverage documented by critics, including in my own new book, "When News Lies: Media Complicity and the Iraq War," is on its way from being a public complaint to becoming a political issue.
America's largest anti-war coalition, United For Peace and Justice, is broadening its anti-war protest to include targeting a US media system that has largely substituted jingoism for journalism and backed the war -- often in the name of supporting the troops.
UFPJ Coordinator Leslie Cagan announced that her organization is partnering with MediaChannel.org and other media groups to organize a Media Day of War Coverage Protest on March 21, 2006. It takes part during a week of organizing and activism marking the third anniversary of the war. Plans are also underway for forums and film screenings on March 20th.
"We are thrilled that anti-war activists will now be connecting with media reform activists to challenge mainstream media 'coverage' that has underreported civilian casualties and much of the costs of the war," says MediaChannel Director David DeGraw.
"Sadly, the media helped make the war possible, and despite mea culpas about flawed pre-war coverage, the coverage has basically not changed, an approach which treats every Administration claim seriously, while marginalizing the anti-war movement."
Even as public opinion shifted against the war -- only 37% of the American people are said to still back the war - most of the media downplay reporting on demands for troop withdrawal.
Focusing on the media role is a departure for the anti-war movement that helped organize the protests that brought 30 million people to the streets on March 15, 2003. Until now, protesters have focused almost entirely on government policies and practices.
Recognizing the media role indicts a corporate America that has, in some cases, profited from the war with rises in ratings and revenues. This includes General Electric (GE), owner of NBC-Universal, who received $600,000 in Iraq reconstruction contracts.
Before the war began broadcast networks lobbied the FCC for rule changes to allow them to buy more stations. At the time, Washington insiders spoke of a quid pro-quo with the networks asking the FCC to waive their rules while their news shows waved the flag. In that period, then FCC Commissioner Michael Powell justified a need for more media concentration with the claim that "only big companies can cover a war like the one in Iraq."
Many journalists and media organizations have since blasted one-sided coverage. Editor & Publisher, a media industry trade magazine, has consistently documented and criticized pervasive media practices that boosted the war with more "selling than telling."
Mediachannel.org launched a "Tell the Truth About the War" campaign months ago, calling for better and more consistent coverage. Thousands of emails from readers have gone to media executives.
If the war is to end, the coverage has to change. We need to press the press and move the media.
Now MediaChannel plans to organize meetings between critics and media companies. Planning for protests and panels is underway -- not only in New York, but at local newspapers, radio and TV stations across the nation as part of a national effort. A national email campaign will be launched as well.
If you would like to endorse or participate in this effort, or help in your community by organizing meetings, house parties -- including screenings of WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception) and other films critical of the war media coverage -- contact Priya@mediachannel.org


"If the war is to end, the coverage has to change." You got a better idea? We'd hoped (before everything went wrong technically) to do a feature this edition for our housebound parents (of young children and, on that topic, congratulations to Rusty and Dee on their new baby girl Ana)
noting ways you could take part on the third anniversary if you were able to have people over but not able to leave. One of those ways was going to be showing films like Schechter's WMD
(we've noted the film repeatedly but at length in "Must see DVD: Danny Schechter's Weapons of Mass Deception").

We'll be participating in a number of events during the week of the anniversary and we're all for public protests. But we do our readership. Our "base," which is far from Bully Boy's, if you will.
It's a better class of people, to be sure, but economically many of you are struggling. (Which is why we've only done one film review of a movie in theaters and why we concentrate on programs that air on broadcast TV.) Some of you can't travel due to economics or young children. (Or both.) There may be events in your area. If so, maybe you can attend one of those? But if not, as we pointed out in the lead up to the September protests, you can participate. If it's only one person you invite over, you can watch a film telling the truth, or listen to music telling the truth, or read from a book telling the truth. But you can do something. And the key isn't what happens during a "presentation" but the discussion that follows. Watch Democracy Now! together or read transcripts together, do something to share what you are finding with others. Even if it's only one person. Taryn ended up inviting five friends over and watching Schechter's film and another film (Ty thinks that she wrote it was Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller's Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train). Back then, she shared in her e-mail that it was so successful she was going to try to triple the number in March. March is almost here. What are you going to do?

Wait for The New York Times to slight the protests in their coverage again? You know it's probably going to happen, we know it's probably going to happen. Can't count on the corporate media. Which is why MediaChannel.org and United for Peace and Justice are organizing protests and trying to change that. Maybe you can be a part of that? Maybe you can't but there's something else you can take part in? Figure it out and make yourself heard.