Ruth's Public Radio Report
Ruth: First off, I want to mention that Thursday Rebecca covered Flashpoints and Kat covered Guns and Butter. In addition Mike and Cedric have also discussed Law and Disorder. I think that is wonderful and hope you will read their posts.
I will open this report with CounterSpin and start, as CounterSpin does, by noting "recent press."
Peter Hart: Former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger's death on March 28th was followed by glowing obituaries that mostly played down the messier episodes in his career. Time Magazine dismissed Weinberger's 1992 indictment in the Iran-Contra scandal as a QUOTE "Late rare blemish" CLOSED QUOTE on a long career. In fact the indictment was for
activities occurring in the mid and late 1980s and Weinberger was at the pinnacle of his career. A lengthy Los Angeles Times obituary covered Weinberger's indictment to the Iran-Contra scandal to a few short paragraphs explaining that he was a QUOTE "complex figure" CLOSED QUOTE. Weinberg was indicted for concealing evidence. It was widely believed that his trial would have proved Ronald Reagan's and George H. W. Bush's roles in the scandal.
Two weeks before the trial in 1992, Weinberger received a pardon from Bush. Dana Milbank's Washington Post piece, headlined "A Warm Farewell for a Cold War Warrior" was just as sentimental as that headline. Reporting about how current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld choked up at how fondly Weinberger was remembered. Milbank added a little sentimentality of his own by inaccurately setting Weinberger's career in QUOTE "a simpler time, before the binary logic of mutually assured destruction gave way to the messy nuances of asymmetrical warfare" CLOSED QUOTE. But asymmetrical warfare, loosely defined as warfare targeting civilians, was no stranger to the Reagan era and the preceding years. Milbank's distinction ignores forty years of cold war history when the U.S. played a central role in killing millions of civilians in countries including Vietnam, Laos, Angola, Congo, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and many more. That those deaths could be summarily erased in the service of fuzzy feelings about a figure like Weinberger is a commentary on the state of watchdog press.
While Peter Hart critiqued the coverage of Casper Weinberger's passing, Janine Jackson critiqued the coverage of Hugh Chavez.
Janine Jackson: Last month the Los Angeles Times reported that the White House would soon be stepping up its efforts against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Well the New York Times seems to be following the same playbook. On March 31st, the paper ran a long piece detailing allegations against the Chavez government made by members of the country's increasingly marginalized opposition. The piece was one-sided by design with the majority of the quotes coming from those seeking to unseat Chavez. The Times did its part by offering up a very typical explanation of Chavez's popularity. QUOTE "Chavez remains hugely popular with a fifty-five percent approval rating in opinion polls for having funneled billions of dollars in oil revenue to the poor." CLOSED QUOTE. Most polls actually put Chavez's approval ratings at about fifteen or twenty percent higher. As to the second point, Venezuela has a state-owned oil company so the fact that those revenues would be spent on the country's people, many of whom are poor, was not exactly a surprise. Why the Times calls that funneling is unclear. A few days later, the Times was on the Venezuela beat again with an April 4th report headlined
"Chavez seeking foreign ally spends billions." The sourcing in this story was also lopsided in favor of Chavez's critics so readers weren't able to hear much that would counter the ideal that Chavez's pushing what the paper called pet projects to enhance his his regional power
or, in the New York Times' construction, QUOTE "provocatively building a bulwark against what he has called American imperialist aims." CLOSED QUOTE. Dissenting opinions were available on the letter pages of the Times with one reader wondering why one country's foreign aid was derided as pet projects by the paper especially since U.S. efforts to spend money abroad were termed, in the very same piece, development programs.
Following two more critiques, Peter Hart interviewed PR Watch's Daniel Price about the fake news that makes it onto the airwaves. The fake news in this case comes via something called "Video news releases." I am assuming that this is some sort of industry term but since it is not not news, I am unclear why coverage on this repeats the term "Video news release"? Would a better term be "Video press release"? That is what they are and the term I will use because I feel including "news" in the term may lead some casual observers to question what the problem is since they are "news." They are corporate advertisements.
If you have missed the news coverage of this topic, corporations are creating their own press releases. That is something that they have always done; however, decades ago they would present this in text form and, from time to time, newspapers would run the press releases an actual news article. The same thing is occurring today and the newer feature is that the press releases are in video form. Local stations have been airing the video press releases as "news."
There has been little disclaimer and, as Mr. Price noted, efforts have been made to pass the p.r. spokespersons off as the press and as reporters for the local stations by saying, "Now here's ___ with that story." In 92% of incidents where stations aired these Video press releases, no original reporting was added by the station. Mr. Price stated that it might seem like this would be an issue for smaller stations since they would have lower budgets but, in fact, their study found that the Video press releases could be found in "Every major city, we got big market stations." More information and ways to make your voice heard on this issue can be found at PR Watch.
Ms. Jackson interviewed Jeff Faux who was the president of Economic Policy Institute and is the author of The Global Class War. Their discussion revolved around the global economy with an emphasis on the coverage of the French protests over proposed changes to the labor laws. Even when Ms. Jackson is left panning for gold with a guest, I always enjoy her own work in the interview but it is always twice as enjoyable to hear her interview someone who does not minimalize the obligations or actions of the press. Mr. Faux was such a guest and I strongly recommend the interview. Ms. Jackson noted in her opening that the coverage of the French protests took a point of view that the efforts the protesters opposed were a historical march and a norm which led to a ridiculing of those opposed to the proposals. This was one of the many of the points that Mr. Faux was able to elaborate on. "News you can use," as Ms. Jackson noted, might allow for questioning of different situations but instead the mind set was that there is only one way and those with other ways must be brought up to date, up to speed. Mr. Faux spoke of this and offered additional examples of past coverage including NAFTA.
I will open this report with CounterSpin and start, as CounterSpin does, by noting "recent press."
Peter Hart: Former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger's death on March 28th was followed by glowing obituaries that mostly played down the messier episodes in his career. Time Magazine dismissed Weinberger's 1992 indictment in the Iran-Contra scandal as a QUOTE "Late rare blemish" CLOSED QUOTE on a long career. In fact the indictment was for
activities occurring in the mid and late 1980s and Weinberger was at the pinnacle of his career. A lengthy Los Angeles Times obituary covered Weinberger's indictment to the Iran-Contra scandal to a few short paragraphs explaining that he was a QUOTE "complex figure" CLOSED QUOTE. Weinberg was indicted for concealing evidence. It was widely believed that his trial would have proved Ronald Reagan's and George H. W. Bush's roles in the scandal.
Two weeks before the trial in 1992, Weinberger received a pardon from Bush. Dana Milbank's Washington Post piece, headlined "A Warm Farewell for a Cold War Warrior" was just as sentimental as that headline. Reporting about how current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld choked up at how fondly Weinberger was remembered. Milbank added a little sentimentality of his own by inaccurately setting Weinberger's career in QUOTE "a simpler time, before the binary logic of mutually assured destruction gave way to the messy nuances of asymmetrical warfare" CLOSED QUOTE. But asymmetrical warfare, loosely defined as warfare targeting civilians, was no stranger to the Reagan era and the preceding years. Milbank's distinction ignores forty years of cold war history when the U.S. played a central role in killing millions of civilians in countries including Vietnam, Laos, Angola, Congo, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and many more. That those deaths could be summarily erased in the service of fuzzy feelings about a figure like Weinberger is a commentary on the state of watchdog press.
While Peter Hart critiqued the coverage of Casper Weinberger's passing, Janine Jackson critiqued the coverage of Hugh Chavez.
Janine Jackson: Last month the Los Angeles Times reported that the White House would soon be stepping up its efforts against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Well the New York Times seems to be following the same playbook. On March 31st, the paper ran a long piece detailing allegations against the Chavez government made by members of the country's increasingly marginalized opposition. The piece was one-sided by design with the majority of the quotes coming from those seeking to unseat Chavez. The Times did its part by offering up a very typical explanation of Chavez's popularity. QUOTE "Chavez remains hugely popular with a fifty-five percent approval rating in opinion polls for having funneled billions of dollars in oil revenue to the poor." CLOSED QUOTE. Most polls actually put Chavez's approval ratings at about fifteen or twenty percent higher. As to the second point, Venezuela has a state-owned oil company so the fact that those revenues would be spent on the country's people, many of whom are poor, was not exactly a surprise. Why the Times calls that funneling is unclear. A few days later, the Times was on the Venezuela beat again with an April 4th report headlined
"Chavez seeking foreign ally spends billions." The sourcing in this story was also lopsided in favor of Chavez's critics so readers weren't able to hear much that would counter the ideal that Chavez's pushing what the paper called pet projects to enhance his his regional power
or, in the New York Times' construction, QUOTE "provocatively building a bulwark against what he has called American imperialist aims." CLOSED QUOTE. Dissenting opinions were available on the letter pages of the Times with one reader wondering why one country's foreign aid was derided as pet projects by the paper especially since U.S. efforts to spend money abroad were termed, in the very same piece, development programs.
Following two more critiques, Peter Hart interviewed PR Watch's Daniel Price about the fake news that makes it onto the airwaves. The fake news in this case comes via something called "Video news releases." I am assuming that this is some sort of industry term but since it is not not news, I am unclear why coverage on this repeats the term "Video news release"? Would a better term be "Video press release"? That is what they are and the term I will use because I feel including "news" in the term may lead some casual observers to question what the problem is since they are "news." They are corporate advertisements.
If you have missed the news coverage of this topic, corporations are creating their own press releases. That is something that they have always done; however, decades ago they would present this in text form and, from time to time, newspapers would run the press releases an actual news article. The same thing is occurring today and the newer feature is that the press releases are in video form. Local stations have been airing the video press releases as "news."
There has been little disclaimer and, as Mr. Price noted, efforts have been made to pass the p.r. spokespersons off as the press and as reporters for the local stations by saying, "Now here's ___ with that story." In 92% of incidents where stations aired these Video press releases, no original reporting was added by the station. Mr. Price stated that it might seem like this would be an issue for smaller stations since they would have lower budgets but, in fact, their study found that the Video press releases could be found in "Every major city, we got big market stations." More information and ways to make your voice heard on this issue can be found at PR Watch.
Ms. Jackson interviewed Jeff Faux who was the president of Economic Policy Institute and is the author of The Global Class War. Their discussion revolved around the global economy with an emphasis on the coverage of the French protests over proposed changes to the labor laws. Even when Ms. Jackson is left panning for gold with a guest, I always enjoy her own work in the interview but it is always twice as enjoyable to hear her interview someone who does not minimalize the obligations or actions of the press. Mr. Faux was such a guest and I strongly recommend the interview. Ms. Jackson noted in her opening that the coverage of the French protests took a point of view that the efforts the protesters opposed were a historical march and a norm which led to a ridiculing of those opposed to the proposals. This was one of the many of the points that Mr. Faux was able to elaborate on. "News you can use," as Ms. Jackson noted, might allow for questioning of different situations but instead the mind set was that there is only one way and those with other ways must be brought up to date, up to speed. Mr. Faux spoke of this and offered additional examples of past coverage including NAFTA.
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