The News Media and the Anti-War Movement

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The News Media and the Anti-War Movement

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 16:41:43 -0700

 

 

 

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/092605S.shtml

 

The News Media and the Anti-War Movement

By Norman Solomon

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

 

Monday 26 September 2005

 

It's reasonable to estimate that more than a quarter of a million

people demonstrated against the Iraq war on Saturday in Washington,

Los Angeles, San Francisco and other US cities. The next day, the

Washington Post front-paged a decent story that described " the largest

show of antiwar sentiment in the nation's capital since the conflict

in Iraq began. " But more perfunctory back-page articles were typical

in daily papers across the country. And over the weekend, many TV news

watchers saw little or nothing about the protests.

 

Hurricane Rita was clearly a factor. But even without dramatic

natural disasters, the news media are ready, willing and able to

downplay news about war - and the antiwar movement - for any number of

reasons. Conventional wisdom on Capitol Hill or in newsrooms can tamp

down media coverage of a surging movement. What's crucial is that the

movement not allow its momentum to be interrupted by media treatment.

 

If " journalism is the first draft of history, " the journalism of

corporate media is usually the quickie top-down view of history that's

told from vantage points far removed from progressive movements. Media

technologies and styles aside, what we're experiencing now from major

US news outlets is not very different from the coverage of the Vietnam

War.

 

A persistent myth is that mainstream American news outlets were

tough on the war in Vietnam while boosting the antiwar movement. And

these days - after a summer of plunging poll numbers for President

Bush along with the profoundly important media presence of Cindy

Sheehan - many people seem to think that the news media have turned

against the war makers in Washington. But overall the media realities

are something else. Actual history should make us wary of any

assumption that the press is apt to be a counterweight to militarism.

 

Vietnam " was the first war in which reporters were routinely

accredited to accompany military forces yet not subject to

censorship, " media scholar Daniel Hallin wrote in his excellent book

The " Uncensored War " : The Media and Vietnam. The authorities in

Washington figured they could expect correspondents not to wander too

far in terms of content; " the integration of the media into the

political establishment was assumed to be secure enough that the last

major vestige of direct government control - military censorship in

wartime - could be lifted. "

 

Some reporters exercised a significant degree of independence.

And, Hallin concluded, " this did matter: in 1963, when American policy

in Vietnam began to fall apart, the media began to send back an image

that conflicted sharply with the picture of progress officials were

trying to paint. It would happen again many times before the war was

over. But those reporters also went to Southeast Asia schooled in a

set of journalistic practices which, among other things, ensured that

the news would reflect, if not always the views of those at the very

top of the American political hierarchy, at least the perspectives of

American officialdom generally. "

 

Despite all the changes in news media since then, a systemic

filtration process remains crucial. Strong economic pressures are

especially significant - and combine with powerful forces for

conformity at times of war. " Even if journalists, editors, and

producers are not superpatriots, they know that appearing unpatriotic

does not play well with many readers, viewers, and sponsors, " media

analyst Michael X. Delli Carpini has commented. " Fear of alienating

the public and sponsors, especially in wartime, serves as a real,

often unstated tether, keeping the press tied to accepted wisdom. "

Journalists in American newsrooms don't have to worry about being

taken out and shot; the constraining fears are apt to revolve around

peer approval, financial security and professional advancement.

 

Interviewed in early November 2003, with the Iraq occupation in

the midst of turning into a large-scale war against a growing

insurgency, Hallin compared media treatment of the two wars and saw

similar patterns. " As you begin to get a breakdown of consensus,

especially among political elites in Washington, then the media begin

asking more questions, " he said. In the case of the Iraq occupation,

" the Democrats were mostly silent for a long time on this war, and

when things began to bog down, they started asking questions. There

were divisions within the Bush administration, and then the media

starts playing a more independent role. "

 

To a notable degree, reporters seem to await signals from

politicians and high-level appointees to widen the range of discourse.

" They need confirmation that this issue is part of the mainstream

political discussion in the US, " Hallin commented. " Journalists are

very keyed into what their sources are talking about. Political

reporters define news worthiness in part by what's going to affect

American politics in the sense of who gets elected the next time

around. But it isn't absolutely only elites. I think it also makes a

difference that polls show the public divided, and that there are

problems of morale among soldiers in Iraq. But the first thing that

the journalists look to is: 'What are the elites debating in

Washington?' That's what really sets the news agenda. "

 

So, with the autumn of 2005 underway, what are the elites debating

in Washington? With rare exceptions, they're debating how to continue

the US occupation of Iraq.

 

High-profile Democrats and even some Republicans like to bemoan

" mistakes " and bad planning and the absence of an " exit strategy. " The

prevailing version of Washington's debate over Iraq still amounts to

disputes over how to proceed with the US war effort in Iraq. Top

officials and politicians in Washington won't change that. The

journalists echoing them won't change that. The antiwar movement must.

 

Norman Solomon is the author of the new book War Made Easy: How

Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. For information, go

to: WarMadeEasy.com.

 

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