-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [ot] humanitarian assistance
Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 19:30:33 -0600
From: f1f0@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Reply-To: freesound@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: meter@xxxxxxxxxx


http://www.mercurycenter.com/opinion/perspective/docs/badmedia02.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/kosovo/kosovo.htm
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/may1999/yugo-m03.shtml
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/may1999/grk-m03.shtml





FAIR wrote:

                                  FAIR-L
                     Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
                Media analysis, critiques and news reports

  ACTION ALERT: Contact Local Papers About Op-Ed on Media & Yugoslavia

  FAIR associate and "Media Beat" columnist Norman Solomon has written a
  special opinion piece, "How (Not) to Cover a War: Fawn, Whitewash,
  Wave the Flag" (attached), which is currently available on the
  Knight-Ridder/Tribune wire service.

  The op-ed appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on Sunday, May 2nd. It
  is now available to newspapers around the country.

  *********
  ACTION: Contact your local op-ed page editors and encourage them to
  consider this column for publication in their own paper.

  You could point out that it analyzes an aspect of the war in
  Yugoslavia that often gets little attention: media as cheerleaders for
  NATO military efforts. As NATO and other government officials praise
  the media's coverage of the war, Solomon's column asks the appropriate
  question: When government officials praise media coverage of their own
  actions, what conclusions should we draw from that?

  The title of the column is "How (Not) to Cover a War: Fawn, Whitewash,
  Wave the Flag," and it is available from the Knight-Ridder/Tribune
  wire service.

  The URL for the column is:
  http://www.mercurycenter.com/opinion/perspective/docs/badmedia02.htm

  How (Not) to Cover a War: Fawn, Whitewash, Wave the Flag

  By Norman Solomon

  In late April, with the bombing of Yugoslavia in its fifth week, many
  prominent American journalists gathered at a posh Manhattan hotel for
  the annual awards dinner of the prestigious Overseas Press Club. They
  heard a complimentary speech by Richard Holbrooke, one of the key U.S.
  diplomats behind recent policies in the Balkans.

  "The kind of coverage we're seeing from the New York Times, the
  Washington Post, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and the newsmagazines lately on
Kosovo," he
  told the assembled media professionals, "has been extraordinary and
  exemplary."

  Holbrooke had good reasons to praise the nation's leading journalists.
  This spring, major news organizations have functioned more like a
  fourth branch of government than a Fourth Estate. For instance:

  * Instead of challenging Orwellian techniques, media outlets are doing
  much to foist them on the public.

  Marching off to war, journalists have relied on official sources --
  with non-stop interviews, behind-the-scenes backgrounders, televised
  briefings and grainy bomb-site videos. "Collateral damage," "air
campaign" and
  similar euphemisms generate a continual fog. Newspeak routinely
  sanitizes NATO's bombardment of populated areas.

  Consider the opening words of the lead front-page article in the New
  York Times last Sunday: "NATO began its second month of bombing against
  Yugoslavia today with new strikes against military targets that
  disrupted civilian electrical and water supplies...."

  The concept is remarkable: The bombing disrupted "civilian"
  electricity and water, yet the targets were "military."

  Correspondents have no business going through such linguistic
  contortions to preserve the favorite fictions of Washington
policy-makers. NATO's
  bombing of urban areas should be reported for what it is -- especially
  because such destruction of infrastructure leads to widespread disease
  and civilian deaths, as is occurring now in Iraq.

  * American TV networks often show file footage of U.S. bombers and
  missiles in flight -- but rarely show what really happens to people at
  the receiving end.

  Rather than echoing Pentagon hype about the wondrous performances of
  Uncle Sam's weaponry, journalists should provide unflinching accounts
of the
  results in human terms. Reporter Robert Fisk of London's daily
  Independent has managed to do so with dispatches like this:

  "Deep inside the tangle of cement and plastic and iron, in what had
  once been the make-up room next to the broadcasting studio of Serb
  Television, was all that was left of a young woman, burnt alive when NATO's
  missile exploded in the radio control room. Within six hours, the
Secretary of
  State  for International Development, Clare Short, declared the place a
  `legitimate target.'

  "It wasn't an argument worth debating with the wounded -- one of them
  a young technician who could only be extracted from the hundreds of tons
  of concrete in which he was encased by amputating both his legs. ... By
  dusk last night, 10 crushed bodies -- two of them women -- had been tugged
  from beneath the concrete, another man had died in hospital and 15 other
  technicians and secretaries still lay buried."

  * In medialand, there are informal but well-understood limits to media
  discourse. As the missiles fly, tactical arguments are acceptable;
  basic challenges from Americans who question U.S. prerogatives and motives
  are not. Meanwhile, even as they go along to get along, reporters are fond
  of exaggerating their tiffs with military authorities.

  In a typical comment a few weeks ago, on public television's "NewsHour
  With Jim Lehrer," media correspondent Terence Smith spoke of "the
  frequently adversarial relationship between the Pentagon and the
  press." But top U.S. officials such as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
  and Defense Secretary William Cohen are happy to be interviewed on the
  influential show. It goes beyond softball questions; Lehrer and his
  colleagues are more inclined to toss out beach balls.

  As for the range of views, the mass media spectrum is narrow. Strong
  policy critics get few words in edgewise amid the parade of present
  and former U.S. government officials, analysts from corporate-funded think
  tanks, conformist historians and mainstream journalists.

  We need real debate, not minor disputes over tactical options.

  * American journalists don't hesitate to probe the nefarious goals of
  a Washington-designated "enemy" leader, as when a Newsweek cover story
  featured "Milosevic -- The Face of Evil -- His Mind and Motives." In
  sharp contrast, reporting on the motivations of U.S. policy-makers has been
  evasive.

  In a recent essay, National Public Radio correspondent Sylvia Poggioli
  noted that the countries of the Balkans as well as Eastern and Central
  Europe have been under close Western scrutiny during this decade. Yet,
  she pointed out, "too often their most zealous monitors have been
  free-market missionaries whose democracy-building yardstick is limited to
  privatization of industry and the creation of a consumer society."

  High on the U.S. agenda has been the aim of making that part of the
  world safe for unbridled corporate investment and big profits --
though you
  wouldn't know it from the corporate-owned U.S. news media.

  * On human rights, journalists commonly go along with the double
  standards favored by the White House and congressional leaders.

  To depart from their own propaganda functions, major U.S. media
  outlets could insist on pursuing tough questions. Such as: If humanitarian
  concerns are high on Washington's agenda, why drop bombs on Yugoslavia
and give
  aid to Turkey?

  As it happens, the most righteous charges leveled by President Clinton
  against the Yugoslav government about its brutal treatment of ethnic
  Albanians could just as accurately be aimed at the Turkish government
  for its repression of Kurds. But Washington and Ankara are cozy NATO
  allies, so we hear little about the large-scale torture and murder of Kurdish
  people inside Turkey.

  The journalistic responsibility remains unmet: News outlets should
  embrace a single standard of human rights in their reporting.

  * Intrepid at their keyboards and microphones, hundreds of American
  commentators demand further escalation of high-tech bombing.

  A typical enthusiast, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, was so
  enthralled with his own witticism "Give war a chance" that he repeated
  it from one column to another last month. Friedman has been upbeat about
  prospects for more extensive carnage. "It should be lights out in
  Belgrade: Every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related
factory has
  to be targeted."

  "Liberal" pundits are among the most bloodthirsty. Last November, when
  the United States postponed its missile attack on Baghdad, disappointment
  was rampant. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen complained: "The
  Clinton administration waited too long to act. It needed to punch out Iraq's
  lights, and it did not do so."

  Journalists should get a grip and leave the schoolyard posturing
  behind -- or find a profession where their flip bravado would do less harm.

  * As crucial participants in the U.S. government's agenda-building for
  this war, the American mass media have glided over key aspects of the
  negotiations that led up to it.

  The Rambouillet accords -- rejected by Slobodan Milosevic in late
  March just before the bombing began -- actually allowed for NATO
troops to
  occupy all of Yugoslavia, a provision that no sovereign nation would accept.
  At the time, the American news media were silent about that fact. Now,
  when pressed on the matter, many journalists at big national media outlets
  say it's old news. But they never reported it in the first place.

  Appendix B of the Rambouillet text includes such provisions as: "NATO
  personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels,
  aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access
  throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia] including
associated air
  space and territorial waters."

  Not all American journalists are sleepwalking through this war,
  deferring to the guidance of U.S. officials. At the Overseas Press
Club awards
  dinner, two recipients of honors demanded that Holbrooke -- who had
  personally delivered the ultimatum to Belgrade hours before the bombs
  started falling -- account for the little-known stipulations in the
  Rambouillet text. Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill, gutsy journalists
  with Pacifica Radio, confronted him with a question that America's
  mainstream media had failed to ask.

  Aided by awards presenter Tom Brokaw, the esteemed diplomat slipped
  away without answering. Nor did the assembled editors, reporters and
  producers support Goodman and Scahill in their quest for a full explanation.

  In a banquet room filled with hundreds of American journalists, the
  ambassador was among friends.

 ________________________________________________________


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