- It's the cocktail hour at a hotel near the White House.
Friends are in town - and they have invited some folks for a get-together.
-
- Just the facts, Ma'am
-
- Soon enough, a senior Pentagon official joins the round.
I cherish the opportunity to ask him a couple of - admittedly critical
and inquisitive - questions.
-
- Puzzled, he replies: "Why are you asking all these
questions? Aren't journalists just supposed to report the facts?"
-
- Welcome to the modern world of Washington media. And
if you believe that the attitude of this Bush official is not characteristic
of his administration's handling of the media, then you are in for a real
surprise.
-
- For what is truly shocking about the state of the U.S.
media today is that, to an amazing extent, the belief to restrict themselves
to the facts ó as they are provided by the government - is willingly
accepted by the mainstream U.S. media.
-
- Spin around the clock
-
- So far, so good - or bad. But your faith in the independence
of the U.S. media really takes a hard hit when, on another occasion, you
sit next to a prominent White House correspondent who is answering a call
on his cell phone. A senior White House official is on the line, as he
is happy to indicate.
-
- Predictably enough, the policymaker was keen on re-spinning
the next day's front-page story - but was doing so in all too transparent
a manner.
-
- Too pliable?
-
- The shock came upon getting the paper in question the
next morning - and seeing how this well-respected reporter had fallen for
the spin. Lock, stock and barrel.
-
- That's when you begin to wonder whether the political
reporters of major U.S. papers really see it as their job to provide truly
independent news and analysis - or are all eager to act as undercover government
spokesmen.
-
- Increasingly, it looks as though they are all too pliable
in order to preserve top-level access.
-
- Too harsh a judgment? Hardly. After all, one needs to
factor in that many U.S. journalists' self-perception of their professional
courage is sky-high.
-
- The media as PR agencies
-
- But instead of printing all the news that's fit to print,
they waffle on printing news that would give those in power the fits.
-
- What gives me further reason to pause is to hear our
real White House correspondent - the one who let himself be spun like wool
- intone in a panel discussion the next day about the importance of the
independent media as the "fourth estate."
-
- The Iraq legacy
-
- But the trouble does not end there. In recent weeks,
I have had several long conversations with proud and smart reporters who
had always called a spade a spade -until they went to Iraq as "embedded
reporters."
-
- Challenge them now on their new pliability - and they
will look at you in disbelief. "200 million Americans can't be wrong
in their support of the President - and the war with Iraq. That's something
that we as the media have to take into account," said one well-traveled
senior Washington reporter.
-
- One has to wonder why the media, once again, went along
so willingly with the storyline provided by public officials. Why are the
media followers - rather than leaders - in enabling an informed and critical
public discourse?
-
- During and after the Iraq war, the U.S. media - to an
astounding degree - took President Bush's assertions about Saddam Hussein's
WMD program at face value.
-
- Opposition spirit
-
- But the evidence, which many experts and foreign governments
had described as quite flimsy at the time, was presented as absolute proof
in much of the U.S. media's coverage.
-
- The U.S. media model works beautifully - for the governing,
not the governed, that is.
-
- Always following - never leading
-
- During the formulation and implementation phase of a
given policy - say, war with Iraq - the U.S. media tend to take a low profile
in asking hard questions about the implications.
-
- Then, of course, after things go awry, it's the follow-theñstory
phase of another kind: Throw all the reporting resources into finding out
what went wrong. But it's always follow, follow, follow. Or: "Let
them shoot first, ask questions later."
-
- One possible explanation is that the U.S. media is suffering
from a post-9/11 syndrome, under which it finds itself unable to question
- let alone criticize - public officials during periods of perceived or
actual emergencies.
-
- It is certainly easy enough to feel with officials who
are busy trying to get a hold on a confusing situation.
-
- Too much compassion?
-
- But journalists also have to realize that, in today's
world, the attempts by politicians and other officials to spin any situation
are relentless and instantaneous. The aim, of course, is to shape the early
coverage of any event to the greatest possible extent, preferably by turning
what was meant to be reporting into cheerleading.
-
- If you doubt the story so far, go back and ask any of
these fine journalists about the importance of a permanent "opposition
spirit" as a key ingredient of the profession - in the sense that
an essential role of the media is to challenge those in power. All you
will earn is blank stares.
-
- The Democrats' job?
-
- "We are not here to support the Democrats,"
one says. Never mind that the Democrats offer precious little opposition.
That means that the job of acting as checks and balances falls to the media
- independent of party politics.
-
- As a result, all that happens is that the media and the
Democrats reinforce each other in their cowardliness.
-
- "Unfair," cry some venerable journalists. They
argue that they cannot write stories - until facts are there to make it
a story. Many questions can be asked about the facts that are already in.
-
- If, however, all questions against the powers-that-be
are relegated to the scarce space for "news analysis", then that
indicates a serious imbalance in the U.S. media model.
-
- Relearn the job
-
- In most countries around the world, journalists choose
their profession with a proud claim that they are part of a permanent opposition.
They act as a checks-and-balances mechanism for those in power - and ask
vital questions concerning the nationís future.
-
- It is high time for many in the U.S. media establishment
to reconsider their establishment-enhancing ways. The media must once again
learn to be critical.
-
- That is especially important at times when it may be
unpopular. In the end, that is how journalists will best serve their real
constituency - the U.S. public.
-
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