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09/23/2003 Archived Entry: "Media's dark cloud a danger"

THE ROLE THE MEDIA PLAYS: (Via reader Carole Graham) U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.) penned an interesting piece in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about the role the media is playing with its reporting about Iraq.

Read on.

Replies: 3 comments

Steve, I didn’t make it back in time to finish posting the last time I responded to one of your entries, and since I’m super-busy all the time I can’t promise I’ll be back to make good on the possibility of conversation. Still, I wanted to respond to this article in particular for a number of reasons, some of which are less complicated than others, I believe. I’ll start with the less complicated stuff. I guess it’s all interrelated (points are probably nested on one another) but I’m rushed so ‘points’ will have to do.

First of all, I am struck by the partisan nature of the argument. As I’ve said, I loathe both the parties and so I don’t have any interest in distributing any apologia on either of their behalfs. What I notice about this particular piece is the way in which it redescribes a ‘problem’ which may be viewed from other perspectives – ie not having its source in the ‘unrealistically critical’ nature of media coverage. A possible counterexample begins from Christiane Amanpour’s recent interview where she revealed that CNN felt pressured to suppress more inflamatory aspects of the war effort, and gave in to that pressure by consciously attempting to put a good face on all of it (which is what we got for some time, until things got so bad that the administration couldn’t continue to insist that the victory was all but won). In fact, it seems to me to be even more reasonable to argue that the media has been complicit with the war effort from the beginning, insofar as they failed to dig into the inconsistencies in the case for war, particularly between the administration and its intelligence agencies. So in fact, perhaps the media bears responsibility, but not for inaccurate coverage, but for failure to help us decide whether to go to war in the first place – thereby giving us a war which was rushed and badly planned.

Here is the second point – in a democracy, the media should not be prone to function as the means for the manufacture of popular consent. The provision for the free-press in the bill of rights was intended by the Federalists (when they finally stopped struggling to keep it out) to increase the free distribution of all information potentially relevant to the public interest. The early Federalists viewed the citizen as a rational ends-seeker, but also as a deliberator and co-participant in the formulation of a general will. The process of will formation properly belongs in the public sphere – the people will confer and represent their interests to their legislators. It should not be the role of the media to artificially create the conditions for consent by re-interpreting matters of public concern. What we need is actually MORE information, not less – otherwise we can’t be properly said to have made a decision in the first place. It seems disingenuous to levy the moral blame for loss of American life (and the lives of nearly 40,000 Iraqis) on the media – as if there were no human agency responsible for the construction of a modern-day Vietnam situation. Even if the American public chose to stop supporting the war effort (which they are doing rapidly) we could say that this is as much a consequence of their not being given the full story about how dangerous it would be and how much it would cost. Even now the Bush administration does NOT want to share with Congress – who has a constitutional mandate to control the powers of the purse – what the money it is requesting will be accomplishing. So on the one hand, this administration which seems to yearn so much to be free of regulative oversight by the legislature, shares the blame for the flagging support. The purpose of the media is not to protect the foreign policy of the executive branch, but to make it possible for the people, acting through their representatives, to exert their power vis-à-vis the exective.

Finally, I wonder what kind of claim Marshall is making from the perspective of political economy? Our media is largely corporate-based, and although the question is open regarding whether this is ultimately a GOOD thing, it still seems that Marshall’s arguments (which I otherwise think are facile and problematic) are caught in muddy waters between two alternate veiws: treating the media as a sphere of economic competition versus treating it as the subject of “command and control” political regulation. The Bush administration has tended to favor the first view, as you know. I just got done watching the FCC hearings last month, and the claims of the executive branch officials were couched in terms of opening up the media to increased consumer choice. This is the old metaphysics of classical liberalism, of course – that increased commodity choice translates directly into increased human opportunity for thought and action. Is it just from a market perspective to deny consumers the opportunity to consume media representations of an issue which is VERY close to their lives, simply because the administration is looking more and more irresponsible as a result? Furthermore, assuming that laws of supply and demand hold, shouldn’t we expect that as long as the administration is honest and upfront with the American people, the ‘varieties’ of media coverage (from positive to negative) which achieve equilibrium as a result of a sound, transparent political system?

I just brought this stuff up because – hating both parties – I am always seeing political arguments getting re-described in ways which obscure larger failures at the federal level. I don’t want anyone to continue being harmed, but especially the people who are having THEIR way of life overrun by coercive elements from all sides. I worry that the Republican-Democrat feud over the increasing unchecked authority of the executive branch sometimes cashes out in the form of disguised pleas for artificial will-formation and an unwillingness to admit that mistakes were made – egregious ones. And finally, one stray thought – a non-partisan critic would view Marshall’s argument as a false either-or: either the media changes to put the best face on American foreign policy, or more young men and women die. She would point out that there is a third option: for the US to transfer in stages the responsibilities of occupation to the UN, bring more troops home and reduce their visibility as an object of resentment to the Iraqi populace. Certainly, this is not an infallible strategy, but clearly we cannot do it alone, and we cannot reasonably expect other nations to increase their support without being given their due through the rule of law at the international level. Let us at least agree that this final point will be confirmed or denied by history, not by strategic political rhetoric designed to minimize our embarrassment.

Posted by Lisa @ 09/23/2003 03:47 AM EST

Ugh - i am having to run major Norton SystemWorks on my machine right now. I have a frightfully busy schedule over the next few days, with working and writing, but i'll try to visit again in a couple of days - at least i can check out archived stuff. Thanks again.

Posted by Lisa @ 09/23/2003 05:33 AM EST

Well, I can agree with some aspects of your argument. I think like you that the media did a poor job of explaining why, or why not, war was necessary. Then again, expecting a deep analysis from the popular media on a subject as complex as Iraq is being doomed to disappointment. For the record, I thought Christiane Amanpour's comments were complete silliness.

I don't think think he was expecting the media to be a cheerleader for U.S. policy in Iraq but there certainly is a growing belief -- not only among the political class but Americans in general -- that the media is delibertely seeking out the worst aspects of the story and reporting those to the exclusion of the positive developments. Even Dan Rather admitted that a couple of days ago when he stated that, "A reminder that television sometimes has trouble with perspective, so you may want to note that in some areas of Iraq, things are peaceful." Well Dan, we wouldn't know that from the media.

Still, I think you can make a good argument that the enemy is heartened by news stories of difficulty in Iraq. They aren't stupid, they realize they live in a media culture -- even if they want to drag it back to the Stone Age -- and that the media plays a role in the war fighting ability of their enemies. Everyone learned from Vietnam...put enough bodybags with American soldiers on the evening news and you have a good shot at the homefront demanding the boys come back home. Is the media culpable? Not directly, certainly not, but if they aren't doing their jobs properly and reporting the whole story then they are being irresponsible.

Bah...it's nearly 4:00am...I should have responded to this a lot earlier. My eyes are closing.

Posted by Steven Martinovich @ 09/26/2003 03:51 AM EST