UPDATED - ColdType

EMBEDDED: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION
nels,” officials usually mean the Qatar-based Al-
Jazeera. After 9/ll U.S. government officials
asked U.S. networks not to broadcast the videos
they aired by Osama bin Laden. But earlier this
week, in a move that scooped that network’s latest
scoop, Secretary of State Powell announced
that Al-Jazeera would report their latest Bin
Laden tape before they actually had done so. Of
course, all news organizations picked it up. The
Scotsman reported that Powell did so for political
reasons, to rally NATO. So much for consistency.
That ploy failed.
Meanwhile, the London-based Middle East
Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) launches a
competitor to Al-Jazeera this month. Variety
reports that $200 million has been poured into a
new 24 hour Arabic language satellite channel
called Al-Arabiya. The magazine did not report
who is funding it, but did add: “MBC promises its
channel will be perceived by the Western World
as more balanced. Variety ran a photo from a Bin
Laden monologue under the item, in case the
point was missed.
Some media critics in New York plan to picket
network headquarters if the police permit. A new
“Information Liberation Front” says, “The Corporate
Media is the Megaphone for the Bush Administration.
The media is the reason this war is going
to happen, or haven’t you noticed Peter Jenning’s
new show titled “Are we ready for war?”
Others in the media are speaking out too, The
New Yorker magazine’s award winning cartoonist
Art Spiegelman resigned when his editor supported
the war. He told the Italian newspaper
Corriere della Sera that he opposes “the widespread
conformism of the mass media in the
Bush era. I no longer feel in tune with American
culture, especially now that the entire media has
98
become conservative and tremendously timid.
Unfortunately, even The New Yorker has not
escaped this trend.” ●
MARCH 20: WHEN JINGOISM
REPLACES JOURNALISM
NEW YORK – I have never seen North Korean
TV but I have been told that all it offers is one
unending commercial for the government, featuring
three channels showing the same programming.
We had a dose of that last night as
every channel locked on to the same stationary
pictures of Baghdad and followed the same format,
if not script.
Anchor update. Breaking News. Cut to White
House announcement. Anchor update. Military
expert. Cut to Presidential message about the
ongoing armed “disarmament” of Iraq —which
began with the most expensive assassination
plot in history: Thirty-six Cruise missiles and two
mega bombs at a cost David Martin of CBS estimated
at $50 million. The Iraqis claim one civilian
was killed, 40 wounded. Of course,we don’t
know the truth. The New York Post reports
“Allies Take Over Iraqi Radio.” But this morning,
CNN reported that that their correspondent in
Baghdad was listening to the radio and nothing
had changed.
Waiting to be shocked
THEY tried what they called a “decapitation
strike” against a “target of opportunity,” later
said to be a bunker that Saddam and crew were
holed up in. The information came from the CIA,