UPDATED - ColdType

EMBEDDED: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION
game. Suarez, formally of NPR’s ‘Talk of the
Nation‚’ played the classic role of the unctuous
and compliant questioner.
“There were no uncomfortable inquiries about
the U.N. weapons inspection process, casualty
figures, international law, the U.N. Charter or the
notorious U.S. practice of double standards on
Security Council resolutions. Instead, the pundits
pontificated on troop deployments, carrier
battle groups and heavy infantry forces such as
the 3rd Mechanized Division,” Barsamian said.
This type of pro-Pentagon punditry also
informs the reporting in major U.S. newspapers,
says Mathew Engel, a Guardian reporter based
in Washington who notes that military leaks are
often not accurate. “Most of these stories, which
look like impressive scoops at first glimpse, actually
come from officials using the press to perform
on-message spin. Whatever the category,
the papers lap this up, even when it is obvious
nonsense, a practice that reached its apogee last
year when palpably absurd plans for the invasion
of Iraq emerged, allegedly from inside the Pentagon,
on to The New York Times’ front page.”
“It’s a very cynical game,” says Eric Umansky,
who reviews the papers for Slate.com. “The
reporters know these stories are nonsense and
they know they are being used. But it’s an exclusive.
It’s an exclusive built on air, but CNN says
‘according to The New York Times’, so the
paper’s happy, and it stays out there for a whole
news cycle. So what if it’s popcorn?”
“In the face of this,” Umansky continues, “only
one White House reporter, Dana Milbank of the
Post, regularly employs skepticism and irreverence
in his coverage of the Bush Administration
– he is said to dodge the threats because he is
regarded as an especially engaging character. It
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is more mysterious that only the tiniest handful
of liberal commentators ever manage to irritate
anyone in the government: there is Paul Krugman
in The New York Times, Molly Ivins down in
Texas and, after that, you have to scratch your
head.”
Scratching your head won’t necessarily fill it
with the information you need to stay informed.
That’s why news like that offered on Globalvision
News network or critiques like the ones
offered on Mediachannel.org are trying to fill the
growing gap between news and truth ●
THE MEDIA WAR AND
THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 18, 2003 – In the run up
to the massive February 15th protest in New
York, a group of media activists proposed to the
organizers of the anti-war rally that the headquarters
of media organizations also be targeted,
since it was likely that not all who wanted
to join could do so. They suggested that all that
opposition energy be channeled against the companies
that, more often than not, are misinforming
the American people about the issues.
The small group, calling itself “The Information
Liberation Front,” an offshoot of the Indy
Media movement, argued that the movement’s
goal should not only be to get a few seconds of
episodic airtime for an event – but also to pressure
media outlets to offer more balanced coverage
all the time.
Their argument is that media is not a side
issue, but a central one. Most activists acknowledge
the problem, but do little about it. They