UPDATED - ColdType

The media is the illusion
I LOVE the reference to illusionists, don’t you?
That is because the idea of a real press corps is
itself becoming an illusion. Columnist James O.
Goldsborough writes about the media ABDICAT-
ING its role in the pages of The San Diego Union-
Tribune, once one of the most conservative
newspapers in America. Why is the public buying
the war? His answer:
“I think the media deserve most of the blame.
Bush officials have explained in detail their reasons
for war, and the media have not sufficiently
challenged those reasons. They are endorsing
Bush’s war by default. The public is confused
because its gut feeling is that the government/
media reasoning doesn’t add up.
“Television is Bush’s ally in war because it is a
visual medium. It shows pretty pictures of ships
sailing, flags waving, troops landing. Television
loves Bush photo-ops and shrugs off anti-war
protests. C-SPAN and PBS alone present fair pictures
because they don’t depend on advertising.
“Unlike television, newspapers are not a picture
show. Unlike television, newspapers have
editorial and opinion pages whose job it is to
analyze, endorse or refute official policy. These
pages have ties to their communities, not to
some multinational news machine in New Jersey.
Reporters report what Bush and Donald Rumsfeld
say or do, but the job of opinion pages is critical
analysis. Short of that, we are useless.”
In a nation bitterly divided, this editorial
enthusiasm for Bush’s war amounts to professional
crime. The media, led by cable television
(which wasn’t there) has forgotten the lessons of
Vietnam. Soon we will be remembering the
words of Tacitus, referring to the Romans: “They
PRODUCING THE WAR
61
make a desert and call it peace.”
Missing in action
THAT is the first time I have seen a leading journalist
call his colleagues criminal. Peter Bart of
Variety offers his own spin, using a military
metaphor. He asks, “Are journalists missing in
action? Where is that magic mix of interpretive
journalism that lends both vitality and credibility
to a free press?
“Ask working journalists about all this and
they’ll explain their woes in reporting on the
presidency. TV newsmen tell you the numbers
crunchers have eviscerated their staffs. Some
also hint there’s been a subtle shift to the right
as a result of the ascension of Fox News. Magazine
writers complain about corporate constraints
at a time when ad revenues are plunging.
The right is very well organized, they say,
and not inhibited about complaining.
“Probably there’s a germ of truth in all these
explanations. The bottom line, however, is that
journalists already seem to be missing in action.
And the war hasn’t even started yet.
Blair blows it
“WITH journalists out there hyping the build up
or in there cozying up to the powerful,” he continues,
“politicians continue to try to use the
press. Our own correspondent Garry Nash sends
this report along from London. Sometimes even
the best plans backfire:
“On prime time TV, and still smarting from
one of his Cabinet, Clare Short, naming him
reckless over his new Iraqi war, Prime Minister
Blair faced thirty Iraqi and British women,