MEDIA WATCH

Peter Jennings cries wolf

Sept. 18— The special was called “In Search of America,” but when ABC News and Peter Jennings addressed the issue of the reintroduction of wolves to Idaho (9/3/02), they gave the strong impression that they’d already decided what they would find before they started to look.

ABC told a story about the federal government forcing Idahoans to accept wolf reintroduction against their will— with the wolves, ravenous for the flesh of cattle and sheep, now having a ruinous effect upon powerless ranchers. As Jennings suggested to one Idaho source, “This was a case of the federal government telling those of you here in the state that it was going to do what it wanted to do and you didn’t have an awful lot of say in it.”

You’d never guess from ABC’s broadcast that, according to the Rocky Mountain News (2/5/95), 71 percent of Idahoans polled actually said that they supported reintroduction of wolves. Other polls in Idaho and around the region have shown similar results (e.g., Idaho Falls Post Register, 2/4/98). The decision to bring back the exterminated animal was made over the course of many years, involving numerous public discussions across the region that resulted in significant changes being made to the rules for reintroduction, largely to give ranchers more rights and protections.

Jennings calls wolves “one of nature’s most efficient killers,” and a source describes them as “a land piranha and a wildlife terrorist.” And the network went out of its way to suggest financial disaster for hard-working ranching families: “All of the profit that the ranch is generating, the wolves are getting,” one source claimed. No statistics were provided to back up this assertion; Jennings says, “The number of dead livestock is difficult to confirm.” But the Fish & Wildlife Service puts out a report on losses to wolves every year, based on reports from ranchers; in 2001, the survey found a total of 138 sheep and 40 cattle killed by wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. By contrast, coyotes killed more than 14,000 sheep in Montana alone, where domestic dogs killed another 1,100. Despite Jennings’ claim that “the wolves have found cattle and sheep to their liking,” elk and other wild animals provide the vast majority of the wolves’ diet, and predation on livestock has been lower than the government anticipated.

ABC suggested that ranchers are helpless to stop the wolves from attacking their flocks and destroying their livelihoods. “As the wolf population grows, so do the livestock losses and so does the ranchers’ frustration,” Jennings told his audience. “They are not allowed to hunt the wolf.” Actually, ranchers are allowed to shoot wolves that are attacking their animals; this rule was not mentioned in the documentary.

ABC also played down the federal government’s routine killing of wolves that prey on sheep— nearly 100 have been legally killed since reintroduction began in 1995— referring to this controversial topic in a single sentence. In a striking omission in a documentary that stressed the economic hardships posed by wolves, the program completely ignored the compensation that the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife pays to ranchers with documented losses: some $60,000 last year alone.

“Almost everywhere we went in Idaho, including the state capital, this was seen as a case of them in Washington vs. us,” said Peter Jennings. Actually, ABC found many more supporters of wolves than it chose to air. The network shot footage at an Idaho wolf conference, for example, where most of the participants were pro-wolf, but only used quotes from the critics they found there (Ralph Maughan’s Wildlife Report, 9/4/02). Perhaps if the sourcing had been more balanced, ABC would not have found so many inaccuracies when it went “In Search of America.”

Source: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR): www.fair.org

PBS fails to hold Rumsfeld accountable

Sept. 20— Asking tough questions of those in power is one of a journalist’s most important jobs— especially when a country may be going to war. But PBS’s Jim Lehrer failed to challenge Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in a September 18 interview on the “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer”— even when Rumsfeld made factually inaccurate assertions.

For instance, Rumsfeld repeatedly referred to the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspectors being expelled from Iraq, saying, “We have seen the situation with Iraq where they have violated some 16 UN resolutions and finally threw the inspectors out.” Rumsfeld went on to say that “we have gone through... four years where they threw the inspectors out and there’s been no one there.”

In December 1998, the UN inspectors were not thrown out; they were pulled out by UNSCOM chief Richard Butler prior to a US bombing campaign in Iraq. As Madeleine Albright told Lehrer at the time (12/17/98), Butler “made an independent decision that UNSCOM could no longer work.”

Rumsfeld also made a dubious assertion about Iraq’s plans for “invading Saudi Arabia, which they were ready to do.” This was presumably a reference to the Pentagon’s claim in September 1990, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, that Iraq was massing hundreds of thousands of troops along the Saudi border in preparation to take over that country as well. But the St. Petersburg Times (1/6/91) published satellite imagery from the region that appeared to disprove the Pentagon claim, since no massive Iraqi build-up was visible in the satellite photos.

After the war, a US “senior commander” admitted to Newsday (3/1/91) that reports of a major Iraqi troop mobilization were exaggerated, saying, “There was a great disinformation campaign surrounding this war.” Despite the serious doubts about the veracity of Rumsfeld’s charge, Lehrer allowed it to stand without comment.

A recent segment on CNN demonstrates precisely how journalists can clarify misleading statements from government officials. On September 18, CNN reporter Richard Roth explained the confusion about the UNSCOM inspectors this way:

“On our air, Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense... said look, it was Iraq, he said, that booted out, kicked out those weapons inspectors. That’s not exactly accurate. It was the UN and the weapons inspections agency that withdrew them, under pressure from the US, because they had barely gotten out with their bags when US military strikes occurred.”

It’s always important for journalists to correct misstatements of fact, but when an official is offering misinformation as a justification for war, that journalistic duty becomes an imperative.

Source: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR): www.fair.org

MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS

Communities speak out against filtering software in schools

Students, parents, educators, and free speech advocates across the country spoke out Sept. 18 against the federal mandate for internet blocking software on school computers that went into effect at the beginning of this school year.

School communities and free speech advocates like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Youth Free Expression network (YFEN) are urging the repeal of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which requires public schools and libraries receiving certain federal funds or internet service discounts to install internet filters. They charge that requiring thousands of schools to buy expensive filtering software is tantamount to a massive giveaway to private industry, and that it is inappropriate for private companies to make decisions about educational content in schools. The companies refuse to reveal their lists of blocked sites.

Opponents of the law also charge that the law is inherently classist, providing the fewest options for low-income schools most reliant on federal funds. Wealthier students, however, can circumvent CIPA’s censorship through access to unfiltered computers at home, libraries and private schools. (ACLU)

Website urges students to report on professors with anti-Israel bias

In an attempt to combat what it sees as anti-Israel bias in academia, a Philadelphia-based think-tank has created a web site that lists faculty members the group is monitoring and that allows students to report on their professors.

The Middle East Forum announced the new site, called Campus Watch, on Sept 18. The organization says it plans to monitor and gather information on “professors who fan the flames of disinformation, incitement, and ignorance,” and that the site targets professors who “actively disassociate themselves from the United States.”

Eight professors are now listed on the site, along with dossiers that include short biographies and articles by and about the professors. Some professors listed on the site have spoken out, accusing Campus Watch of fear-mongering and calling the organization a well-financed propaganda campaign aimed at intimidation. Hamid Dabashi, chairman of the department of Middle East and Asian languages and cultures at Columbia University, said the project seeks to create the fear that students will be spying on professors. (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Pro-Israel groups plan first-ever TV ad campaign

US Jewish groups plan to spend more than $1 million in their first-ever American TV advertising campaign in support of Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians.

The ads are to run in 100 cities nationwide and carry the message that Israel is a democracy just like the United States, where Arabs, Jews, and Christians enjoy the same freedoms. Political consultant Jennifer Laszlo Mizahi, who worked on the campaign, likened the commercials to the advertisements candidates often run when campaigning for office.

The campaign is funded by the American Jewish Committee, one of the oldest and largest US Jewish organizations, and Israel 21c, a Silicon Valley-based group supported by executives of high-tech companies.

While the ads do not mention the ongoing violence in the Middle East, supporters say the goal of the campaign is to build support for Israel. Arab advocacy groups criticized the campaign, saying the image conveyed by the ads obscures the difficult, complex, and very real problems that exist in the Middle East. (AP)