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The real danger lies within
By Gørill Husby and Guri Wiggen
Oslo, Norway, July 3 (IPS)— If the reality in Iraq is one thing
and the reporting of it remains another, it is because much of the media
wants it that way, say two leading journalists who have been reporting
the ‘other’ side of the Iraq story.
The level of self-censorship in the media has risen not just during the
Iraq war but also since 9/11, says Robert Fisk from The Independent newspaper
published in Britain and John Pilger, Australian broadcaster and film-maker.
Pilger and Fisk both spoke to IPS on visits to Oslo. Pilger came to receive
the 100,000 dollar Sophie Prize for 30 years of work to expose deception
and war against humanity. Fisk came to give a lecture at Fritt Ord, a
Norwegian media foundation.
”Propaganda is not found just in totalitarian states,” Pilger
says. ”There at least they know they are being lied to. We tend to
assume it is the truth. In the US, censorship is rampant.”
Self-censorship, that is. This kind of self-censorship is an increasing
problem, and leads to one-dimensional coverage that journalists must learn
to transcend, Pilger says.
”The most important soldiers in the Iraq war were not the troops,
but the journalists and the broadcasters,” Pilger says. ”Lies
were transformed into themes for public debate. The true reason was of
course — as we all now know — not to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein
and remove their alleged weapons of mass destruction, but to achieve the
real Anglo-American aim; to capture an oil rich country and to control
the Middle East.”
Self-censorship is a particular problem because of the ”myth of neutrality”
around western media. ”When you declare yourself neutral, everybody
else seems biased,” Pilger says. ”But as seen in the Iraq coverage
and elsewhere, journalists very often assume the culture of the media
institution and all its unwritten restrictions.”
But even the term self-censorship is not quite right, Pilger says, ”because
many journalists are unaware that they are censoring themselves.”
Media organizations are now under tight control, Pilger says. Just five
corporations rule the broadcasters in the United States. In Australia
Rupert Murdoch controls 70 percent of the media. ”We live in an age
of information,” he says. ”Yet the media is not attacking the
ruling system. The media has never before been so controlled, and propaganda
is all around. Most of us don’t even see it.”
The three main dangers facing the world, he says, are silence, betrayal
and power —and journalists can make silence dangerous.
Fisk says the story in Iraq most correspondents chose not to report was
the ”bomb now, die later” policy through use of depleted uranium
(DU). Since the Gulf war of 1991 the number of cancer patients had risen,
and ”strange vegetables” had begun to appear on the market.
The distortions were most likely to have been caused by use of DU, he
says.
”I told my colleagues that this was an interesting story that should
be reported,” Fisk says. ”But most of them said, honestly Bob,
we do not want to write home about sick children. An official American
military document states that DU dust can indeed be spread in battles
and lead to serious illness in humans, but this is not reported.”
The public and civil society opposed the Iraq war because they understood
the hidden agenda, but ”editors have a tendency to underestimate
their readership,” he says. Readers are seen as ignorant or disinterested.
Self-censorship continues in Iraq after the war, and elsewhere, Fisk says.
”Many more people have died so far in the war against terrorism than
on September 11 2001,” Fisk says. ”That is the story of our
time, and very few are writing it.”
Twenty thousand people have died just in the Afghanistan war, seven times
more than on September 11, Fisk says. This is just one example of the
”great power of silence that is threatening to dominate us all.”
Coupled with the self-censorship is the censorship being imposed on the
Iraqi media, Fisk says. This too is not being reported adequately in the
United States. The US administration has set up a committee for press
censorship in Iraq, which means the Iraqi press can publish anything to
remind people about the terror of Saddam, but is not allowed to write
freely about current events crucial to them and their future.
Pilger sees reason for optimism. ”There is a movement of resistance
globally from the landless peoples movement in Brazil to the huge anti-war
movement,” he says. ”Nothing like this has ever happened before
in my lifetime.” The superpower in Washington is being challenged
by the other superpower, he says; the superpower of public opinion.
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Adbusters pays thousands to corporate media
to ‘unbrand America’
By Ally Morris
July 7 (AGR)— On Thursday, July 3, page A4 of the New York Times
displayed the latest in Adbusters Magazine’s attempt to “unbrand
America.” Obscuring a page of stock quotes in black markered-like
scrawl is a large dot above the handwritten words: “Because my country
has sold its soul to corporate power/ Because consumerism has become our
national religion/ Because we’ve forgotten the true meaning of freedom/
And because patriotism now means agreeing with the president/ I pledge
to do my duty… and take my country back.”
According to the organization’s website, which declares, “July
4th, the revolution begins again,” the full-page spread cost $47,000.
AGR spoke with Adbusters founder and editor-in-chief, Kalle Lasn about
the “unbrand America” campaign. Lasn reported that the money
came from a fundraising drive on their website “from hundreds of
people who saw the ad and wanted it in the Times.” The money came
“mostly in $50 and $100 increments,” which also buys donors,
according to their contribution, a paperback copy of Lasn’s book
Culture Jam, a one year subscription to Adbusters magazine, a subscription
and a corporate logo flag, or, for the patrons offering $300 and up, a
“Friend of the Foundation” package.
Lasn hopes the campaign will expand to include TV spots on CNN through
the end of summer. So far, FOX, ABC, NBC, MTV, and CBS have rejected them.
CNN has not yet committed, but the network has aired material from Adbusters
in the past, which is encouragement enough for the magazine to have already
begun fundraising for this leg of the project. At the time of this writing
they have raised $6925. But at $1750 per ad, they have roughly $150,000
to go in order to achieve their goal.
CNN is owned by AOL-Time Warner, which became the largest merger in corporate
history in 2001, and dominates the print, internet, music, and television
media. The company contributed $1.6 million to George W. Bush’s presidential
campaign.
Critics of Adbusters’ New York Times and CNN ads cite the incongruity
in feeding large sums of money to the companies that help create the problems
Adbusters targets. Lasn scoffed at the notion, replying, “No, I don’t
think it’s incongruous at all. The only people who have a problem
[with the campaign] are old lefties who go fuck-all while snipping at
our heels rather than jumping on board.”
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