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That’s what reporters covering the Justice Department think of Attorney General Richard Thornburgh’s control over public information, according to a survey published in the January 15 issue of Corporate Crime Reporter. Thirteen of 14 journalists who responded to the survey agreed that “the Justice Department under Attorney General Thornburgh actively discourages the free flow of […]
If journalists had reported the backgrounds of the new Panamanian leaders installed by the U.S. invasion, and their connections to drug-laundering banks and drug traffickers, a primary rationale for the invasion of Panama would have been shredded.
For sheer propaganda, high marks go to Newsweek‘s Noriega cover story (1/15/90), featuring excerpts from a book about Noriega by Wall Street Journal reporter Frederick Kempe. The book and its author were much touted by the media during the invasion. Some highlights: HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST ELLIOTT ABRAMS. “By the summer of 1985, the State Department’s […]
Press treatment of low voter turnout in American society has become schizophrenic. On the one hand, the press is giving strong support to voter registration reform as a way of increasing voting; on the other, press coverage suggests–incorrectly–that registration reform will not increase voting because so many registered voters don’t bother to go to the […]
Journalists justified their role as distributors of government handouts in different ways. Asked on Day 1 why U.S. opponents of the invasion were virtually invisible on-the-air, a CBS producer (who declined to give her name) told Extra!: “When American troops are involved and taking losses, this is not the time to be running critical commentary. […]
Unlike left-wing or right-wing publications which are often on the attack, centrist propaganda emphasizes system-supporting news, frequently speaking in euphemisms. If scandals come to light, centrist propaganda often focuses less on the scandal than on how well “the system works” in fixing it.
Once labeled “the most trusted man in America,” former CBS anchor and current board member Walter Cronkite has come under attack for accepting $25,000 from the extremist, industry-sponsored American Council on Science and Health (ACSH). For that fee, he narrated the pro-pesticide documentary, Big Fears, Little Risks, which aired on PBS stations this summer. In […]
Despite mainstream journalists’ claim of strict objectivity in covering the news, they make exceptions: Some stories are covered without even the pretense of neutrality. Dan Rather and CBS News, for example, adopted a cause throughout the 1980s–that of the Afghan mujahedeen. Sloppiness in the advocacy of that cause created a recent scandal for the network. […]
Few individuals fascinate the U.S. media like Ollie North. Few subjects grab more media attention than drugs. Few democracies win more media praise than Costa Rica. Put these three into a single scandal and it spells Front Page News, right? Wrong. What it spells is C-E-N-S-O-R-S-H-I-P. In July, North and other major Contragate figures were […]
On Sept. 13, 1989, the day Henry Kissinger ended his tenure as a paid analyst for ABC News, he became the newest member of CBS‘s board of directors. Kissinger’s ties to the TV networks have always been close; no other “expert” is as ubiquitous on TV, commenting on what U.S. policy should be toward countries […]
In September 1987, when Amnesty International issued its annual (1986) report on human rights abuses in 129 nations, it received scant and oversimplified coverage reflecting the anti-Sovietism of the day. Amnesty’s world-spanning report was typically cast in a superpower framework, as US journalists focused on human rights violations in the USSR or in countries out […]
A wall exhibit, “A people in Print: Jewish Journalism in America,” held in 1987 at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, featured enlarged photocopies of articles from the New York Times about the Holocaust–the most terrible stories–but given short shrift, relegated to the back pages of the paper. Included were items like […]
Few topics are of greater concern to the US media than freedom of the press. Their treatment of this topic thus provides a useful test of factors that shape the media product. Specifically, by comparing the reaction to abuses by US friends and US enemies, we can determine the relative weight of journalists’ professed values […]
Press coverage of human rights in El Salvador and Nicaragua provides an excellent test of journalistic integrity. This is because the US government has staked clear positions: supporting the Salvadoran regime and playing down its less savory qualities; opposing and denigrating the Nicaraguan government while trying to portray the US-organized contras as “freedom fighters.” The […]
Most mainstream human rights organizations place a de facto priority on questions of physical integrity and violations of political and civil rights. Social and economic rights are addressed only insofar as they have a direct bearing on the political and civil issues; labor organizing, for example, is a form of free association, and restraints on […]
A wave of exhilaration surged through the crowd when the first contingent of Chinese workers joined student hunger strikers in Tiananmen Square. Three thousand students started their protest in May, two days before Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrived for historic talks with China’s rulers. By the time Gorbachev left Beijing, mass demonstrations had spread to […]
‘The enthusiasm for free-market initiatives and other reforms became the new rationale for turning a blind eye to the continuing repression in China.’
Beginning in late 1985, the South African government enacted a series of press restrictions. The goal was clear: drive “the pictures” off foreign TV screens, especially the vivid images of white cops beating, tear gassing and shooting at black kids. That the press restrictions worked is not debatable. Coverage of South Africa dramatically decreased. During […]
The facts of the Holocaust were in US newspapers during the war years, but published in such a tentative way as to minimize the impact on US readers.
This is the second in a series on media corporations by the editor of Left Business Observer.
