Critic Accuses Media of Aiding U.S. War Propaganda

[codeorama]

Critic Accuses Media of Aiding U.S. War Propaganda

Thu May 1,10:04 AM ET

By David Morgan

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - It is one of the most famous images of the war in Iraq (news - web sites): a U.S. soldier scaling a statue of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in Baghdad and draping the Stars and Stripes over the black metal visage of the ousted despot.

But for Harper's magazine publisher John MacArthur, that same image of U.S. military victory is also indicative of a propaganda campaign being waged by the Bush administration.

"It was absolutely a photo-op created for (U.S. President George W.) Bush's re-election campaign commercials," MacArthur, a self-appointed authority on U.S. government propaganda, said in an interview. "CNN, MSNBC and Fox swallowed it whole."

In 1992, MacArthur wrote "Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War (news - web sites)," a withering critique of government and media actions that he says misled the public after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

In MacArthur's opinion, little has changed during the latest Iraq war, prompting him to begin work on an updated edition of "Second Front." U.S. government public relations specialists are still concocting bogus stories to serve government interests, he says, and credulous journalists stand ready to scarf up the baloney.

"The concept of a self-governing American republic has been crippled by this propaganda," MacArthur said. "The whole idea that we can govern ourselves and have an intelligent debate, free of cant, free of disinformation, I think it's dead."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan denied the existence of any administration propaganda campaign and predicted the American public would reject such notions as ridiculous.

A Pentagon (news - web sites) spokesman also denied high-level planning in the appearance of the American flag in Baghdad. "It sure looked spontaneous to me," said Marine Lt. Col. Mike Humm.

In fact, a recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that Americans were happy with Iraq war coverage, though many wanted less news coverage of anti-war activism and fewer TV appearances by former military officers.

But MacArthur insists that both Gulf wars have been marked by phony tales calculated to deceive public opinion at crucial junctures.

BABIES AND BOMBS

On the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, Americans were asked to believe that Iraqi soldiers tossed Kuwaiti infants from hospital incubators, leaving them to die. Not true, he says.

This time, MacArthur says the Bush administration made false claims about Iraqi nuclear weapons, charging Baghdad was trying to import aluminum tubes to make enriched uranium and that the country was six months from building a warhead.

The International Atomic Energy Agency found those tubes were for artillery rockets, not nuclear weapons. And MacArthur says a supposed IAEA report, on which the White House based claims about Iraqi weapons-making ability, did not exist.

"What's changed is that there's no shame anymore in doing it directly," MacArthur, 46, said of what he views as blatant White House and Pentagon propaganda campaigns.

Cynthia Kennard, assistant professor at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism, said the Bush administration has mastered the art of building favorable public images and shaping messages to suit its own interests.

"It's put the journalism profession in somewhat of a paralysis," said Kennard, a former CBS correspondent who covered the 1991 Gulf War. "This is not a particularly glowing moment for tough questions and enterprise (news - web sites) reporting."

As Harper's publisher, MacArthur oversees a 153-year-old political and literary magazine he helped save from financial ruin 20 years ago with money from the foundation named for his billionaire grandparents, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur.

While MacArthur accuses news outlets generally of avoiding opposition stands, his own magazine has been vitriolic toward Bush, describing the president in its May issue as a leader who "counts his ignorance as a virtue and regards his lack of curiosity as a sign of moral strength."

MURDOCH'S CIRCUS

But MacArthur is not troubled by the thumping patriotism displayed by cable TV news outlets like Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel, which leads CNN and MSNBC in viewer ratings.

"All that means is that Murdoch knows how to run a circus better than anyone else. War and jingoism always sell. But the real damage was done by the high-brow press," MacArthur said.

"On the propaganda side, the New York Times is more responsible for making the case for war than any other newspaper or any other news organization."

He blames the Times for giving credence to Bush administration claims about the aluminum tubes. And when Bush cited a nonexistent IAEA report on Iraqi nukes, he says, it was the conservative Washington Times -- not the New York Times or Washington Post -- that wound up refuting the assertion.

The New York Times also reported an Iraqi scientist told U.S. officials that Saddam destroyed chemical and biological equipment and sent weapons to Syria just before the war.

The only trouble, MacArthur says, is that the Times did not speak to or name the scientist but agreed to delay the story, submit the text to government scrutiny and withhold details -- facts the Times acknowledged in its article. "You might as well just run a press release. Let the government write it. That's Pravda," he said.

Times spokesman Toby Usnik dismissed MacArthur's claims regarding the Times' war coverage as a whole: "We believe we have covered the story from all sides and all angles."

Fox had no comment on his remarks.

Editors across the nation also worked hard to avoid the grisly images of war, especially scenes of dead Iraqi civilians and Americans, while Europeans saw uncensored horrific images.

The Pentagon's decision to embed journalists with U.S. forces produced war footage that the 1991 war sorely lacked. But the coverage rarely rose to the standard MacArthur wanted.

"Ninety percent of what we got was junk ... I think probably 5 or 10 percent of it was pretty good," he said.

MacArthur says the character of the news media, and the government's attitude toward it, was best summed up by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a Pentagon "town hall" meeting.

Asked by an audience member what could be done to reverse the media's "overwhelmingly negative" war coverage, Rumsfeld said: "You know, penalize the papers and the television ... that don't give good advice and reward those people that do give good advice."

MacArthur said that translated as: "You punish the critics and you reward your friends. That's what he means. That's the standard currency of Washington journalism ... To show reality becomes unpatriotic, in effect."

But the Pentagon's Lt. Col. Humm said Rumsfeld had not been talking about unfavorable reporting but about inaccurate reporting. "It is Department of Defense (news - web sites) policy with regard to working with the media that we do not penalize or reward for the nature of what they report on," he said. "The standards (news - web sites) we demand and expect are professional standards of conduct."

[The Evil Genius]

I read this earlier...to me, the most appropriate quote from this article is this...

Editors across the nation also worked hard to avoid the grisly images of war, especially scenes of dead Iraqi civilians and Americans, while Europeans saw uncensored horrific images.

Had the US gotten to see what the Europeans saw - would have the pro-war side been weakened? Thats a tough question - but I think the US deserved to see what was really takeing place (unpalatable as it was).

Just my .02

[codeorama]

TEG.. I agree with you, that's what stood out to me too. Our government has limited our "Free Press". They can only show what they are allowed to. That amazes me.

The criticism would be that "that's not what people in the US want to see".

So they don't want to see the truth? They only want to see everything that's peachy keen?

[TheKurp]

There was that one photo of the young Iraqi boy who lost both arms and was badly burned by a missile that killed just about everyone in his immediate and extended family.

[phishhead]

The U.S. Gov't has more power now than it has ever had. They can control just about anything they wish.

[carlsbadd]

I started watching the CBC on Directv and was stunned by the difference in reporting style. Just mostly raw footage of firefights and civilians, no flag waving logos ,and very little comentary . It was quite a change. Directv channel 366. Check it out if you have the dish

[codeorama]

I'm amazed. Is is just me or do some just not want to know?

[Art]

Our television networks do not show a lot of things and it's not our government that decides this. They decide this. Nick Eason wasn't told by our government to hide horrific stories of Saddam's Iraq to keep his Baghdad office open for CNN. He did that on his own. The embedded reporters did filter their stuff through the military. I think that's appropriate considering they were embedded with the military and the military certainly didn't have to do that. The media received the greatest up close and personal view of war possible. There is, obviously a trade off in what can come out, but, there were many unflattering stories from the embeds. Further, the graphic scenes of dead Iraqis and dead Americans were not garnered from embedded reporters. The news media here could have shown that. The government didn't make them NOT show it.

We have more conservative television than much of the rest of the world. I'm not sure this is a terrible thing to be honest. I'm not sure showing some of these images would have made much of a difference one way or another though. Much of Europe and the Middle East that showed these images did so to inspire an anti-war feeling, so, it's possible that could have been the case here as well, though I imagine it would be HOW the images were shown more than anything else that would determine that.

It must be said though, it is probably alright for the press to root for America in a war that America is fighting. Honest. It's just very difficult to say any of us saw that type of thing outside of Fox. The report here smacks of a wildly liberal person who insists anyone not left of Marx is a conservative. The media tore into this war. It went after the plan and the people. It questioned the length and the execution. Fox didn't, but most of the other television and print media did. Though we were not shown the images of death from the war, we certainly heard the criticisms of the war. Absent an absolute nut simply offering that the whole thing is propoganda, it's hard not to have noticed that.