A reminder of how corporate powers use their media in propagandizing for their interests

[ConsAreLiars]

Most here probably remember how the corporate media repeated every lie without question. "Expert" after "expert" competed with one another to make the most convincing case for invading Iraq, destroying that economy and its infrastructure. The arguments against were heard very rarely and the anchors treated them as fringe oddballs.

One study described the facts of this campaign, carried out by FAIR, and I reproduce the summary here in compliance with the terms of its Creative Commons License. Just a reminder of the facts about how things work, and why their spin is everywhere, and how they bury views they don't want heard, long before then and ever since then.

3/18/03

In Iraq Crisis, Networks Are Megaphones for Official Views



Network newscasts, dominated by current and former U.S. officials, largely exclude Americans who are skeptical of or opposed to an invasion of Iraq, a new study by FAIR has found. of all

Among the major findings in a two-week study (1/30/03–2/12/03) of on-camera network news sources quoted on Iraq:


* Seventy-six percent of all sources were current or former officials, leaving little room for independent and grassroots views. Similarly, 75 percent of U.S. sources (199/267) were current or former officials.

* At a time when 61 percent of U.S. respondents were telling pollsters that more time was needed for diplomacy and inspections (2/6/03), only 6 percent of U.S. sources on the four networks were skeptics regarding the need for war.

* Sources affiliated with anti-war activism were nearly non-existent. On the four networks combined, just three of 393 sources were identified as being affiliated with anti-war activism--less than 1 percent. Just one of 267 U.S. sources was affiliated with anti-war activism--less than half a percent.


FAIR examined the 393 on-camera sources who appeared in nightly news stories about Iraq on ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. The study began one week before and ended one week after Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 5 presentation at the U.N., a time that saw particularly intense debate about the idea of a war against Iraq on the national and international level.

More than two-thirds (267 out of 393) of the guests featured were from the United States. Of the U.S. guests, a striking 75 percent (199) were either current or former government or military officials. Only one of the official U.S. sources--Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass.)--expressed skepticism or opposition to the war. Even this was couched in vague terms: "Once we get in there how are we going to get out, what’s the loss for American troops are going to be, how long we're going to be stationed there, what’s the cost is going to be," said Kennedy on NBC Nightly News (2/5/03).

Similarly, when both U.S. and non-U.S. guests were included, 76 percent (297 of 393) were either current or retired officials. Such a predominance of official sources virtually assures that independent and grassroots perspectives will be underrepresented. Of all official sources, 75 percent (222 of 297) were associated with either the U.S. or with governments that support the Bush administration's position on Iraq; only four out of those 222, or 2 percent, of these sources were skeptics or opponents of war.

Twenty of the 297 official sources (7 percent) represented the government of Iraq, while a further 19 (6 percent) represented other governments--mostly friendly to the U.S.--who have expressed doubts or opposition to the U.S.'s war effort. (Another 34 sources, representing 11 percent of officials, were current or former U.N. employees. Although members of the U.N. inspection teams made statements that were both critical of Iraq's cooperation and supportive of further inspections, because of their official position of neutrality on the question of war they were not counted as skeptics.) Of all official sources, 14 percent (43 of 297) represented a position skeptical or opposed to the U.S. war policy. (Sources were coded as skeptics/critics if either their statements or their affiliations put them in that category; for example, all French government officials were counted as skeptics, regardless of the content of their quote.)

The remaining 96 sources--those without a current or former government connection--had slightly more balanced views; 26 percent of these non-official sources took a skeptical or critical position on the war. Yet, at a time when 61 percent of respondents in a CBS poll (2/5-6/03) were saying that they felt the U.S. should "wait and give the United Nations and weapons inspectors more time," only sixteen of the 68 U.S. guests (24 percent) who were not officials represented such views.

Half of the non-official U.S. skeptics were "persons in the street"; five of them were not even identified by name. Only one U.S. source, Catherine Thomason of Physicians for Social Responsibility, represented an anti-war organization. Of all 393 sources, only three (less than 1 percent) were identified with organized protests or anti-war groups.

Overall, 68 sources, or 17 percent of the total on-camera sources, represented skeptical or critical positions on the U.S.'s war policy--ranging from Baghdad officials to people who had concerns about the timing of the Bush administration's war plans. The percentage of skeptical sources ranged from 21 percent at PBS (22 of 106) to 14 percent at NBC (18 of 125). ABC (16 of 92) and CBS (12 of 70) each had 17 percent skeptics.

Sources on Nightly Network Iraq Coverage:
(1/30/03–2/12/03)

SOURCES NUMBER % SKEPTICS %
All Sources 393 100 68 17
Official 297 76 43 11
Non-Official 96 24 25 6
U.S. 267 68 17 4
Non-U.S. 126 32 53 13


U.S. Sources on Nightly Network Iraq Coverage:
(1/30/03–2/12/03)

SOURCES NUMBER % SKEPTICS %
U.S. 267 100 17 6
Official 199 75 1 --
Non-Official 68 24 16 6


Non-U.S. Sources on Nightly Network Iraq Coverage:
(1/30/03–2/12/03)

SOURCES NUMBER % SKEPTICS %
Non-U.S. 126 100 51 40
Official 98 78 42 33
Non-Official 28 22 9 7


See FAIR's Archives for more on:
Iraq/Pre-2003 Invasion
War and Militarism

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

(edit to make the header more general, since Iraq was just one example.)

[RandomThoughts]

1. I figure the rules will be applied back to them.

I posted a comment a few years ago, if you want a survival of the fittest law of the jungle world, not what I want, then you better be the most powerful thing in existence.


And nobody in the world is that, so it does not seem to be the best rules to create for yourself.


However there are so many people with such caring things to say, I think the world is a pretty good place, even when some try to do things like you mention in your post.



On a side note, I am still due beer and travel money, and many good experiences.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. The current defense of all that bullshit is that "everybody including Clinton"

believed that Iraq had WMD. I guess I'm nobody, since it was completely obvious that is was a pile of shit from the start. The first sign it was shit was that it was being pushed by bush & it went downhill from there.

[ConsAreLiars]

3. When the drive to invade Afghanistan (which then needed much less corporate pushing)

was underway I opposed it because I knew it would just result in a useless and pointless killings, worse than pointless, causing even more, and spending without limit on killing machines and ordinance. Of course, while that seemed insane to me and normal humans, for the corporations that would profit, it seemed to be good and reasonable business practice. And so, no opposition in the corporate media, just cheer-leading.

[EFerrari]

5. Bombing an entire country to catch one criminal is irrational.

That was obvious from the start.

[ConsAreLiars]

6. And, therefore, that the objective was not what the Corps media claimed should have

been the focus of any journalist with integrity. A few presented themselves as such, very few. And if they got on TV at all it was likely only an interview on Democracy Now!.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

4. I wish more people understood that the corporate media is no better than Pravda

We are being lied to constantly. NPR (National Petroleum Radio) is no better than Fox. Corporate interests buy them off by purchasing enough ad time to make sure that you will never get the truth and the big six are run by the same handful of board members who own everything and control everything from General Electric to Disney. If you are looking for the fifth estate, you are bout as close as you are going to get here at D.U. and they are working on taking that over by destroying net neutrality.