McClellan and the "Enablers"

For all the press attention swirling around Scott McClellan's explosive tell-all, there's a brewing back story that's making Katie Couric and Charles Gibson squirm. And they're not alone.

Few were surprised that McClellan's book exposed a Bush administration "political propaganda campaign" that mislead the American public about the war in Iraq. Some question the former press secretary's loyalty and timing, but no one -- with the obvious exception of the White House and its apologists -- questions the factual basis of his claim.

But McClellan takes it one further, implicating mainstream media for its role in "enabling" this propaganda. "The national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House" in spreading the president's case for the war, McClellan writes. The mainstream media didn't live up to its watchdog reputation. "If it had, the country would have been better served."

This should be a shock to everyone. The president's own spokesman (whose hands aren't clean by any means) lays a large share of the blame for Bush's pro-war propaganda on the media's "deferential" treatment of White House spin.

Still, many in the media refuse to admit that they were anything but dogged in challenging the White House's case for the war after September 11. Some, however, are starting to see things differently.

Pro-War Pressure from Execs

Media Culpa?

Thursday night, CBS anchor Katie Couric confronted McClellan' during an interview. She claimed that, while still at NBC, she asked a tough question about the Iraq war and was rebuffed by McClellan. According to Couric, the press secretary then called one of her bosses and threatened to deny her future access to the White House press gaggle.

But earlier Couric told her colleagues on the CBS News Early Show that McClellan's indictment of a complicit media is "a very legitimate allegation."

"I think it's one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism," she said. "And I think there was a sense of pressure from corporations who own where we work and from the government itself to really squash any kind of dissent or any kind of questioning of it. I think it was extremely subtle but very, very effective."

On Wednesday night, CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin said that network executives at MSNBC had pushed her not to do hard-hitting pieces on the Bush administration as the nation readied for war.

"The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation," Yellin told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

ABC News' Charles Gibson isn't admitting as much. "I think that the media did a pretty good job of focusing and asking the questions," he said. "It was just a drum beat from the government, and I think it's convenient now to blame the media, but I don't," he added. (This from the same anchor who called his questioning during ABC's now infamous April 16 debate "tough and intelligent").

It's the System, Stupid

It's telling that mainstream journalists are in a quandary over the role their media organizations played to "enable" propaganda, and whether they individually are indeed a part of the problem. Many genuinely are trying to do their jobs but are constrained by a corporate structure that promotes reporters with cozy access to political and economic power, while discouraging those whose questions and investigative reporting might rock the boat.

The roots of the problem extend beyond the performance of one or another reporter to a news industry that allows itself to be manipulated and cajoled by dishonest leadership. "Too many media outlets continue to tell the politically and economically powerful, 'Lie to me!'" write Bob McChesney and John Nichols in a Nation op-ed to be published next week.

According to McChesney and Nichols, responsible journalists have little say in setting the lead stories for large outlets. "The calls are being made by consultants and bean counters, who increasingly rely on official sources and talking-head pundits rather than news-gathering or serious debate."

The Situation Right Now

For all of their posturing, the Courics and Gibsons of the network newscasts are the fading faces of a system that's perilously broken. It's not just reflected in the declining audience for traditional news formats, but in the issues that they cover -- and those that they choose to ignore.

McClellan's memoir comes on the heels of an April 20 New York Times exposé, which revealed an extensive -- and likely illegal -- Pentagon program to recruit pro-war "military analysts" for nearly every major news outlet in America. Many in the newsrooms knew of these pundits' ties to the Pentagon -- as well as their involvement in lucrative military contracts -- but didn't bother to reveal the obvious conflicts of interest to their viewers.

While the story received scant coverage in the mainstream media, more than 100,000 activists have written their members of Congress to urge an investigation into the media's role in spreading pro-war propaganda. Bloggers and independent media are also still covering this issue, refusing to let Big Media off the hook

Congress has promised to investigate the Pentagon's role in the scandal, but it shouldn't end there. People should demand more of the companies that assume the mantle of journalism, but fall far short of its ideals.

Our democracy is in peril when mainstream media fail to question the official view and put the interests of ordinary Americans first.

This watchdog role is especially critical during a time of war and elections -- the time that we're in right now.

Follow Timothy Karr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TimKarr

Comments

[johnie2xs]

A Plan;
How about since the airwaves,supposedly belong to the people, we enforce that fact and require the networks to follow some new strong applications of these rules.
1) All evening newscasts should be 1hr long with at least 20mins of that newscast dedicated to world news.
2) The newscast would be broadcast commercial free, paid for by a percentage surcharge attached to all other advertisements broadcast on the networks.
3) All the networks, by charter, should be required to have at least some base requirements regarding foreign bureaus so as to be able to reliably be able to present a comprehensive world view.
4) The FCC should be restructered in such a way as to insure its autonomy such that politicization of the agency would be impossible.
5) Since the internet has become such a rich source of information a way should be agreed upon whereby it can be integrated into the information conduit on a controlled commercial basis.

These ideas are not presented as an absolute answer to the problem, but rather as a starting point of ideas to reinstate the "Press" to its rightful place of importance in our "Democratic Experiment".

[armstp]

The MSM denial of their terrible reporting on the run-up to the war is just one more nail in their coffin.

The MSM is becoming increasingly irrelevant, as the Internet is taking over. Reading this article is an example.

However, three problems with the Internet:

1) there is little incentive to do real investigative journalism because Internet writers are not getting paid much.

2) most websites like the Huffington Post are mostly speaking to the converted.

and

3) most people in American still do not look to the web for their news, as most would prefer to watch rather than read.

However, overall there is far more objective info on the Net. We just have to encourage more Americas to look at the net for news, find a way to pay people to do more real primary investigative journalism on the net, and encourage both right and the left to be open to reading the other websites.

[OddManOut]

One other aspect of this is the elephant in the room: corporations control the media. NBC, which is owned by GE, is directly or indirectly under the influence of GE's directive: make money. Make money from sources such as materials used for war.

GE war machine + Iraq War = Shut up NBC and MSNBC about the war.

They didn't need the administration to tell them to not badmouth the war.

-----

Now, the media has a new group of interests that want a positive spin on the news: "clean coal". The commericials on CNN are endless these days. One commerial goes to far as to make a veiled threat that if we don't keep using coal for energy, the American way of life will disappear. That's bold.

[OliverTwist]

Someone here mentioned Al Jazeera. Now there was a clue. The US government or somebody shut down access to an internet news organization and there were no complaints, no investigations, no actions.

Go back a bit further when Iraq's Tariq Aziz travelled to Rome to meet the Pope and gave a press conference in which he refused to allow questions from journalists from Jewish media - the mainstream media made no complaints and there were no boycotts or other actions.

Come forward to the recent past when a CBS photojournalist was imprisoned by US forces and held for several years without charges. The mainstream media made no complaints and there were no boycotts or other actions.

We have a serious problem of corruption in the media. Not just then, but now.

There will be consequences in the election unless people make a political issue of this sorry record.

[johndomane]

This is a surprise? Why would FOR PROFIT based news media organizations not jump on the War Wagon with the White House.
Its making MILLIONS perhaps billions of dollars in profits or perhaps it should be called profiteering. This war was the best thing thats happened to the major media propaganda outlets ( OOPS !!! I mean news media outlets) since the first Gulf War.
Remember CNN was born from the womb of the Mother of all Wars. This War made a lot of wealthy news moguls wealthier and made the American middle class foot the bill for it not to mention getting a lot of poor and middle class kids along with 100,000s of Iraqis killed.
I wonder if there a news story here. FRONT PAGE NEWS, READ ALL ABOUT IT. "CEO'S OF NBC,ABC,MSNBC,FOX NEWS,CBS BROUGHT UP ON CHARGES OF WAR PROFITEERING. AIDING AND ABETTING WHITE HOUSE TRUMPED UP REASONS FOR GOING TO WAR!!!!!!! The SOB's should all go to @#%#^*! JAIL!!!!!!! Maybe that will send a message to the mighty media moguls to start reporting responsibly.

[Oldtimer]

What we need is the folks at The Nation to debate Bill Crystol and Fred Barnes on FOX.
Then America would get a real debate but instead we get Cokie Roberts and Tim Russert,
Katie Couric and Matt Loudmouth...
Give me Bill Moyers as a presidential debate moderator.
Give us back the League of Womern Voters. The political parties should not
dictate the format of debate - voters should!!

[kirsti]

I like to say tha UN's Mr. Blix was looking for WMD's in Iraq. He found none. Cause there was none.

I knew that if US went to war against Iraq, a civil war would be started. And I'm just a nobody. I don't have a voice. I could have commented, but they would have banned me. To get banned feels even worse than to never have said nothing.

Thing is: People who had a voice, said nothing. Basically because they were afraid to lose their jobs.

Is there journalism left in this world? I don't think so. To have some say you have to be a dimissive, blond, shy-smiling woman, repeating what the boss told them to say. That's not to have some say. But people like to watch.

I think journalism is gone forever. At least in US. Fox News is no a new-channel. It's a cheap talking heads thing.

CNN, same thing.

I don't know why am. journalists enabled the Bush-adm. They did!! I would like an honest answer.

Why does O'Reilly still lead ratings?

[swift goat pet for truth]

Columnists should not discuss this issue without mentioning the Press Club Dinner two years ago with guest speaker Stephen Colbert.

The only difference is that Scotty make the issue harder (but not impossible) to ignore.

[nunzia]

None of it's news. Bill Moyers' 2-hour expose of the media's complicity in the runup to the war was first aired quite a long time ago.
PBS. Not the msm.
Without campaign finance reform AND the fairness doctrine, you can forget the idea that was America. But hey, I didn't mean to distract you guys from your reality tv shows. Chris, Wolf and Billo.

[OddManOut]

It's interesting that the msm is sort-of covering this issue. But, they frame it as a question: "Was the media compicit in the run-up to the war?". Then they bring on media people(!) to "debate" the issue. The media people then deny and defend the poor job they did. What a joke!

[JBS]

All of them are multi-millionaires. Who do you expect them to represent, YOU or their bank accounts.

[gusvidal]

THE PROPAGANDA STILL GOING ON AND WILL CONTINUE. OUR SO CALLED INDEPENDENT MEDIA FOUGHT SO HARD TO SAVE ROVE OF BEING INDICTED AND NOW CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF HIRING BUSH'S PROPAGANDISTS. FOR SURE THEY PREPARING TO BE TOUGH AND SLEAZE AT THE NEW DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT. LET'S STIPULATE, THERE IS NOT A INDEPENDENT MEDIA, THERE IS A CORPORATE MEDIA THAT RUNS OUR GOVERNMENT. , PERIOD.

[proudliberal4truth]

Dr. Lawrence Britt recently published 14 characteristics of Fascist governments. Item number 6 on his list was: :"Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes the media is controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common." The other 13 characteristics noted by Britt and equally as frightening. America, wake up....the Bush doctorine in a very-lightly veiled form of fascism and their goal is to totally undermine "we the people".

[proudliberal4truth]

Here is the link if you're interested: http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm

[SkippyJones]

Agreed. Now can somebody tell me how Couric can on one hand say: "while still at NBC, she asked a tough question about the Iraq war and was rebuffed by McClellan. According to Couric, the press secretary then called one of her bosses and threatened to deny her future access to the White House press gaggle" and THEN say: "And I think there was a sense of pressure from corporations who own where we work and from the government itself to really squash any kind of dissent or any kind of questioning of it. I think it was extremely subtle but very, very effective."

What the heck is SUBTLE about that? Ask a tough question - Katie freaking Couric here - and the White House calls her boss and threatens to have her banned from the White House Press Corps? Oh that is subtle all right..... the hell it is. That is a scandal in any other administration right there - a full blown scandal. Even back in the day no administration had the temerity to demand the removal of a major press figure from the white house press for asking a tough question! Katie is still so caught up in herself and her words and talking endlessly about clear-cut things as though they were 'issues' that the clear to see truth nonetheless sits there like the familiar white elephant....

[TimeJumper]

It is unfortunate that the American electorate in 2000 voted for an individual that they believed could relate to their needs and concerns; they perceived him as the quintessential candidate that they can sit down with and have a beer. Instead, they entrusted the Presidency to an individual who lacked both candor and good judgment.

[Bluedanube]

America needs a new 4th Estate. The corporate media has abregated it's role for profit and access. A system dominated by rich celebrity news readers and ego driven pundits does not serve the country well. Thankfully there is always the Guardian and the citizen journalists of the internet for news that matters.

[StillAmused]

When the press puppets assume these contorted, defensive positions, attempting to elude their own pathetic track records, it's enough to make you scream, "Quick... someone send for an orthopedic surgeon -- another one's stuck!"

[frenchynyc]

hmm...you mean katie curic is actually just a bad reporter...sexism isn't the reason her ratings are in the tank??!!

sounds like the excuses hitler's henchmen used after the fact...my boss made me do it!!

if that helps you traitors sleep better at night....we - the american people - know who the traitors are - and exactly who enabled BUSH to kill more americans than the terrorists...not to mention untold thousands of iraqi's...

let the war tribunals convene and convict...SOON!

[FearlessFreep]

"This should be a shock to everyone." Except for people who remember the Reagan years.