Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting
Date: 17 March 2006
Where: National Press
Club, Washington, D.C.
Panelists: Peter Brock, William Dorich, David Binder
Introduction
Good afternoon, my name is William Dorich, I am the publisher of GMBooks,
established in Los Angeles in 1985. I am also the author of 5 books on
Balkan history and religion including my 1992 book Kosovo.
When Peter Brock came to me to publish Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting, I
was thrilled but I was fully aware that this manuscript was submitted and
rejected by every major publisher in the United States, revealing an ugly
truth that dissenting views are not always welcome in the media or in the
American publishing industry.
In the entire decade of the 1990s during the dismemberment wars of
Yugoslavia not one single article was printed in the New York Times that was
written by a Serbian journalist, author, scholar or political leader. The
same can be said of numerous major newspapers across the nation including
the Los Angeles Times in my city. Serbs were simply muzzled into silence.
Thanks to Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrook Serbs were also made
Persona non grata here on The Hill and denied the right to appear before
any House and Senate hearings on Bosnia including the Foreign Relations
Committee.
The result, the word Serb has become synonymous with evil. I should know as
I was the victim of two hate crimes and received numerous death threats for
daring to defend, write and publish Serbian views.
Dr. Alex Dragnich, a Serb, is the recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Award
for Outstanding Scholarship at Vanderbilt University where he taught for
several decades. Dr. Dragnich is the author of ten books on Balkan history
and politics and was a member of the diplomatic corp in Belgrade after the
Holocaust. At the height of the Bosnian Civil War Dr. Dragnich submitted 42
OpEd articles to the New York Times... not one was reproduced yet lie after
lie was published by the Times from instant Balkan "experts." Few of whom
had credentials on the Balkan region.
David Binder who graces our book with a profound foreword was a member of
the Washington bureau of The New York Times from June 1973 to his retirement
in 1996. He continued reporting until 2004, producing numerous articles on
Central and Eastern European affairs with outstanding reports that afforded
unique insights into foreign policy and the Yugoslav breakup. His
assignments for The Times, included posts in Germany, Belgrade (as East
European correspondent) and in Washington as diplomatic correspondent. He
reported on the building and fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of
Communist systems in East Germany, Romania, Albania and Yugoslavia.
The admiration and respect for Mr. Binder's reporting and reputation as a
journalist of our times almost five decades is without equal during what
is fast becoming an era in which most journalist seem to strive to be
mediocre at their craft, too many are simply recklessly irresponsible.
Who can forget Binder's opening line to the essay he wrote for The South
Slav Journal in late 1995.
Quote: "A widely noted oxymoron for the last four years has been the phrase
'United States Policy Towards Yugoslavia."' End quote.
Mr. Binder graduated from Harvard University and was a Fulbright scholar at
the University of Cologne. He has lectured and published articles mainly in
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Macedonia,
Romania, Hungary, Finland, Japan, Canada and throughout the United States.
He is the author of Berlin East and West (1962) and The Other German The
Life and Times of Willy Brandt (1976); and co-author of New York Times books
on Project Apollo the Fall of Communism and Scientists at Work.
He lives in suburban Maryland and he speaks fluent Serbo-Croatian. Can you
imagine that when the war broke out in former Yugoslavia his editors sent
John Bums to cover the story, a journalist who relied on Muslim translators?
Bums won half a Pulitzer for writing about the confession of an alleged
Serbian rapist and killer. This Serb was found guilty by his own confession
without a single victim of rape or a body of an alleged murder victim
presented as evidence at his trial. It was later proven his confession was
tortured out of him. John Bums claimed there was not a mark on his body.
However, John Bums and the NYT never published an article about Dr. Ljubica
Toholj, gynecology professor at Belgrade University who did the physical
exams of thousands of Serbian prisoners of war in which sexual torture
techniques did irreparable damage to internal organs or electrical shock
used on the male genitals of these prisoners which also leaves no marks on
the body.
Was the American public duped about Bosnia? We should be asking what kind of
justice is this at The Hague that cases against Serbs are not over tuned
when Muslim witnesses have admitted that they were coached by Bosnian
authorities to lie on the witness stand? What kind of justice is Carla dela
Ponte promoting by keeping Serbs imprisoned for killing numerous Bosnian
Muslims who turned up alive and well in Sarajevo?
The U.S. blackout of court coverage of the Hague Tribunal conveniently hides
what has turned out to be lynch mob style tactics of judicial abuse yet we
are told that this tribunal is the lunch pin of future international court
cases involving war and genocide.
Ambassador Bissett of Canada said it best in his attack of the media and I
quote: "It is not the media responsibility to influence governments to make
unwise policy decisions affecting the very course of history." end quote.
But that is exactly what the media did in Yugoslavia.
If Osama bin Laden and Muslim terrorism is this nation's number one enemy,
then the invasion of Bosnia by thousands of bin Laden trained terrorists was
surely Serbia's enemies and they had every right to defend themselves.
Hundreds of those Muslim terrorists remain in Bosnia and Kosovo today.
Since the end of the war in 1999 and the arrival of KFOR troops in Kosovo
over 150 ancient Serbian churches have been destroyed. For the most part the
press has remained silent. The same press that demanded human rights and
religious tolerance for Bosnian Muslims continue to deny the Serbs equal
justice as Serbs have been made nearly extinct in Kosovo where they were a
majority of the population in 1939 the year in which I was born.
The media tells us that Albanians are a majority of Kosovo but never publish
the fact that 40% are illegal aliens who cross the border into Serbia as
easily as Mexicans cross our borders each night in San Diego.
In the preface to his book Witness to Genocide" which is truly an oxymoron.
Roy Gutman wrote, and I quote: "Having set such lofty standards, I
immediately make an exception and wrote about the Omarska camp which I had
no visited, based on secondhand witness accounts." end quote.
Gutman wrote to my author refusing permission for Peter to quote from A
Witness to Genocide, so we paraphrased his quotes. Meanwhile his publisher,
Simon and Schuster said we could quote from their book then charged us
$450.00 for the privilege.
Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting documents how many journalists covering the
Balkan Civil Wars also made exceptions to their lofty standards they, lied,
fabricated, and distorted the truth. They repeated the propaganda of other
journalists ad naseum. Like Gutman they trampled on journalistic ethics,
integrity and morality for their bylines.
The recent SkyNews release of Bosnian Muslim video footage of Serbs being
rounded up, tortured and shot at point blank range has not gotten the
attention of the media nor Carla Dela Ponte who dismisses all the crimes
committed against Serbs guaranteeing that Muslim war criminals will all go
free. Just like the 20,000 Nazi Harjar troops did in Bosnia in WWII after
they liquidated tens of thousands of Sebs, Jews and Gypsies. Have we not
learned any lessons?
On March 15th, 1993 French journalist Jerome Bony, reporting from the Muslim
stronghold of Tuzla said: and I quote: "When I was at 50 kilometers from
Tuzla, I was told go to the Tuzla gymnasium, there you will find 4,000 raped
women." "At 20 kilometers, this figure dropped to 400. At 10 kilometers,
only 40 were left. Once at the sight, I found only four women to testify."
End Quote.
And this is the sort of evidence that gave us headlines screaming 60,000
rape victims in Bosnia, an absurd claim that to this day has never been
exposed as a fraud by the American media.
I attended a panel discussion at Long Beach State in California on April
15th that year in which Jacques Merlino, Deputy Chief Editor on Antenna 2 in
Paris told his audience: And I quote:
"All journalists in Bosnia are required to submit their articles to Bosnian
censors in Sarajevo." "Notice that any reference to conflicts between
Croatians and Muslim forces are heavily edited, visual images of these
conflicts are forbidden. Any journalist breaking these rules is expelled
from Bosnia." End Quote.
In other words John Burns accepted half a Pulitzer and never told his
readers that he abided by this kind of censorship. It also makes me wonder
what kind of Bosnian democracy did Madeleine Albright built on such
deceptions.
In his December 1993 editorial in Strategic Policy Gregory Copley wrote: I
quote: "The big lie technique is alive and well. Croatia has used the media
and skillful image manipulation to hide its renewed genocide against the
Serbs while at the same time ensuring that Serbs are themselves wrongly
accused of the same type of crime, and more. Pictures of dead, wounded (or
raped) Serbs often fill the screens of the world's television and print
media, only to be re-labelled as dead, wounded or raped Croats or Muslims.
Serbs—not only suffer the indignity of defeat in death; they also are used
in death as models in the macabre image manipulation operations of the
Croatians and Muslim Bosnians." End quote.
Mr. Brock's career as a newspaper journalist for more than 30 years is
highlighted by 17 professional awards including being named a finalst for
the 1989 Pulitzer Prize competition for Public Service.
Recognized as a political and environmental writer and investigative
reporter, Mr. Brock holds the Southern Journalism Award for Investigative
Reporting (Duke University), the Thomas L. Stokes Award for Environmental
Reporting of the Washington Journalism Center, and 15 other distinctions.
He has widely traveled the Balkans, Western Central Europe, the former
Soviet Union, the Middle East and other regions since 1976.
A specialist in the role of the Western media in the Balkan wars, Mr.
Brock's controversial articles and reports were reprinted in major
newspapers worldwide. He appeared on nationally-televised panel discussions
that focused on the Yugoslav wars, and he was interviewed by numerous
domestic and international newspapers, television and radio.
During his career, he has covered organized crime, drug-trafficking, and the
unique politics along the U.S.-Mexican border as well as critical water
issues in that desert climate.
His "Dateline Yugoslavia: The Partisan Press", published 13 years ago in the
journal Foreign Policy set off shock waves in Washington and the media that
are still rippling. The publisher was regaled into organizing a virtual
accountability session at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Brock appeared with David Binder, facing a roomful of media "pit bulls," and
restated his findings about the co-belligerent Western pack journalism
maneuvering and manipulating for NATO intervention, encouraging NATO to
violate it own defensive treaty.
But, that wasn't enough for his critics who harangued Brock as a "holocaust
denier" until they ran out of breath.
In preparation of Media Cleansing.... Peter confronted his colleagues about
their professional lapses and collusion with the secessionist Yugoslav
governments—and our own State Department.
He did what any good investigative reporter does. He searched for
information and waited patiently as the story developed, talking with scores
of professionals and eventually tracking down the offending correspondents
one-by-one, some of whom refused to answer questions.
They complained to his superiors at his newspaper, and even threatened him
with lawsuits. He caught up with one Pulitzer Prize winner at an
international Balkan conference in Sweden and unrelentingly questioned him
from the audience.
One of the best lines in his book is from the editor of a top supermarket
tabloid who, when asked about the shrill and surreal war-coverage by the
American media flagships, answered: and I quote: "They're doing a better job
of it than we could!" end quote.
Peter Brock began his newspaper career at The Philadelphia Inquirer, served
for 20 years with The El Paso (Texas) Herald-Post, and wrote/reported/edited
for newspapers in New Mexico, Colorado and Washington, D.C. Ladies and
gentlemen, I am proud to introduce a true professional, an expert at his
craft and my friend, Peter Brock.
This article appeared in newspaper, Canadian Srbobran, December 1, 2006
issue, page 10. Peter Brock’s book Media Cleansing, can be obtained from:
Graphics Mnagement Press,
10520 Ohio Avenue,
Los Angeles, CA 90024
www.gmbooks.com
Telephone: (310) 475-2988
Serbian News Network - SNN
[email protected]
http://www.antic.org/
