http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13492.htm
Normalizing the Unthinkable
John Pilger, Charlie Glass, Robert Fisk and Seymour Hersh on the
failure of the world's press
By Sophie McNeill
06/03/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- The late journalist
Edward R.
Murrow might well have been rolling in his grave on April 21. That's
because
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a lecture that day in
Washington,
DC to journalists at the Department of State's official Edward R. Murrow
Program for Journalists.
For the Bush administration to use the memory of a person who stood
up to
government propaganda is ironic to say the least. Secretary Rice told
the
assembled journalists that "without a free press to report on the
activities
of government, to ask questions of officials, to be a place where
citizens
can express themselves, democracy simply couldn't work."
One week earlier in New York City, Columbia University hosted a panel
on the
state of the world's media that would have been more in Murrow's
style than
the State Department-run symposium. Reporter and filmmaker John Pilger,
British Middle East correspondent for the Independent Robert Fisk,
freelance
reporter Charlie Glass, and investigative journalist for the New Yorker
Seymour Hersh appeared together at this April 14 event.
Before the afternoon panel began, I met up with John Pilger at his
hotel.
He'd
just flown in from London and was only in New York for the panel before
flying to Caracas, Venezuela the next day. A journalist for over 30
years,
Pilger has reported from Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, Palestine, and
Iraq-to name a few of the countries to which his investigative
reporting and
filmmaking had taken him.
Pilger told me that he'd never been as concerned about the state of the
media as he was today. "I think there's a lot of reasons to be very
concerned about the information or the lack of information that we get.
There's never been such an interest, more than an interest, almost an
obsession, in controlling what journalists have to say."
Despite the fact that the war in Iraq is reported daily in most U.S.
newspapers and networks around the world, Pilger didn't think the
world's
press accurately conveyed the reality of life for Iraqi civilians.
"We get
the illusion that we are seeing what might be happening in Iraq. But
what
we're
getting is a massive censorship by omission; so much is being left
out," he
said. "We have a situation in Iraq where well over 100,000 civilians
have
been killed and we have virtually no pictures. The control of that by
the
Pentagon has been quite brilliant. And as a result we have no idea of
the
extent of civilians suffering in that country."
I asked Pilger what the untold story of Iraq was that's just not getting
through. "Well, the untold story of Iraq should be obvious," Pilger
said.
"But it never is. The untold story of Vietnam was that it was an
invasion
and that huge numbers of civilians were killed. And in effect it was
a war
against civilians and that was never told and that's exactly true of
Iraq."
With the majority of the world's press holed up behind 4.5 miles of
concrete
barrier in the green zone, it seems impossible for the standard of
reporting
to improve anytime in the near future. I asked Pilger if he blamed
journalists for not wanting to put their lives at risk? "No, I
can't," he
said. "But I don't see the point of being in the green zone. I don't
see the
point of wearing a flak jacket and standing in a hotel in a fortress
guarded
by an invader.
"But there have been journalists-and others-who have actually gone
with the
insurgents; who have reported about them. One of them, for instance,
is a
young woman named Jo Wilding, a British human rights worker. She was in
Fallujah all through that first attack in 2004. Jo Wilding's
dispatches were
some of the most extraordinary I've read, but they were never published
anywhere."
Pilger said the mainstream press needs to get over its hang up of
"our man
in Baghdad" and prioritize whatever information can be obtained by
whoever
is brave enough or has the best contacts. "There are sources of
information
for what is happening inside Iraq. Most of them are on the web. I think
those who give a damn in the mainstream really have to look at those
sources
and surrender their prejudice about them and say we need that reporter's
work because he or she has told us something we can't possibly get
ourselves. And I think that's the only way we will really serve the
public."
We had talked too long and had to quickly jump in a cab to make it to
the
panel on time. The hall was packed with university students,
professors, and
the public.
Charlie Glass
The event quickly got underway with Charlie Glass as the first
speaker. A
former ABC America correspondent in the Middle East, Glass drew
laughs from
the crowd when comparing his experience to the other panelists. "When I
began journalism I approached it in the way a lot of young naïve
people do,
in that it was a vocation, a higher calling to tell the truth. My three
colleagues up here have managed to do that throughout their careers.
I tried
very hard to do that throughout my career.but I worked for an American
network. It's not easy," joked Glass.
Glass spoke about the censorship he had encountered as an American TV
reporter covering the Middle East, referring to a story he filed
during the
Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. There had been rumors of Israeli
Shin
Bath death squads murdering Lebanese civilians in the South and Glass
and
his crew had managed to film the evidence behind these killings. "We
nailed
this story. We folded one of the death squads. We got to the palace
where
they had assassinated a man half an hour after he had been killed. We
filmed
it. We filmed the eyewitness. We filmed UN soldiers, who had seen the
same
things, discussing it," recalled Glass.
"ABC news didn't broadcast it. But they won't tell you they're not
going to
broadcast it because they're afraid of losing advertising. They won't
tell
you they won't broadcast it because they're afraid of the public
reaction.
They tell you they just didn't have room that night or the next night
or the
next night. And that's just the way it is. That is why very few
people in
this country have any idea what's going on in the Middle East."
Glass believes this kind of censorship has led to a chasm of
misunderstanding within the U.S. public. "You don't understand what's
been
going on in Iraq because you've been lied to again. Just like you
were in
Vietnam. Just like you were in Lebanon and just like you were in the
West
Bank and Gaza," he said.
"Nobody has a clue why things went wrong in Iraq. Well, I'll tell you
why.
They were always going to go wrong in Iraq. It wasn't because Bremer
screwed
up. It wasn't because the U.S. pilfered the Iraqi treasury, which is
true.
It wasn't because some soldiers misbehaved and shot some people in
cars. It
was because it could never go right in Iraq," Glass insisted. "The
U.S. was
not trusted by any Iraqi because the U.S. history in Iraq was so
reprehensible-from the betrayal of the Kurds in 1975 when Henry
Kissinger
sold them out and they were massacred in the tens of thousands by
Saddam,
from the time they aided Saddam during the Iran/Iraq war, from the
time they
betrayed the Kurdish and Shia rebellions in 1991, from the sanctions
regime
that followed.
"Who would trust a power to liberate them who had already behaved
like that?
It isn't a question of what happened after; it's a question of what
happened
before. We had an obligation to tell what happened before and we
didn't,"
Glass said, before pausing to take a moment. "I've lost my vocation. I
actually don't really like this profession anymore," Glass said
regrettably.
Robert Fisk
Next to speak was Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk, arguably the
world's
most experienced Western reporter in the region. Fisk pulled out a
copy of
the New York Times and spread it out on the lectern. "This is from this
morning's paper: Al-Qaeda's man in Iraq gets encouragement from HQ,"
Fisk
read aloud. "An interior minister official said, officials said, the
American military said, the Iraqi government said, some American
officials
here observed, and some military officials have said, two American
intelligence officials said, one Pakistani official said, and I've
only got
to column two," Fisk exclaimed. "I've always believed that your major
newspaper should be called 'American Officials Say.' Then you can
just scrap
all the reporting and have the Pentagon talking directly."
Fisk expressed outrage at the semantics of language that occurs
within much
of the reporting in the Middle East. "In the American press the occupied
Palestinian territories become the disputed territories, a colony
becomes a
settlement or a neighborhood or an outpost. Here semantically, we are
constantly degrading the reasons for Palestinian anger. Over and over
again
the wall becomes a fence. Like the Berlin fence- had it been built by
the
Israelis, that's what it would have been called. Then for anyone who
doesn't
know the real semantics of this conflict, the Palestinians are
generically
violent. I mean who would ever protest over a garden fence or a
neighborhood? The purpose of this kind of journalism is to diminish
the real
reasons behind the Middle East conflict."
Fisk went on to explain why he thinks the manipulation of language in
reporting skews the truth. "We have another phrase we are introducing
now.
Have you noticed how these extraordinary creatures keep popping up in
reports from Baghdad? 'Men in police uniform' took part in the
kidnapping.
'Men in police uniform' abducted Margaret Hassan. 'Men in army uniform'
besieged police stations," Fisk said, somewhat exasperated.
"Now do the reporters writing this garbage actually think there is a
warehouse in Fallujah with eight thousand made to measure police
uniforms
for insurgents?" Fisk asked, then answered. "Of course there aren't,
they
are the policemen."
Fisk's main criticism was reserved for television coverage of the
conflict.
"Television connives at war because it will not show you the reality.
If an
Iraqi is lucky enough to die in a romantic position he will get on
the air,"
Fisk said. He then added, "But if he doesn't have a head on or if he
is like
most of the victims, torn to bits, you will not see him."
Fisk talked of his television colleague's pictures being routinely
censored
by producers and editors back home. "I've heard them say this down
the line,
'It's pornographic to show these pictures. We've got people at breakfast
time; they will be puking over their cornflakes... We can't show
this.' My
favorite one is 'We've got to respect the dead.' We can kill them as
much as
we want, but once they're dead we've got to respect them, right? And
so you
will be shielded from this war. You will be shielded from this reality."
Fisk believes having journalists holed up in the green zone suits the
military forces in Iraq. "The Americans, and to a lesser extent the
British,
like it this way. They do not want us moving around. They do not want us
going to the mortuaries and counting the dead."
Fisk told of an experience he had when visiting a Baghdad mortuary in
August
2005. "The mortuary officials, against the law of Iraq, which doesn't
count
for much at the moment, let me see the Ministry of Health computer that
American and British officials have ordered the ministry not to allow
Western journalists access to.which showed that in July alone last year
1,100 Iraqis had died by violence, just in Baghdad."
Fisk challenged the standard reporting conventions hammered into
journalism
student's heads around the world. "There's one that comes up from the
journalism school system which is you've got to give equal time to both
sides," explained Fisk. "To which I say well, if you were reporting the
slave trade in the 18th century, would you give equal time to the
slave ship
captain? No. If you're covering the liberation of a Nazi camp, do you
give
equal time to the SS spokesman? No. When I covered a Palestinian suicide
bombing of a restaurant in Israeli west Jerusalem in August 2001, did
I give
equal time to the Islamic jihad spokesman? No. When 1,700
Palestinians were
slaughtered in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in
1982,
did I give equal time to the Israeli spokesman, who of course was
representing an army who watched the massacre as its Lebanese Phalangist
allies carried it out? No. Journalists should be on the side of the
victims," Fisk said.
He closed with a sober warning to viewers and readers closely
following the
Iraq war coverage. "We have a real disaster on our hands because the
American project in Iraq is dead and don't believe anything anyone else
tells you in any newspaper. It is a catastrophe and every reporter
working
in Iraq knows it, but they don't all tell you that," Fisk said, pausing.
"And that is our shame."
John Pilger
John Pilger addressed the audience next by challenging the very idea
that
America and its allies are at war. "We are not at war. Instead,
American and
British troops are fighting insurrections in countries where our
invasions
have caused mayhem and grief...but you wouldn't know it. Where are the
pictures of these atrocities?"
Pilger referred to the first wars he covered, Vietnam and Cambodia, and
compared the role of journalists then to today. "The invasion of
Vietnam was
deliberate and calculated-as were policies and strategies that
bordered on
genocide and were designed to force millions of people to abandon their
homes. Experimental weapons were used against civilians. All of this was
rarely news. The unspoken task of the reporter in Vietnam, as it was in
Korea, was to normalize the unthinkable. And that has not changed."
Pilger went on to explain his reaction to current reporting of events in
Iraq. "The other day, on the third anniversary of the invasion, a BBC
newsreader described the invasion as a 'miscalculation.' Not illegal.
Not
unprovoked. Not based on lies. But a miscalculation. Thus, the
unthinkable
is normalized. By concentrating on military pronouncements. By making it
seem like it is a respectable war, you normalize what is the
unthinkable.
And the unthinkable is a war against civilians. It's a war that has
claimed
tens of thousands of people. There are estimates that put it well over
100,000. When journalists report it as a respectable geopolitical act
and
promote the idea that it was to bring democracy to this country, then
they're
normalizing the unthinkable."
Pilger turned his attention to the BBC. Generally accepted worldwide
as a
reputable and independent source of information, Pilger rejected this
notion
outright. "In Britain, where I live, the BBC, which promotes itself as a
sort of nirvana of objectivity and impartiality and truth, has blood all
over its corporate hands." Pilger cited a study conducted by the
journalism
school of the University College in Cardiff that found in the lead up
to the
war, 90 percent of the BBC's references to weapons of mass destruction
suggested Saddam Hussein actually possessed them.
Pilger added, "We now know that the BBC and other British media were
used by
MI-6, the secret intelligence service. In what they called Operation
Mass
Appeal, MI-6 agents planted stories about Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction, such as weapons hidden in his palaces and in secret
underground
bunkers. All of these stories were fake. But that's not the point.
The point
is that the role of MI-6 was quite unnecessary because a systematic
media
self-censorship produced the same result."
To Pilger the most significant way journalists are used by government
is in
what he calls a "softening up process" before planned military
action. "We
soften them up by dehumanizing them. Currently journalists are
softening up
Iran, Syria, and Venezuela," Pilger said. "A few weeks ago Channel 4
News in
Britain, regarded as a good liberal news service, carried a major
item that
might have been broadcast by the State Department. The reporter
presented
President Chavez of Venezuela as a cartoon character, a sinister buffoon
whose folksy Latin way disguised a man, and I quote, 'in danger of
joining a
rogues gallery of dictators and despots-Washington's latest Latin
nightmare.'
"Rumsfeld was allowed to call Chavez 'Hitler' unchallenged. According
to the
reporter, Venezuela under Chavez was helping Iran develop nuclear
weapons.
No evidence was given for this bullshit." He cited a recent report by
the
media watchdog FAIR, which found that 95 percent of the 100 media
commentaries surveyed expressed hostility to Chavez, with terms such as
"dictator," "strongman," and "demagogue" regularly used in
publications such
as the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. "The softening-
up of
Venezuela is well advanced in the United States. So that if or when
the Bush
administration launches Operation Bilbao, a contingent plan to
overthrow the
democratic government of Venezuela, who will care? We will have only the
media version, another lousy demagogue got what was coming to him. A
triumph
of censorship by omission and by journalism," he concluded.
Seymour Hersh
The last speaker, Seymour Hersh, had just published his report on the
Bush
administration's secret plans for an attack on Iran, which he spoke
about.
"Here we've got a situation, which is really unique in our history.
This is
a president who is completely inured to the press. It doesn't matter
what we
write or say. He has got his own vision, whether he's talking to God or
doing things on behalf of what his father didn't do or whatever it
is. He
has his own messianic view of what to do and he's not done," warned
Hersh.
The moderator questioned Hersh about his use of anonymous sources and
the
possibility that his Iran story was from a government plant. "It's an
appropriate question," he remarked.
"People would say are you part of the process, trying to put pressure
on the
Iranians by using psychological warfare and planting the story? I really
wish they had that kind of cunning.that they would think in a
Kissingerian
way," he laughed. "But the fact is with George Bush, it's been very
consistent. What you see is what you get."
"It was not a plant," Hersh explained. "This [report] came from people
willing to take bullets for us. willing to put their lives on the
line, who
understand combat and who are scared to death about this guy in the
White
House." Hersh went on to warn the audience about what he thought would
happen with the Bush administration and Iran; "Folks, don't bet
against it
because he's probably going to do it; because somebody up there is
telling
him this is the right thing to do."
Hersh considered the damning words of his colleagues. "Yes, it's
important
to beat up on us. As usual we deserve it. As usual we failed you
totally,"
Hersh remarked wearily. "But above and beyond all that, folks, by my
count
there are something like 1,011 days left in the reign of King George the
Lesser and that is the bad news. But there is good news. And the good
news
is that tomorrow when we wake up there will be one less day."
To a large round of applause, the afternoon ended. I asked Pilger his
final
thoughts. He paused and then replied, "Journalists, like politicians,
like
anybody really, should be called to account for the consequences of
their
actions. Journalists have played a critical role in sustaining wars.
Starting them and sustaining them. And we have to face that discussion.
There's nothing wrong with journalism, it's a wonderful privilege,
it's a
craft actually, and I'm very proud to be a journalist. But it's the
way it's
practiced. It's as if it has been hijacked by corporatism and we
should take
it back."
Sophie McNeill is a freelance video journalist whose work regularly
appears
on Australia's SBS Television "Dateline" program. She lives in New York.
