> John Pilger - In the freest press on earth, humanity is > reported in terms of its usefulness to US power > > John Pilger > Monday 19th February 2001 > The New Statesman > http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/200102190008.htm > > Washington > > Long before the Soviet Union broke up, a group of Russian writers > touring the United States were astonished to find, after reading the > newspapers and watching television, that almost all the opinions on > all the vital issues were the same. "In our country," said one of > them, "to get that result we have a dictatorship. We imprison people. > We tear out their fingernails. Here you have none of that. How do you > do it? What's the secret?" > > The secret is a form of censorship more insidious than a totalitarian > state could ever hope to achieve. The myth is the opposite. > Constitutional freedoms unmatched anywhere else guard against > censorship; the press is a "fourth estate", a watchdog on democracy. > The journalism schools boast this reputation, the influential East > Coast press is especially proud of it, epitomised by the liberal > paper of record, the New York Times, with its masthead slogan: "All > the news that's fit to print." > > It takes only a day or two back in the US to be reminded of how deep > state censorship runs. It is censorship by omission, and voluntary. > The source of most Americans' information, mainstream television, has > been reduced to a set of marketing images shot and edited to the > rhythms of a Coca-Cola commercial that flow seamlessly into the > actual commercials. Rupert Murdoch's Fox network is the model, with > its peep-shows of human tragedy. Non-American human beings are > generally ignored, or treated with an anthropological curiosity > reserved for wildlife documentaries. > > Not long ago, Kenneth Jarecke was talking about this censorship. > Jarecke is the American photographer who took the breath-catching > picture of an Iraqi burnt to a blackened cinder, petrified at the > wheel of his vehicle on the Basra Road where he, and hundreds of > others, were massacred by American pilots on their infamous "turkey > shoot" at the end of the Gulf war. In the United States, Jarecke's > picture was suppressed for months after what was more a slaughter > than a war. "The whole US press collaborated in keeping silent about > the consequences of that war," he said. > > The famous CBS anchorman Dan Rather told his prime-time audience: > "There's one thing we can all agree on. It's the heroism of the 148 > Americans who gave their lives so that freedom could live." What he > omitted to say was that a quarter of them had been killed, like their > British comrades, by other Americans. He made no mention of the Iraqi > dead, put at 200,000 by the Medical Educational Trust. That American > forces had deliberately bombed civilian infrastructure, such as water > treatment plants, was not reported at the time. Six months later, one > newspaper, Newsday, published in Long Island, New York, disclosed > that three US brigades "used snow plows mounted on tanks to bury > thousands of Iraqi soldiers - some still alive - in more than 70 > miles of trenches". > > The other day, both the Washington Post and the New York Times > referred to Iraq without mentioning the million people now estimated > to have died as a direct result of sanctions imposed, via the UN, by > the United States and Britain. That, writes Brian Michael Goss of the > University of Illinois, is standard practice. Goss examined 630 > articles on sanctions published in the New York Times from 1996 to > 1998. In those three years, just 20 articles - 3 per cent of the > coverage - were critical of the policy or dwelt upon its civilian > impact. The rest reflected the US official line, identifying 21 > million people with Saddam Hussein. The scale of the censorship is > placed in perspective by Professors John and Karl Mueller, of the > University of Rochester. "Even if the UN estimates of the human > damage to Iraq are roughly correct," they write, sanctions have > caused "the deaths of more people in Iraq than have been slain by all > so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history." > > A third of the people of East Timor were put to death by the Suharto > dictatorship during Indonesia's 24-year occupation. Yet the American > media skirted this epic crime until shortly before the 1999 > referendum. Their silence was in striking contrast to the saturation > coverage of the "genocide" in Kosovo, used to justify the Nato > bombing campaign, and was in line with suppression of the > post-bombing disclosure that there was no genocide. In East Timor, > the United States helped Suharto execute his invasion, secretly and > illegally, with weapons and aircraft. For most of the 24 years of > bloody occupation, the US media maintained a virtual blackout on East > Timor. > > In the freest press on earth, humanity is reported in terms of its > usefulness to American power. Kosovo was a major story; it > demonstrated the "credibility" of Nato and America's control over the > Balkans. East Timor was a non-story, "a road bump on the way to > Indonesia", according to a State Department official. In a study of > the New York Times and Washington Post cited by Goss, 75 per cent of > the sources were government officials - a record not that far behind > the old Pravda. Truly independent reporters such as Seymour Hersh are > described, revealingly, as "dissidents" and "advocates". What is most > telling is the media's presumption of innocence of the rapacious > American imperial role, rather like Hollywood's post-Vietnam > celebration of America as a noble victim. In a lead editorial > recently, the New York Times identified the problems of the world, > ranging from poverty to terrorism to disease, as "challenges to > American safety and well-being". That the United States consumes a > quarter of the world's resources, controls the channels of world > trade and the institutions of inequality, and squeezes whole nations, > such as Iraq, to death, is simply not news. > > © The Author © New Statesman Ltd. 2000. > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">Make good on the promise you made at graduation to keep in touch. 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