April 30, 2001
Q : Why Does the Beltway Press Corps Hate Clinton-Gore and Worship the GOP? A : FOLLOW THE MONEY Plus! Boo-hoo-hoo! They’re picking on poor Dubya (sniff)!
If any of you are wondering why the Beltway press and the broadcast media are so blatantly anti-Democrat and pro-Republican,
I have three words for you : FOLLOW THE MONEY
Simply put, the Pubbies have promised to make life ever-so-much-more lucrative for corporate media by encouraging them to buy up each other. And if that means that consumers' media options shrink at an accelerated pace, leaving them only the GOP-approved press?why, that's just too bad.
As reported two weeks ago in The New York Times after years of litigation and lobbying, the nation's largest broadcasters, cable companies and other media outlets have gotten the illegal Cheney junta to gut federal rules that restrict the media companies' growth and ability to dominate new markets.
To quote from the story referenced above :
In a marked departure from decades of Supreme Court opinions on the subject, the agency and the appeals court have become significantly more sympathetic to the free- speech rights of corporations and more skeptical of the role of government in promoting diversity in mass media.
Consumer groups say the regulations that are being rolled back have been crucial instruments for promoting a diversity of viewpoints in the news and entertainment businesses. The companies reply that technologies iincluding the Internet have made the rules obsolete.
The next industry victory is expected this week, when the communications agency is scheduled to relax a rule that for decades has prohibitedone television network from buying another.
And that's exactly what happened :
Rupert Murdoch is now free to buy up whatever Steve Case doesn't want.
That's not all.
Soon, the FCC will eviscerate 26-year-old regulations restricting a company from owning a television station and a newspaper in the same market. Conservative Canadian newspaper mogul Conrad Black, who already owns the Los Angeles Times as well as several other American papers, can now commence building his own broadcast empire in earnest, going head-to-head with Rupert Murdoch in a race to see who can emulate Joseph Goebbels the closest.
It used to be that most every city's newspaper was owned and operatedas a homegrown, stand-alone enterprise rather than part of some faceless monolith. Those days are long gone, and fewer than ten corporate owners -- whose basic viewpoints are largely in lock-step agreement -- now control the vast majority of what Americans read in the paper or watch on TV.
The oxygen of democracy, a free, vital and varied national press, is being cut off.
Don't believe me?
Well, how about getting a taste of what Robert Scheer, one of the LA Times's last remaining columnists daring enough toquestion the wisdom of giving his boss Conrad Black carte blanche, has to say on the subject Robert Scheer :
****** But is cross-ownership healthy for independent journalism in those markets, which include New York and Los Angeles? Will the news outlets that are subsidiaries in the deal fully examine the journalistic implications of media concentration? Or will they only report on the wonders of what the owners celebrate as "convergence" or "synergy"?
****** The answer suggested by the last election is that media have difficulty covering themselves fully when the owners' financial interests are seriously in play. How else can one explain the scant attention paid to the difference between Al Gore--who opposed cross-ownership--and George W. Bush on this issue?
As Robert Scheer reports, it wasn't just Al Gore, but the entire Democratic Party, that the media moguls had -- and have -- a vested interest in undermining :
****** Also ignored in the coverage was the stake that media moguls had in the Democrats not gaining control of Congress. Had that happened, John Dingell (D-Mich.) would be chairing the House Commerce Committee, which oversees the work of the FCC. Dingell was on record as opposing the Tribune purchase of Times Mirror because such mergers lead to a "huge concentration of power in a small group of hands."
****** That's why Dingell and others believe that government regulation to preserve a diverse media market is essential. The rules concerning media ownership were not carelessly drawn up over the preceding decades to inconvenience the media industry. Rather, they were designed to save the media business from its worst instincts.
Readers, I highly suggest that you hunt down and copy in full the two articles URLed above. Then, the next time you are chided by someone for your 'paranoid' belief that the corporate media is totally in the GOP's corner, just show them those two pieces, and tell them to follow the money.
No sooner did I send off my corporate media screed than I saw a vomitous little tidbit in USAToday's print edition to the effect that Poor Widdle Usurper Boy's being picked on by that Nasty Liberal Media.
Seems that a group made up of corporate journalists, the Project for Excellence in Journalism has decided that they've just been too MEAN to that poor old Shrubbie-wubbie. And after he gave them all those cool nicknames, too!
We all know why they're announcing this "study", don't we? It's to cover their asses. They want to give themselves an excuse for totally eliminating all non-laudatory pro-Shrub propaganda from the airwavesand the papers.
Excuse me while I hurl my undigested breakfast out the window.
This is the SAME media, folks, that flat-out refused to cover Usurper Boy's having been AWOL for damned near two years (already, more TV play has been given to the unprovable smear against Bob Kerrey than was ever given to the documented-to-a-fare-thee-well AWOL case on Bush.)
This is the SAME media that refuses to provide decent -- or ANY -- TV coverage of the ongoing hearings and investigations concerning what the hell happened in Florida.
This is the SAME media that gleefully regurgitated any anti-Clinton/Gore story it could, regardless of whether or not it had the tiniest basisin reality, while sweeping under the rug Republican naughtiness such as(to name a VERY few) Bob Dole's, Henry Hyde's, Newt Gingrich's, Bob Livingston's, and Dan Burton's mistresses and shady financial deals.
There once was a time when I might have trusted the self-policing of mainstream media. Not now.
Not when mainstream media speaks with one voice and reads from one set of talking points.
Not when fewer than ten nearly-identical conglomerates own most of the daily papers in this country.
This is beyond fox-in-the-henhouse, folks.
It's true CYA, Corporate Media Style.
ROBERT PARRY
May 7, 2001
After years of denial, The Washington Post has acknowledged the existence of the Right-Wing Machine.
Post national political correspondent John Harris came to this epiphany grudgingly, never using those exact words. But in a Sunday article in the Outlook section, Harris recognized that U.S. conservatives have built a powerful and well-financed apparatus that can dictate the tone of the political discourse in Washington. The article observed that there is no countervailing apparatus on the liberal side of national politics.
In his article, Harris concedes that he¡¯d still like to deny this. Harris writes that his initial reaction to Democratic complaints about the fawning press coverage of George W. Bush was to dismiss the griping as ¡°self-pity,¡± characteristic of President Clinton and his allies.
Nevertheless, Harris does ask the question :
¡°Are the national news media soft on Bush?¡±
¡°The instinctive response of any reporter is to deny it,¡±
Harris writes, unintentionally revealing how widespread this press corps¡¯ defensiveness is. ¡°But my rebuttals lately have been wobbly. The truth is, this new president has done things with relative impunity that would have been huge uproars if they had occurred under Clinton.¡±
After ticking off a few innocuous reasons why the news media might have gone a little soft, Harris then acknowledges that ¡°there is one big reason for Bush¡¯s easy ride. There is no well-coordinated corps of aggrieved and methodical people who start each day looking for ways to expose and undermine a new president.
¡°There was such a gang ready for Clinton in 1993. Conservative interest groups, commentators and congressional investigators waged a remorseless campaign that they hoped would make life miserable for Clinton and vault themselves to power. They succeeded in many ways.¡± [WP, May 6, 2001]
As we have reported at Consortiumnews.com since we went online in fall 1995, this Right-Wing Machine indeed has succeeded in many ways. Beyond coloring the immediate political environment, the Machine has altered the nation¡¯s understanding of its own recent history, creating a mythology for the past quarter century. This has occurred with the acquiescence of the national news media and some leading Democrats.
The mythology also is not something of the past. It continues to cost the nation dearly, from the hugely expensive plans to construct Ronald Reagan¡¯s Star Wars dream to rejection of environmental alarms about global warming.
Nixon & Vietnam
The Machine¡¯s origins can be traced back about a quarter
century, to the mid-1970s and to two key elements of conservative dogma. One founding myth was the belief that a ¡°liberal¡± press lost the Vietnam War for the United States. The second was that an innocent Richard Nixon was hounded out of office through a bogus scandal called Watergate.
As it turned out, neither point was true. Historical studies by the U.S. Army concluded that poor strategy, high casualties and overly optimistic battlefield reports were the chief culprits in losing the Vietnam War. Nixon¡¯s own words on the Watergate tapes make clear that he was guilty, guilty, guilty of gross abuses of power during his reign in the White House.
Nevertheless, these twin articles of faith convinced the conservative movement that it needed its own institutions ¨C think tanks, news media and activist groups ¨C to counter the perceived ¡°liberal¡± bias that had led the public to see the Vietnam War as a terrible mistake and to view Nixon as a corrupt politician.
In the late 1970s, with the coordination of Nixon¡¯s Treasury Secretary Bill Simon, conservative foundations began funneling millions of dollars to think tanks, media outlets and attack organizations that would become the spearhead of the Right-Wing Machine.
With Ronald Reagan¡¯s election in 1980, the power of the federal bureaucracy was thrown behind this effort. Reagan authorized what was called a ¡°public diplomacy¡± apparatus that spread propaganda domestically and targeted journalists who reported information that undermined the prescribed ¡°themes.¡±
Also, in the early 1980s, Rev. Sun Myung Moon began pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year from mysterious sources in South America and Asia. He used the money to build expensive media outlets, such as The Washington Times daily newspaper, and to sponsor lavish conferences for conservative activists. Though members of Moon¡¯s inner circle admitted that the Moon organization was laundering money in from overseas to finance his operations, few questions were asked about the source of the cash.
Wobbly Press
During the 1980s, major news organizations began to buckle under the pressure from The New York Times and Newsweek to National Public Radio and the national TV networks.
Reporters who wrote straightforwardly about U.S. military adventures in Central America, for instance, found themselves under harsh attack from the Right-Wing Machine and from the Reagan-Bush administration. Gradually, these journalists were weeded out of the national news media, leaving behind a residue of journalistic quislings who won high-profile spots both in the news columns and on the pundit shows.
Yet, since these journalists had grabbed the high-salaried jobs at the expense of honest reporters who were targeted by the Machine, this new journalistic elite had a powerful self-interest in denying the existence of the Machine.
To admit its influence would amount to a self-condemnation.
So, over the years, this caste of top journalists evolved into a bunch of sneering loudmouths who often moved as a pack and would tear apart victims already bloodied by the Machine. Conversely, these journalists and pundits instinctively understood the danger of taking on allies of the Machine. A few conservatives might overreach so much that they became vulnerable but they had a far greater measure of protection.
During the Reagan-Bush years, the Right-Wing Machine mostly worked as a defensive mechanism, protecting Ronald Reagan, George Bush and their subordinates during such crises as the Iran-contra scandal or disclosures of cocaine trafficking by Reagan¡¯s Nicaraguan ¡°freedom fighters.¡± Even, lifelong Republican conservatives, such as Iran-contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, came under withering attack when they dared to press for the truth about Reagan-era scandals.
[For a more detailed summary of this history, see Democrats' Dilemma or Robert Parry's Lost History.]
The Clinton Switch
After Bill Clinton¡¯s election in 1992, the Right-Wing Machine switched from playing defense to playing offense. The national media elite switched, too, eagerly joining in the attacks against Clinton for relatively minor indiscretions, such as the Travel Office firings and ill-timed haircuts. The
quisling journalists saw their opportunity to attack Clinton as especially liberating because it was a way to free themselves from the conservative label of ¡°liberal media.¡±
As Clinton¡¯s eight years rolled on, the mainstream press corps increasingly merged with the right-wing apparatus. Both elements obsessed on every Clinton indiscretion, invading his personal life in ways that have never been seen before in U.S. history.
In the early days of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, First Lady Hillary Clinton complained about what she called a ¡°vast right-wing conspiracy.¡± Her comment provoked howls of laughter and knee-slapping in the punditocracy. If a ¡°right-wing conspiracy¡± existed, surely the Washington press corps would have written about it.
Yet, the behind-the-scenes story of the assault on the Clinton Presidency remained a non-story, explained only at websites like this one, at Salon.com and in books, such as The Hunting of the President by Gene Lyons and Joe Conason. While going 24/7 on tales of Bill Clinton¡¯s sex life, the mainstream and conservative press joined in ignoring or pooh-poohing convincing new evidence of major Reagan-Bush crimes. The press corps barely noted in 1998 when the CIA itself admitted that scores of Nicaragua contra units were implicated in cocaine trafficking and that the Reagan-Bush administration had hidden the evidence.
These two journalistic standards existed simultaneously, side by side :
one protective of the right¡¯s friends and one destructive of the right¡¯s enemies. Through it all, the mainstream press insisted that it was behaving with professional objectivity.
Campaign 2000
The parallel double standards continued through the 2000 campaign. While Al Gore was called to account for every perceived misstatement ¨C even some manufactured by leading newspapers ¨C George W. Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney, largely got free passes for lies, distortions and hypocrisy.
For instance, while Gore got hammered for allegedly puffing up his resume, Cheney dodged any significant criticism when he insisted during a vice presidential debate that he received no help from the federal government in his business career at Halliburton Co. In fact, the giant oil services firm had benefited from Cheney-arranged government loan guarantees and juicy Pentagon contracts.
While avoiding criticism for this deception about his business dealings, Cheney was allowed to lead the attack on Gore for alleged petty lies about his achievements. The news media made no mention of the hypocrisy.
This double standard was crucial in enabling the Bush-Cheney campaign to remain competitive in the election. Their campaign lost by only about half a million votes nationally and snuck into office when five conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court effectively awarded Bush 25 electoral votes from Florida.
Legitimacy
Though gaining the White House as the first popular vote loser in more than a century and the first to reach the presidency through the intervention of allies on the Supreme Court, Bush found the Washington news media eager to grant him a mantle of legitimacy.
In doing so, the press corps oohed and aahed over what might have seemed like serious bungles, such as his handling of a downed U.S. spy plane on a Chinese island.
As Harris noted in his Washington Post article, the reaction would have been quite different if Clinton was the one who claimed the crew members were not hostages and then sent a non-apology letter saying ¡°very sorry¡± twice to win their release.
¡°What is being hailed as Bush¡¯s shrewd diplomacy would have been savaged a ¡®Slick Willie¡¯ contortions,¡± Harris noted.
Similarly, Bush is allowed to reward his rich donors by granting them closed-door meetings with top administration officials, elimination of regulations and giveaways in his budget. By contrast, Clinton faced months of hearings and screaming headlines over White House coffees and sleep-overs in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Harris ends his Washington Post article with a positive spin. He writes that it is ¡°good for Washington in giving a new president a break at the start. And those people eager to see this president face scrutiny can rest assured :
The opposition is sure to awaken.¡±
But there is little reason to think that Harris is right. He may be pleased that the Washington press corps has been generous toward Bush ¨C as the press was to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and was not to Clinton and Gore. Harris might not be disturbed by the lack of professional evenhandedness that is supposedly the hallmark of American journalism.
Change?
It is harder to understand why anyone would expect this pattern to change.
Why will the balmy breeze that has so far puffed out George W.¡¯s sails stop blowing? For nearly a quarter century, the national news media has been drifting in the same direction.
Virtually all the top news executives are products of this system. Almost all have been rewarded handsomely by it. Why would they suddenly change course, challenge the right, and risk their careers?
Only a determined effort by Americans who recognize the threat to democracy that this quisling media now represents can change the direction.
Possibly, the only hope is to build an entirely new news media dedicated to the real journalistic principles of honesty and fairness. That will not be easy and will not be cheap. But it should now be clear what the costs are of doing nothing.
Robert Parry is an investigative reporter who broke many of the Iran-contra stories in the 1980s for The Associated Press and Newsweek.
JOE CONASON
May 10, 2001
I always knew that someday, someone in the Washington press corps would notice the right-wing conspiracy. After all, it has been operating under their upturned noses for these many, many years. On May 6, my faith was finally vindicated with the appearance of a startling article by one of The Washington Post’s most able reporters, John Harris.
While Mr. Harris carefully avoids using the C-word, he obviously gets it. By merely acknowledging the existence of what plainly exists, he breaks new ground. Even more forthrightly, he points out that the conspiracy’s most important beneficiary, George W. Bush, has so far escaped the barrage of assaults inflicted by the national media on everything and everyone associated with Bill Clinton. If the Clintons (and Al Gore) were constantly spattered with mud and worse, then Mr. Bush has been showered with champagne and rose petals.
As Mr. Harris writes, “The truth is, this new president has done things with relative impunity that would have been huge uproars if they had occurred under Clinton. Take it from someone who made a living writing about those uproars.” He is quick to add that this difference in coverage has nothing whatsoever to do with “journalists’ attitudes toward Bush or their willingness to report aggressively on him.”
No, of course not. The true culprit is that right-wing thing (which perhaps should be renamed La Cosa Destra, in homage to another infamous group which some have likewise insisted is mythical). Mr. Harris calls it “a corps” of “aggrieved and methodical people” whose “well-coordinated” aim was to “expose and undermine” Mr. Clinton from the moment he took office in 1993. He asserts that the absence of an organized liberal mob is why Mr. Bush gets such an easy media ride every day.
Briefly sketching the gang’s crews and capos, he notes that there is no liberal equivalent of the Heritage Foundation—or, he might have added, the American Enterprise Institute and about half a dozen smaller but well-funded versions of same, financed by right-wing godfather Richard Mellon Scaife.
Nor is there any leftish loudmouth who possesses the influence of Rush Limbaugh—generously described by the Post reporter as “colorful,” although “malicious” and “mendacious” would have been equally apt. Perhaps most important, there is no Democratic counterpart to Representative Dan Burton—the Hoosier hooligan whose “investigations” of the Clinton White House were only part of a broader harassment scheme mounted by the Republican Congressional majority.
The irony of that contrast between then and now doesn’t escape the astute Mr. Harris. Despite serious doubts about whether Mr. Bush won or stole the election, and his clear defeat in the popular vote, he has been granted greater legitimacy by the opposition party than his Democratic predecessor ever was. Mr. Harris observes that “Washington’s snarling public tone” during the 90’s was produced largely by Mr. Clinton’s opponents, a fair judgment rarely offered in The Post or any other major newspaper when it would have mattered.
Insofar as he discusses the right’s hypnotic influence on the press, Mr. Harris’ article is semi-confessional, or at least quasi-confessional. When mainstream journalists write about the shortcomings of their industry, reassurance always outweighs remorse, and Mr. Harris is no exception. Yet his perspective as an insider at a Clinton-bashing national daily ought to be taken seriously.
According to him, there are never any conscious decisions by reporters or editors to slant news coverage in deference to conservative dictates. Instead, he explains that “we give more coverage to stories when someone is shouting.” The Republican right ranted incessantly, about Whitewater and Travelgate and Filegate and Chinagate, and the Washington press haplessly lent credence to their ravings.
The busy journalistic establishment somehow neglected to discover, and thus inform their readers, that much of the scandal mongering was without foundation. Mr. Harris doesn’t dwell on that failure, or the ambitions and enmities behind it.
As they grew addicted to the Clinton soap opera, he writes, “the Washington press corps collectively may have fallen a bit out of shape at the hard work of examining, exposing, and critiquing public officials as they go about making the decisions that affect national life.” So the flabby, scandal-addled minds of those who covered the last administration are in no condition to cope with this one.
Still, he strives to conclude with the upbeat tone required inside the Beltway these days: “Good for this White House in avoiding the worst stumbles of the early Clinton administration; good for Washington in giving a new president a break at the start. And those people eager to see this president face scrutiny can rest assured: The opposition is sure to awaken.”
Should that reawakening ever occur, we will see whether Mr. Harris and his colleagues can hear shouting from the left as well as they heard it from the right. Based on recent experience, I worry that they’ve become deaf on that side.