US journalism in Iraq is a complete failure

[DreamTone7]

The only failure I am now certain of is the failure to promote your anti-American agenda...all others are debateable, though history will tell.

Melody and Instruments for the soul...

[conalrehill]

The failure of US journalism

by Robert Jensen



Over a year after the US invasion of Iraq, the failure of US journalism is complete. Before, during and after the war, mainstream commercial journalists have failed to provide the critical analysis, independent reporting, and the diverse range of opinions necessary for the American public to evaluate the Bush administration’s claims about the war.



After the hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction came up empty, Bush was forced to appoint a commission to study the "intelligence failures" in the run-up to war.



As journalists pursued that story, some argued that the press had finally stepped into its role as the proverbial watchdog on power. But journalists continue to allow officials to define and shape the news in ways that keep US readers and viewers in the dark, just as they were before and during the war.



By framing the issue as a question of intelligence failures, not political propaganda, the Bush people hope to divert attention from the fact that they lied. Unfortunately, the vast majority of mainstream commercial journalists in the US fell - or chose to fall - into the administration’s trap.



But most of the reports sent back by those embedded reporters were either human-interest stories about the troops or boosterish narration of the grand advance of troops, with little attention to the gruesome realities of war suffered by the Iraqi people.



National Public Radio reporter John Burnett said he was enthusiastic about the system at first, but later described embedding as "a flawed experiment that served the purposes of the military more than it served the cause of balanced journalism".



"During my travels with the marines, I couldn't shake the sense that we were cheerleaders on the team bus," he said. One function of journalism is to give citizens access to the widest possible range of opinion in the society, so that people can test their own views and come to informed political judgments. In the months leading up to the war, the US media failed miserably at this task.



Hundreds of thousands of people in the US, and as many as 10 million worldwide, took to the streets on 15 February 2003, to express those opinions. Not only were those people mostly ignored in news stories, but their critique was largely shut out of the mainstream media's channels.



The paradox of US journalism is that a press which operates free of direct governmental control produces news that routinely reproduces the conventional wisdom of a narrow power elite. Coverage of the Iraq war highlights two of the key reasons.



First, the majority of US journalists are unable to transcend the limiting effects of the ideology of American exceptionalism - the notion that the United States is the ultimate embodiment of democracy and goes forward in the world as a benevolent champion of freedom, not as another great power looking to expand its influence around the world.



This gives powerful people in the government and corporate worlds (and the intellectuals in the think tanks and universities who mostly serve those powers) the ability not just to comment on the news but to define what is considered news and to frame it. The consequences of these two forces on news coverage of US foreign policy, military affairs, and wars are predictable: The free press becomes little more than a conduit for state propaganda, unable to act in truly independent fashion.



To deepen and extend US control over - not direct ownership of, but effective control over - the crucial energy resources of the Middle East, the Bush administration shortly after taking office settled on regime change in Iraq.



The events of 9/11 made pursuing such a war easier, but a rationale was still needed to invade Iraq and establish a client state. Alleged WMD threats became the centrepiece of the argument, as administration officials dealt in distortions, half-truths and out-and-out lies to scare the public.



After the war, the focus on intelligence failures diverted from key questions: Should the US be able to prosecute a war of conquest in violation of international law; run an occupation authority that ignores its legal and moral responsibilities to rebuild the country it destroyed in two wars and through a dozen years of economic sanctions; and manipulate the political process to ensure that a future Iraqi government will subordinate itself to the US?



That is a more accurate and compelling way to understand the war. Unfortunately, most US journalists continue to read from the Bush administration’s script.



[i]Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity.[/i]

[conalrehill]

"the failure to promote your anti-American agenda"



But the article's writer is an American.



Is he an anti-American American?



Who really represents America? Him or you?

[Seismic Anamoly]

There have been plenty of "Anti-American" Americans (citizens living here that opposed the "American" way of culture and sympathized with others) around since this Country was no more than 40 years old........



We're still here.



Let him Rant.

[conalrehill]

"There have been plenty of "Anti-American" Americans (citizens living here that opposed the "American" way of culture and sympathized with others) around since this Country was no more than 40 years old"



Well, I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that the 'American way of life' is perfect, impossible to criticize, monolithic, set-in-stone and unchangeable?



Surely American culture was born out of criticism of the status quo?

[Seismic Anamoly]

I mean that Socialists, Communists, Facists, etc., etc., have been a part of American society since the beginning with the goal of bringing the American way of culture down....but Democracy and America are still here.

[conalrehill]

Possibly, but how do you equate such differing political philosophies as socialism, communism and fascism?