Tag Archives: media bias

Things That Never Change

Media, War and peace, , ,

               It’s deja vu all over again.

                                                  Yogi Berra

Some thoughts on the corporate media’s coverage of the Middle East crisis in the two weeks since President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Suleimani:

The corporate media’s initial response was uncritical acceptance of the Trump administration’s justification for the attack.

There is near universal agreement that media coverage of the George W. Bush administration’s justifications for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a total failure. The media reported without skepticism our government’s false claims that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and that he had participated indirectly in the 9/11 attacks. A 2003 study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) found that pro-war commentators greatly outnumbered anti-war voices on the major networks during the run-up to and early days of the invasion. If fact, only 3% of American sources could be classified as anti-war. People’s misperceptions continued long after the war and were systematically related to the coverage provided by their preferred news sources.

This month, the media are continuing in their traditional role as “stenographers to power,” dutifully reporting that Suleimani’s assassination was necessary to prevent “imminent” future attacks on Americans. Following unwritten rules, it was only after Congresspeople began to question the administration’s claims that the media began to focus on technicalities such as Trump’s failure to consult Congress. Unfortunately, this “he said/she said” journalism was not followed by any serious attempt to discover the truth.

Trump eventually contributed to the partial unraveling of the rationale for his attack by making embarrassingly inconsistent claims that his own subordinates were unwilling to confirm, i.e., “I believe it would have been four embassies.” In the end, Trump concluded that whether Suleimani posed an imminent threat “doesn’t really matter because of his horrible past.”

In fact, there was almost a consensus among politicians and media commentators that Suleimani deserved to die, since he was a “terrorist.” He was said to have helped Iraqi dissidents to kill American soldiers with roadside bombs. (Trump: “Great percentages of people don’t have legs right now, or arms, because of this son of a bitch.”) Presumably, the Iraqis are too dumb to have constructed such bombs on their own. But even if this charge is true, terrorism is defined as violence directed at civilians, not at soldiers and “contractors,” i.e., mercenaries, who have occupied Iraq since our illegal invasion in 2003.

The media’s pro-war bias is facilitated by their almost exclusive reliance on “expert” commentators who are current and former government employees, including retired generals.

Within a few weeks, someone will undoubtedly publish an analysis similar to the 2003 FAIR study showing that hawkish voices predominated during these past two weeks. As we wait, I want to make two points.

  • Many of these pro-war voices turn out, on closer inspection, to be owners or directors of, or consultants to, weapons manufacturers; for example, Barry McCaffrey (Raytheon), Michael Chertoff (BAE Systems), and Jeh Johnson (Lockheed-Martin) . These financial conflicts of interest are almost never disclosed on the air.
  • If one were looking for a true expert on the Middle Eastern conflict, a logical choice might be someone who had opposed the disastrous 2003 invasion. There are such people. Some of them are still in Congress. (One of them is even running for President.) However, the socialization of media personnel is so complete that looking for this source of information is unlikely to even occur to them. Instead, we hear the same old voices that have been so wrong so many times in the past.

Iran may well be another Iraq waiting to happen. That Trump and his advisors believe that we can get Iran to capitulate with “maximum pressure” shows how little they know about the Middle East. Trump, like Obama before him, is testing the limits of presidential war powers. But short of a mass movement taking to the streets, what’s to stop him? A recent survey shows that over two-thirds (69%) of voters want an end to the “war on terror” in Afghanistan and the Middle East. But does public opinion make any difference?

You may also be interested in reading:

Worthy and Unworthy Victims

The World According to the Donald

Worthy and Unworthy Victims

Foreign policy, Media, Politics, , ,

In what I believe to be one of the most important books of the twentieth century, Manufacturing Consent (1988), Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky introduced their propaganda model of how the the corporate media determine what news to report. Their basic argument is that the people of wealth and power who own the media shape the content of news coverage in order to control which topics are covered, how much attention they receive, and how political issues are framed.

As an illustration of the model, Herman and Chomsky distinguish between worthy and unworthy victims. In international news, victims deemed worthy of extensive media coverage are victims of official enemies, such as the Islamic State (ISIS) or Russia, while victims of atrocities committed by the United States and its allies are unworthy and are given minimal attention.

A classic example of this is the disparity in news coverage given to victims of Israeli and Palestinian violence. Israeli victims are not only given more coverage, they are humanized in a way that elicits empathy from the audience, while Palestinian victims, when covered at all, are presented merely as statistics. One of the results of this lack of balance is that American and European consumers of news dramatically overestimate the number of Israeli deaths and injuries while simultaneously underestimating the number of Palestinian victims of violence.

The attention given to victims of terrorist attacks, both in this country and worldwide, is determined largely by whether the perpetrators can be identified as Muslims. If so, their victims are worthy and the attack is given saturation coverage. On the other hand, attacks by White nationalist groups are not even labeled as “terrorism” and are quickly forgotten, especially when their victims are Muslims or can be identified with other official enemies.

This chart by Jim Naueckas compares the amount of coverage given two events. On the right is the murder of six people at a mosque in Quebec City on January 29 by the Canadian white supremacist Alexandre Bissonette. On the left, the 2014 attack on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario which resulted in the death of a Canadian soldier. The perpetrator, who also died in the attack, was Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a Muslim convert believed to be upset with Canadian policy in the Middle East. The data come from the Nexus news database.

The attack on one White Canadian, a worthy victim, received 88 news stories, compared to 15 stories about the deaths of six unworthy Canadian Muslims. Every news outlet reported more stories about the Zehaf-Bibeau attack than the Bissonette attack.

A study by Travis Dixon of the University of Illinois found that, between 2008 and 2012, 6% of domestiuc terrorism suspects were Muslims, while 81% of the terrorism suspects described on network and cable television news were Muslims.

Adam Johnson argues that support for Donald Trump and his ban on immigration from seven Islamic countries can be attributed in part to the anti-Islamic slant of news coverage by the corporate media. In addition to the disparities in coverage of terrorist attacks by Muslims and non-Muslims, and to biased use of the term “terrorism,” he mentions several other media practices that contribute to what he calls meta-terror, an irrational fear of terrorism that is caused by mainstream news coverage, but is not connected to any actual acts of terrorism.

  • The attention given to FBI and Department of Homeland Security terrorism “orange” and “red alerts” that never resulted in terrorist attacks.
  • Media circulation of audio and video threats from ISIS.
  • Reports of homeland security and law enforcement personnel speculating about possible terrorist attacks.
  • “ISIS plots” that are wholly manufactured by the FBI to entrap American citizens, are presented as if they were actual ISIS plots, despite the fact that no ISIS personnel were involved.
  • Stories of ISIS “crimes” that turn out to have been totally fabricated. (Several examples are given.)

Given this all this hysterical coverage, it is not surprising that Americans are much more afraid of being harmed by terrorists than of other more realistic fears. One possible result of this fear is that residents of Western nations dramatically overestimate the percentage of their population that is Muslim.

It is ironic that President Donald Trump has accused the news media of giving insufficient coverage to attacks by “radical Islamic terrorists.” While whether a given amount of coverage is “not enough” or “too much” is a value judgment, comparisons such as those cited in this post suggest that Trump’s claim is nonsensical.

You may also be interested in reading:

Are the Terrorists Getting What They Want?

Framing the Debates

White People Don’t Riot: A Manual of Style For Ambitious Young Journalists

Framing the Debates

Media, Politics, ,

There was much to dislike about the three presidential and one vice-presidential debates, but one objection that was near the top of everyone’s list was the narrow range of topics about which the candidates were questioned. Adam Johnson has tabulated the number of questions asked by the moderators about each of the 22 issues they brought up, along with 10 issues that were not included.

questionsubjects

Of course, candidates could have brought up issues that were not specifically targeted by the questions. Johnson’s second chart tabulates the number of mentions of each of 33 issues.

finaldebatementions

Russia, terrorism and taxes were the moderators’ favorites, and Donald Trump’s taxes and Hillary Clinton’s emails received more attention than such issues as climate change, poverty or campaign finance. Johnson describes the framing of the issues as “center-right in nature,” and offers some examples to support his case, i.e., Elaine Quijano’s question, “Do we ask too much of police officers in this country?”

I subsequently ran across an article by Alexander Podkul and Elaine Kamarck of the Brookings Institute. As part of the 2016 Primaries Project, they tabulated the issue positions, taken from their campaign websites, of over 1700 Congressional primary candidates. They found that candidates in the two parties are not talking about the same issues. Here are the top five issues mentioned by Republican and Democratic hopefuls. Aside from their common focus on the Affordable Care Act, there is little overlap.

gs_20161020_primaries-project-issues

In the debates, there was one question about Obamacare. With regard to the other top Republican issues, there were four questions about taxes, three about the debt, two about immigation and one about gun control, for a total of eleven questions about Republican issues. The Democrats did not do as well. There were two questions about social security, but the framing suggested it needed to be “reformed” rather than expanded as some Democrats maintain. Since there were no questions about climate change, education or the minimum wage, the Democrats scored a total of three questions. It appears that the debate moderators (or their corporate media bosses) shared the views of Republican candidates about which issues are more important.

Tabulation the number of mentions of each issue yields a similar result. There were 241 mentions of the five Republican issues and 90 mentions of the Democratic issues. (The 45 mentions of Obamacare account for half of the comments about Democratic issues.) Unfortunately, Johnson does not tabulate mentions of the minimum wage, but even if we assume that it was referred to all ten times that poverty came up for discussion, that would still bring the Democratic issue mentions up to only 100.

Of course, these mentions were largely triggered by the debate questions. However, Secretary Clinton could have raised some of the Democrats’ issues more often than she did. Thus a second interpretation of these data is that the Democratic candidate approaches the upcoming election from a more Republican point of view than their Congressional candidates.

You may also be interested in reading:

Are the Terrorists Getting What They Want?

The World According to the Donald

Trumping Bernie

Trumping Bernie

Media, Politics, , ,

Although we are right to be concerned about the growth of campaign advertising, especially when the candidates’ resources are unequal, you could argue that the amount of free time (or space) given to candidates by the news media is more important.  Statements made by and about candidates in the free media are not as likely to be discounted as advertisements. (The discounting principle states that our confidence in a particular explanation of behavior is weakened by the presence of alternative explanations. In an advertisement, our knowledge that this is a paid message intended to persuade us makes us less likely to see the message as truthful.)

Senator Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have both shown similar increases in support in the presidential polls. According to the Real Clear Politics average of all polls, support for Sanders has grown from 12.7% to 25% from July 1 to the present, while Trump has gone from 6% to 22%. Sanders’ progress might be considered more impressive, however, since he has received less free media coverage.

5440388253_7a8e8c1584_b-1

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) used the Nexus database to count the number of free mentions of Sanders and Trump on 13 news media sources between July 1 and August 15. In all cases, Trump received more coverage. The chart below gives the percentage of stories mentioning Sanders as a percentage of those mentioning Trump. For example, on CNN, the ratio was 33%, meaning that Sanders was mentioned one-third as often, or that Trump received three times as much coverage.

TrumpSandersChartOn average, Sanders received 36% as much coverage as Trump. However, there were some interesting differences among the 13 outlets.

  • On the three outlets with the largest audience, the broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC, Sanders was mentioned only 16% as often as Trump, or in other words, Trump received six times as much publicity.
  • The country’s five major newspapers averaged 34%, very close to the overall average.
  • Public radio and television, which presumably have a mandate to be fair, scored only slightly above the overall average in Sanders coverage.
  • MSNBC, sometimes described as a “progressive” cable network, did have the highest percentage of Sanders coverage, but still mentioned Trump more often.

As Bernie Sanders continues to draw large crowds, the message of the news media seems to be that there’s “nothing to see here.” If we were to ask them why Trump receives so much more publicity than Sanders, my guess is they would claim that his flamboyant personal style makes his activities of greater public interest. However, I suspect that a more important cause is that a central theme of Sanders’ campaign is reducing economic inequality, an unwelcome message to those who own, advertise on, or perform on the news media.

19197893134_9616570321_n

In addition to discounting campaign advertising, these data suggest we should also discount some of the coverage candidates receive in the free media. However, we’re less likely to do that, since their conflicts of interest are less obvious.

White People Don’t Riot: A Manual of Style for Ambitious Young Journalists

Media,

Last week, two motorcycle gangs clashed at a restaurant in Waco, TX. They fought with fists, chains, knives and guns. Nine of them were killed, 18 were injured and 170 were arrested.

What is the proper terminology to use when referring to this incident in the corporate media? The New York Times referred to it variously as a “confrontation,” “fight,” “shootout,” “chaos,” and “problems.” To this, CNN added “melee,” “ruckus,” “fracas,” “brawl,” and “brouhaha.” Under no circumstances, however, is it to be referred to as a “riot,” since this term is reserved for the actions of people of color.

How are the participants in this incident to be called? The Times referred to them as “biker clubs” and “outlaw motorcycle gangs,” terms that have positive, even romantic, connotations to some Americans. However, they are not to be referred to as “thugs,” since this term refers to young black men demonstrating against police brutality. Furthermore, it would be ridiculous to assume that biker gangs are representative of white culture generally, or to speculate that their behavior was influenced by heavy metal music. It is equally inappropriate to question whether their fathers were present during their upbringing.

roge150520

A similar principle applies to the use of the word “terrorist.” Terrorists are Muslims who plot or engage in violent acts against non-combatants. It follows then that white people engaged in similar actions are, by definition, not terrorists. In fact, when white people do these things, one may question whether they are newsworthy at all. Here is a useful case in point.

©Doggart for Congress
©Doggart for Congress

Robert Doggart, an ordained Christian minister and former Congressional candidate from Signal Mountain, TN was recently convicted of plotting—on tape and on the internet—to attack the residents of Islamberg, a small, rural Muslim community near Hancock, NY. To implement his plan, Doggart recruited followers and “battle tested” his M4 rifle. His statements, recorded by an informant, included the following:

Those guys [have] to be killed. Their buildings need to be burnt down. If we can get in there and do that not losing a man, even the better.

Yet Doggart was allowed to plead guilty only to interstate communication of threats, is out on bail, and faces a maximum penalty of five years in jail.

You’ve probably never heard of this case, and rightly so. Attempting to report such a crime in the corporate media would likely end the career of an aspiring young journalist. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting did a search of the Nexis data base looking for media coverage of the Doggart case. It was reported in local Tennessee news media, and by a handful of mostly small newspapers in the US, UK and Pakistan. It was not covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, NPR or any of the national television networks.

Imagine the saturation coverage the corporate media would have given this incident had it been a Muslim group plotting a similar attack on a small Christian community.

Where did Doggart get the idea to attack Hancock, NY?
Where did Doggart get the idea to attack Hancock, NY?

One reason for the lack of coverage is that the FBI chose not to put out a press release about Doggart’s arrest. This stands in sharp contrast to the extensive publicity given to cases of entrapment in which an undercover agent is able to persuade some hapless Muslim to agree to participate in an FBI-planned terrorist plot. When deciding what is important, journalists are well-advised to follow the lead of the FBI.

Aspiring reporters may question whether there are any exceptions to the “white people don’t riot” rule. There are. The term “riot” can sometimes refer to the behavior of groups of predominantly white people, provided they are demonstrating in favor of a liberal cause. Occupy Wall Street is a recent example. A helpful cue for predicting a “riot” is when the police show up in “riot gear.”

You may also be interested in reading:

TV Networks on Torture: “Just Do It!”

TV Networks on Torture: “Just Do It!”

Media,

After the December 9 release of the Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, widely known as the torture report, it became the #1 story on the weekly television news programs. Since journalists seldom express opinions on such matters as whether “rectal hydration” constitutes torture or whether politicians who approved such methods should be prosecuted, the best measure of the corporate media’s position on these issues is to examine the guests who are invited onto their programs to express their views.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) surveyed the guests on nine TV news programs during the week of December 7 through 14: ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation, CNN’s State of the Union and Situation Room, Fox’s Fox News Sunday and Special Report, MSNBC’s Hardball, NBC’s Meet the Press, and PBS’s News Hour.

Of the 104 guests on these programs, 53 of them indicated whether they supported or opposed the “enhanced interrogation techniques” described in the report. Thirty-five of them (66%) supported the CIA’s actions, while the remaining 18 (34%) were opposed. While some progressive critics worried that the networks would give equal time to torturers, they probably didn’t anticipate that the “liberal” media would present more advocates of torture than opponents by a two-to-one margin. (Of course, most of those who supported the CIA’s actions usually also claimed that they did not constitute “torture.”)

Sixty-five of the 104 guests were journalists, most of whom remained neutral. The second largest group was 35 current and former government officials. Nine CIA officers were among them, seven of whom defended their agency’s practices. Of those who were political partisans, 19 were Republicans and 7 were Democrats. Four of the Democrats spoke against torture while the others had no opinion. Sixteen of the Republicans favored the CIA’s actions and three opposed them. For more details on what was actually said, see this report.)

Of course, the most prominent Republican guest was former VP Dick Cheney, who said the report was “full of crap.” As Glenn Greenwald noted, Dick Cheney should be in prison rather than having his ass kissed by the Sabbath gasbags (my language, not his). So far, the only person to be jailed over the CIA torture program is John Kiriakou, a whistleblower who helped to expose it.

While the perpetrators of torture had many opportunities to defend themselves, torture victims were seldom heard from. Their only voice was indirect. Two lawyers representing torture victims, Joseph Margulies and Meg Satterthwaite, were invited to participate in the discussions.

Given this kind of media coverage, it’s not surprising that in a Pew Research Center survey of 1001 Americans conducted December 11-14, 51% said the “CIA’s interrogation methods” were justified, 29% said they were not justified, and 20% had no opinion. Were they effective in preventing terrorist attacks? The Senate Report concluded they were not, but 56% of respondents thought they were effective, 21% said they were not, and 16% didn’t know. The public was almost evenly divided on whether the Senate Report should have been made public. Forty-three percent thought releasing the report was the wrong decision, 42% thought it was the right decision, and 15% had no opinion.

It seems that a lot of Americans are O. K. with torture. They just don’t want to know about it.