UPDATE--News: Bad for the News Business

By: Andrea Chamblee
Published On: 4/25/2007 2:41:23 PM

Update with times:  This show airs again at 3 Sunday on channel 26, and repeats at other times. Check DC area times here.  Also, John Stewart is a guest at 9 pm tonight on a show that repeats next Friday May 4.

According to an NBC memo, Phil Donahue's MSNBC show was canceled just before the Iraq War because he wasn't "waving the flag" like the news programs on competitor stations.

Tom Shales reports in the Washington Post on tonight's Bill Moyers special, that covers how media conglomerates rallied around the flag as the occupation began, to serve their ratings and business interests.

Dissent was deemed not only unpatriotic, Donahue recalls, but -- perhaps even worse -- "not good for business." Most of Moyers's report involves serious, respected journalists who let themselves be swept up in war fever and who were manipulated by the administration sources who had cozied up to them. Instead of investigating administration claims about al-Qaeda and WMDs and such, cable news offered up hours and hours of talking-head television.

Former CNN president Walter Isaacson tells Moyers: "One of the great pressures we're facing in journalism now is, it's a lot cheaper to hire thumb-suckers and pundits and have talk shows on the air than actually have bureaus and reporters."

Dan Rather -- who has left his CBS anchor chair but continues with solid and superior reports on the high-definition cable and satellite channel HDNet -- tells Moyers: "The substitute for reporting far too often has become 'Let's just ring up an expert.' . . . This is journalism on the cheap, if it's journalism at all."

How did Virginia's self-described moderate Congressmen contribute to this debate? Let me remind you: He accused them of treason, a crime punishable by death.

Salon captured it here:

"... in late February [2002, Tom] Daschle raised relatively mild questions about the war, saying the future success of the war "is still somewhat in doubt" and that it would be a failure if Mullah Mohammed Omar and Osama bin Laden were not captured.

"....Republicans immediately and hyperbolically lashed out in yet another attempt to silence debate. The same day Daschle made his statement, ... Rep. Thomas Davis, R-Va., head of the National Republican Campaign Committee, chimed in, saying that Daschle's "divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to exploit divisions in our country." Conservative pundits like Sean Hannity backed them up and, again, debate quieted and another marker was laid down."

The prevailing GOP/conservative strategy is to try to shut down debate over the war before it even starts. Any questioning of the administration's handling of the war on terror is immediately mischaracterized and attacked as unpatriotic. This bullying makes actual dissent from the president's policies nearly impossible -- and it appears to be working yet again. And every time it does, our democracy is debased just a little bit more.

More from the Post and Tom Shales:

[Dan] Rather is among a select group of working journalists who agreed to be interviewed for the Moyers report. Others include media critic and Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz, Bob Simon of "60 Minutes" and, formerly from Knight Ridder Newspapers, John Walcott, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel.

Moyers credits them with breaking from the pack and printing stories that looked deeply into administration claims. Because the Knight Ridder chain had no paper in Washington or New York, however, its stories didn't get the national exposure they deserved, and networks were skittish about following up on them.

Even if this Moyers report tells you some things you already knew, it puts the whole story of the media's role in the war into one convenient package -- a story of historical value that is also frighteningly rife with portents for the future and for what will pass as journalism in months and years to come.

Moyers's last words on the broadcast, at least according to a preliminary script, will be: "The country is in chaos," but the syntax is such that one can't be sure if by "the country" Moyers means Iraq or the United States. Maybe he meant both.

Bill Moyers Journal: Buying the War airs tonight at 9 on Channels 22 and 26.


Comments



Waxman attacks the media darlings and war profiteers (Andrea Chamblee - 4/25/2007 4:01:57 PM)
Also in the Post today, another story about the Government Reform Committee is reenergized under Henry Waxman after years of neglect under Tom Davis. While PBS looks into how news organizations facilitated the scandals, Waxman subpoenas these media darlings.

Remember how easy the media was on Gonzales during his confirmation?  He never promised to be anything but a "loyal Bushie." Why are we surprised?

While there are lots of reasons to object to these practices the last few years, don't forget the honorable journalists and honorable Republicans (yes I believe there are some) who fell by the wayside during these scandals.  Forced to compete with crooks and media darlings for campaign financing,  public support, airtime and ink, they had to join the conspiracies or leave public service.  A Japanese proverb says, "The nail that sticks up is hammered down," and Tom Delay was "The Hammer."  Tom Davis, who allowed him and Abramoff to raise money out of the NRCC offices, and alowed them to position lobbyist Dan Matoon as the RNCC's #2 man, is Hammer, Jr.



MUST SEE TV (Tony Mastalski - 4/25/2007 4:23:13 PM)
Thanks for the update on this Andrea. This is suppose to be a very illuminating documentary and a must see about the media.

Lord knows Lowell's been right on the mark about mainstream media's big sucking wound.... it's an act of devine intervention just to get a LTE published which isn't significantly altered. OP/ED piece?? You have to know somebody or be skilled at blackmail.

I'm glad you posted about this since I probably would have missed this promising analysis.



Along these lines (Lowell - 4/25/2007 5:39:47 PM)
check this out.


You have to read the media full time to keep track of all the lies! (Andrea Chamblee - 4/25/2007 9:01:49 PM)
Rupert Murdoch rewites history again:
  Foley is a Democrat
  Scooter Libby innocent on one count (Oops!  out of five)
  Civil war in Iraq "made up" by media
  Torture could avoid 9-11
  Civil War Good for Iraq...
more at http://welcome-to-po...


We are the media (totallynext - 4/25/2007 4:43:27 PM)
There is more investigative reporting going on - on the blogs then any major news source.  Ladies and Gentlement, once again the media and journalism has returned to the people.


Now THAT is the funniest thing... (Detcord - 4/25/2007 10:27:47 PM)
...I've read all day.  What "investigative reporting?"  This is a bunch of people sitting around in their pajamas quoting other blogs and selectively parsing and distorting real news produced by real professionals who are actually held accountable in a court of law for what they write.  Who did any real original investigative work?  Look at all the hyperlinks through here?  If there's any original investigative work by a blogger, I missed it.  Personal expression? YES!  Freedom of speech?  YES!  The right to assemble (well, virtually anyway)?  Heck YES!  Do I support and enjoy these forums?  Abso-friggin-lutely!  But please don't confuse the nut-roots (on either side) with serious media and real journalists...this isn't "news," it's entertainment and no more.


What is scary is that many prominent journalists little better than bloggers (Quizzical - 4/25/2007 11:36:45 PM)
I watched the show and the money quote for me was Bill Moyers asking someone, "if you don't get the facts right, what in journalism can you get right?" 

And that was the theme of the program -- that too many of these professional, highly salaried journalists, made little effort to get the facts right on issues that meant war or peace. 

Another telling moment was when a journalist, I forget which one, maybe Russert, essentially said that it isn't our job to question the government, it's the job of the opposition party.  (Hmm -- where does the opposition party get the facts to contradict the government?)

There were some journalists who did get the facts right and published them, but their work was not picked up by the major newspapers like the NYTimes and Washington Post. And so their stories ran for a day, and then were ignored.

Bloggers can sometimes play a useful role by giving wider attention to good, solid journalism published in some of the less famous newspapers. 



Totally agree... (Detcord - 4/26/2007 12:17:35 AM)
...and nicely put.  I think that's a crucial role for bloggers as well.  But the difference between the journalists and the bloggers remains that journalists can lose their jobs or go to court for what they write and bloggers are unaccountable to anyone. 


His side, her side, and the facts (Andrea Chamblee - 4/27/2007 10:48:28 AM)
Quizzical, you are right that somehow it has become biased and wrong for journalists to correct politicians with facts. Instead, when a politician - usuallly an incumbent Republican friend of the publisher - says the sky is green, instead of saying the fact is the sky is blue, they telephone a Democrat to say the sky is blue. Then the two sides are presented as if it's a real argument.

At the risk of using my own example, when a local paper printed up Tom Davis's lie that he didn't "take a nickle from oil companies," the reporter couldn't even be bothered to check the public record to see if he was lying. A few clicks on the FEC website showed he took about $3 million from energy PACs including oil companies, which bought his vote for their billions in tax breaks. Detcord, I'm just one of thousands of bloggers who go beyond letting themselves be used to deliver planted questions, like the one Moyers shows to President Bush, "how does your faith guide you?"

It seemed to start with Reagan extrolling "Supply-side economics." Only one or two economists - on the Republican payroll - bought into this voodoo. The press presented the single economist and his protogee against the 99% of the rest of economists as if there were a real dispute. They did the same thing more recently with climate change until it became "safe" to go with the 99.8%.

Walter Pincus said in the special that WaPo used to "Truth Squad" Reagan's speeches until the publisher told him to stop.

From Tom Shales review of the Moyers special:

Former CNN president Walter Isaacson tells Moyers: "One of the great pressures we're facing in journalism now is, it's a lot cheaper to hire thumb-suckers and pundits and have talk shows on the air than actually have bureaus and reporters."

Dan Rather -- who has left his CBS anchor chair but continues with solid and superior reports on the high-definition cable and satellite channel HDNet -- tells Moyers: "The substitute for reporting far too often has become 'Let's just ring up an expert.' . . . This is journalism on the cheap, if it's journalism at all."



Knight-Ridder had it right (martha - 4/26/2007 5:54:28 AM)
The two journalists from K-R were all over the story but even if, as they said,their circulation was huge ther papers weren't that influential. The story was there but people were too lazy or afraid to dig for it.

That documentary is the second time I have seen Russert come off looking weak. The first was Wednesday afternoon where when asked what issue was critical in the upcoming debates he said " one little 4 letter word  I R A K". I cracked up....He caught himself and corrected the spelling quickly.It was still hilarious!



A friend of mine wrote about this show (Lowell - 4/26/2007 5:59:41 AM)
Bill Moyer's documentary on PBS tonight -- "Buying the War" -- may have been the most important piece of broadcast journalism every shown.  It was a fantastic exploration of how the mainstream media (except for two journalists at Knight Ridder and one at the AP) failed the American people and failed to do their job in the lead up to the war in Iraq.  Masterful.

It's very sad, by the way, to see how far the mainstream media has fallen.  Meanwhile, the blogs are increasingly filling the gap, doing their own independent journalistic work (e.g., Firedoglake's masterful reporting on the Libby trial, Josh Marshall's masterful reporting on the attorneys' firings, many many other examples).  Here in Virginia, bloggers are covering events that the MSM doesn't even bother to cover, like candidate announcements and county JJ dinners.  Plus, Virginia bloggers - left and right - are hustling for interviews and "live blogs" with candidates and elected officials, even bringing them on "Blog Talk Radio" for live debates, moderated by them.  If that's not "journalism," I'm not sure what is.  Lastly, bloggers are acting as a watchdog on the media, and also on each other, providing important accountability that has been lacking from they system.  What would have happened during 2001-2003 if there had been a thriving blogosphere like there is today?  We'll never know, but my guess is that the runup to war with Iraq wouldn't have been as smooth, that at least some of the more outlandish claims would have been questioned. 



Celebrity journalism (Quizzical - 4/26/2007 8:52:45 AM)
It's interesting to see old clips of Meet the Press, where there would be a panel of three or four nerdy looking journalists asking questions.  Now the show is named the same thing, but it is really the Tim Russert show.  I guess it is just market forces that are changing the mainstream media everywhere -- if a network can get its ratings and profitable advertising with celebrity journalists supported by a thin staff, why maintain the overhead of a large and experienced newsroom?  And it seems that the attitude of celebrity journalists is that it is the job of other people to bring them the story so they can put it on the air -- it's not their job to go out and get the story.

On the other end of the spectrum, the cost of entering the market through blogging is essentially zero, except for the cost of one's time.  So I think it is true that blogging has become another career pathway or gateway for good journalists who, for whatever reason, want to go that route.

Of course, there are tens of millions, or maybe hundreds of millions, of blogs out there and there is a lot of drivel.  But the law of large numbers means that on any issue, some of the bloggers are going to be commenting with a great deal of expertise and intelligence. The classic example may be the sudden appearance of experts on IBM typewriters during the "Rathergate" flap, who effectively undercut the basis for the 60 Minutes piece. 

Hopefully, for us regular citizens, the net effect is development of our critical reading and critical thinking skills.