An excerpt from a discussion with Amy Goodman, Aaron Brown, Steve Rendall and Jeremy Scahill, on "Democracy Now!," on Pacifica Radio: AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what you see your job as right now as the anchor of Newsnight and leading the news coverage at CNN of the invasion of Iraq? AARON BROWN: I think the essential thing for me to do in this unique coverage is to make sure that no single picture, no single moment, overwhelms the broader picture- and I say this literally to viewers a lot; that we show you a piece of a puzzle. Because the power of pictures is the power of pictures, that individual puzzle piece can become the entire puzzle- and it's not. It's just a piece of the puzzle. So, while an embed here or an embed there or an embed over there, delivers to us extraordinary coverage of a puzzle piece, my job is to make sure that I fit it into the broader picture of what is going on. It is no more complicated than that and it is, honestly, no more simple than that; it is what it is. AMY GOODMAN: Steve Rendall, you're with Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, you are a media critic who watches the media very closely. What is your assessment, your report card, of, well, let's talk about CNN? STEVE RENDALL, FAIR: I want to start off by saying thanks for having me on, Amy and Jeremy. Thanks to Aaron Brown, for coming on here to face the music. But let me say that we at FAIR we think that a healthy journalism culture would offer broad debate, independent, accurate information, and journalists asking very tough questions -- especially tough questions of people in power. I'd have to say that what we are seeing is media falling well short of this mark, especially television news, and I think CNN fits in there. I was on this show a few weeks ago to point out that on three commercial news networks, ABC, NBC, CBS and the News Hour with Jim Lehrer- on the four flagship shows on each of these four networks, that less than 1 percent of the guests they had speaking on stories about Iraq over a two week period in February, when a ferocious debate was going on about an Iraq war, less than 1 percent anti-war voices were heard there. Now I didn't study CNN, but even if CNN were five times better than ABC or the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, which were the best of the four networks, and I don't think it is, they still would be selling short those people who are skeptical and who are outright opposed to this war. The question I would like to ask is; whenever the question is war, what we see is the networks and the cable news channels running out and hiring ex-generals, former Pentagon officials, national security types- people to a man and woman who think in terms of military solutions. We ask: Why aren't people hired who would serve as a counter weight to all those militarist voices? People who've spent, decades in some cases studying international law, human rights, or conflict resolution- traditions of Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King. What I'd like to ask Aaron Brown is: why don't you consider hiring these types of people as a counter weight? AARON BROWN: Wow, that's a long windup to a question. When, would be my response; at what point, would be my response? I don't and I won't talk about anything other than work that I, and that we as an organization do. Other people in other organizations are fully capable of discussing their own business, I know because I keep records of things like this and I sit in meetings where I say 'in the lead up to the war, are all the relevant voices being heard?' I am really comfortable that when the history of that period is written, Newsnight will do just fine. But I've also said that I thought all of us in this organization were a little late in coming to see an anti-war movement develop and I think there are reasons for that, and you may disagree with them, it's your right. I think the Democratic Party just rolled over- there was no congressional debate. Secondly, I think for a long time, until honestly the die was well cast, the movement as best I could see it, had no center to cover. There was no clear focus to it, it was a mish mash in many ways. I think that changed in the endgame. I'm not saying that there weren't people who felt strongly, because I knew there were. I lived a long time in Seattle and I know there are very strong feelings in Seattle. I just don't think it had coalesced in a way that made it easy to cover, and I think we were slow to get there. I think that once we got there, we handled it just fine, but I have never argued that we were not slow to get there. I think the generals question, respectfully, is a colossal red herring. For one thing, and I'll just speak about the generals that I deal with, in particular one I deal with alot, General Clark. I don't know one of them who is eager or was eager to engage in this war and probably any war. They know much better than you know and I know the cost of war. Political leadership is something else, but military leadership, because I've been around them and have some feel for how they think, I'm confident in them. We don't bring generals in to engage in a debate over whether or whether not the war should or should not be fought -- and that's why the question is a red herring. We bring generals in to explain what is happening on the ground and why. That's an enormous difference, and I think it is a bit disingenuous to suggest that an explanation of the tactical moment needs to be offset by someone who doesn't believe there ought to be a tactical moment at all. It's happening, it needs explanation. Viewers are entitled to explanation, they need to know whether or not it is effective or why. They need to understand where it's going, they need to understand the costs of it all. And that is how we use generals or military people. We don't use them ever -- well, we have not used them in the course of the war itself to discuss the appropriateness of this war, as opposed to the execution of the war AMY GOODMAN: We're talking with Aaron Brown of CNN, before that ABC. We will be spending the hour with him, along with Steve Rendall of Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting talking about the coverage of the US invasion of Iraq. STEVE RENDALL: Well, I'd like to say first that I think it's a fairly weak argument to say you didn't cover the anti-war movement because it had no strong Democratic Party spokesperson against that. In fact, the anti-war movement was well organized as early as September and was having demonstrations that were drawing hundreds of thousands. And what I would like to ask you is now that the war is under way -- fine, you say that you use generals in the way that you do -- I would like to ask you why you don't invite people who understand the larger picture of war? You guys may do a very good job of covering the war from the battlefields with your embeds and with your generals back in the studio who know about war, but you say that generals know more than you or I about the cost of war, I totally disagree with that. War is a much bigger story than what happens on the battlefield. It's a story of human rights, of international law, it's a story of politics happening in the Middle East, happening in Europe, and happening all around the world. War is far too important a story to be left to ex-generals. Where are your analysts that are on the payroll that are discussing these larger pictures of war? That is a very fair question. It comes down to a matter of balance. AARON BROWN: Wait. Stop- do you want to ask a question or make an argument? STEVE RENDALL: I am making an argument. I'm a guest here like you. AARON BROWN: I know you're making an argument. If you want to listen; please I have neither the time nor inclinations to make argument with you. If you want to field questions, I'll be happy to answer them, I'm willing to do that. But these are really long polemical windups that I'm not -- if you want me to listen, I'll do that too. It's your 15 minutes, but wow. AMY GOODMAN: I just want to clarify, Aaron Brown, Steve Rendall is our guest here, as you are, and he's posing his arguments in terms of a question. AARON BROWN: Fine Go Ahead. AMY GOODMAN: So, why don't you respond to what he's put forward about war being too important to be left to ex-generals. AARON BROWN: I would simply say 'watch the program'. I don't feel like I ever need to sit around and throw this stuff around, because what I do, and what we do as an organization, Newsnight speaks for itself. In the course of the last 2 and a half weeks, we've spent considerable time, and appropriate time, talking about the broader impact of this moment in history... My god; and many here wonder why the "media" in America suffer so much criticism from those large numbers of citizens against the governmental killing machine... More of this instructive discussion here.
I heard the interview. What stuck me most is that Brown claimed CNN owed no duty to report anti-war onion after the bombing had begun. And this came after he admitted CNN was "late to the game" in reporting dissenting opinion prior to the war, as demonstrated by the FAIR analysis. Basically, Aaron Brown came across as a pissy, self-entitled, defensive hack. I would like to give him some credit for granting the interview, but his condescension and spinning was unbearable.
AND absolutely representative of the so-called "diversity" of "media" in our country. Once again, the ILLUSION of media "greatness," of "America has the best [fill in media myth o' choice here] in the world" runs up against the reality that, really, only plutocracy-supportive choices are made all the time by this mainstream media, of whom all the key players (owners, execs, producers, editors, anchors) are themselves members of that plutocracy, or are plutocracy wanna-be's, or derive status from access to plutocratic figures... A goddamned disgrace, particularly as the "mainstream" are not - and never will be - members of this plutocracy...
People in Jordan for the last 3 weeks where getting just the iraqi side of the war. They were a little confused when they saw our tanks in the middle of bagdad and the iraqis cheering our troops. Jordan were shocked they thought iraq was kicking our ass and we were killing all those inocent iraqs. How could the iraqi people be applauding us? They were very confused weren't they? What happened with the Arab press?
thy name be media The biggest, i mean biggest, myth in our country is that the media is liberal...the media in our country is controlled, like everything else, by the companies....how any conservative can ever find something in the medica they dont like, they have to totally be misreading it, which is the problem, republicans lacking basic education misread their conservative press and think they're being liberal....i laugh and weep for them daily
"The biggest, i mean biggest, myth in our country is that the media is liberal...the media in our country is controlled, like everything else, by the companies...." Curious are you a communist?
Our media may not be perfect, but we're certainly better than some... "We discovered that all that the (Iraqi) information minister was saying was all lies," said Ali Hassan, a government employee in Cairo, Egypt. "Now no one believes Al-Jazeera anymore," he said, referring to the Arabic-language television news channel. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030410/ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_arabs&cid=540&ncid=716 That seems pretty fair and balanced.
Sounds like a class struggle to me. If I'm hearing correctly, the media sucks because they just spit out what corporations want us to hear. Also, the anchors are part of this mockery because they are a part of the aristocracy. In other words, the media is all in cahoots with one another. I can picture it. Dan Rather in bed with Bill O'Reilly. Wow, I think your really onto something here.
Curious: are you a "corporatist?" I'm Constitutional by nature. Curious: do you read? Do you have RealPlayer? Can you provide anything relevant to this thread? Curious...
Listen, if - and I will give you "if," because I didn't conduct the study myself - it's true that the big three plus Lehrer provided only %1 of their voices to the anti-war sentiment, which at times ran a t what, 30-40%, then you know what, it is what it is. But don't ever talk about a free press again. A free press simply doesn't miss the boat, with all its "mainstream" outlets, that badly without clear intent. So my point is not to rail against "the media" per s; its railing against the hypocrisy of callign temselves a media that accurately reflects anythign ever, instead of what they are: a media of particular interests that allies itself with similar interests, often to the detriment of much of the citizens...period. Can you really argue that the "mainstream" media has not done this? If you can, enjoy your world, I just can't join you there.
Of course, it's slanted!! IMHO, the reason that the networks may have not fully covered the anti-war protestors is because they were spending an inordinate amount of time creating and accentuating the legend of Bush's failed diplomacy. Reality states that people will bring their own opinions, prejudices, etc. to any discussion and that includes reporting. Haven't Al-Jazeera and Fox News covered this war differently? Haven't Fox News and CNN covered this war differently? I can't respond to network news because by and large I don't watch it. It's vacuous, it has nothing for me. When Dan Rather can "interview" Saddam Hussein according to Saddam's talking points, there is no point in watching. I don't need that propaganda. Additionally, it has been pointed out that cable news is surging during the war while network news has lost market share, probably because people are fed up with the slant the networks have taken. And that brings me to my final point. There are people that watch the news and take reporter's words as fact. It is always important to question if what the reporter is stating makes sense and/or what angle they are coming from? While, Fox News is my favorite channel, I skip to CNN and MSNBC, also. It helps me gain perspective. The biggest irony of this whole thread is that the most leftward among us run the network news that have been rebuking and belittling the right for decades. It's refreshing to know that Universal can now understand how some of us have felt.
Re: Of course, it's slanted!! For once and for all: Take "left," take "right" and shove them up the ass nearest you. I want accuracy and democracy from the media, period. Quit hiding behind these loaded, useless terms.
Re: Of course, it's slanted!! "...I know because I keep records of things like this and I sit in meetings where they say 'in the lead up to the war, are all the relevant voices being heard?' I am really comfortable that when the history of that period is written, Newsnight will do just fine. But I've also said that I thought all of us in this organization were a little late in coming to see an anti-war movement develop and I think there are reasons for that, and you may disagree with them, it's your right. I think the Democratic Party just rolled over- there was no congressional debate. Secondly, I think for a long time, honestly until well after the die was cast, the movement as best as I could see it, had no center to cover. There was no clear focus to it, it was a mish mash in many ways. I think that changed in the endgame. I'm not saying that there weren't people feeling strongly, because I knew there were. I lived in Seattle and I know there are very strong feelings in Seattle. I just don't think it had coalesced in a way that made it easy to cover..." This is Aaron Brown's explanation as to why the portion of the nation who was against the idea of starting a war, killing Iraqis and getting American citizens killed (upwards of 40% of the nation at various points in the pre-"war" period) was wholly under-represented on CNN as only ONE PERCENT of the approaching conflict coverage... You perspective comes from, at least in part, this source of info? I can see now why you say what you say...