Silenced by the Drums of War by Jeff Cohen

[Bart Meerdink]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Stof tot nadenken over de werking van de mainsteam media in de VS:

http://www.gregpalast.com/cable-news-confidential-an-excerpt

  Published by Greg Palast October 3rd, 2006 in Articles

Cable News ConfidentialJeff Cohen http://jeffcohen.org/ is the founder
of the media watch group FAIR. For years he was an on-air pundit on CNN,
Fox News and MSNBC—as well as senior producer of MSNBC’s primetime
Donahue show in 2002/2003. This is adapted from his new book, Cable News
Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.

Greg Palast will be appearing with Jeff Cohen this Saturday, October
7th, in New Haven Connecticut. The talk will benefit for WPKN’s “Between
the Lines” program. Info at http://www.btlonline.org/

Silenced by the Drums of War

by Jeff Cohen

September 11th made 2001 a defining year in our country’s history. But
2002 may have been the strangest. It began with all eyes on Osama bin
Laden and ended with Osama bin Forgotten—as the White House turned its
attention to Iraq. Bush’s January ‘03 State of the Union speech
mentioned Saddam Hussein 17 times, bin Laden not once.

Everything about my career at MSNBC occurred in the context of the
ever-intensifying war drums over Iraq, which grew louder as D-Day
approached, until the din became so deafening that rational,
journalistic thinking could not occur. Three weeks before the invasion,
MSNBC Suits terminated Donahue, their most-watched program.

For 19 weeks, I had appeared in on-air debates almost every
afternoon—the last weeks heavily focused on Iraq. I adamantly opposed an
invasion. I warned that it would undermine “our coalition with Muslim
and Arab countries that we need to fight Al Qaeda” and would lead to
“quagmire.”

In October 2002, my debate segments were terminated. There was no room
for me after MSNBC launched Countdown: Iraq—a daily show that seemed
more keen on glamorizing a potential war than scrutinizing or debating
it. The show featured retired colonels and generals resembling boys with
war toys as they used props, maps and glitzy graphics to spin invasion
scenarios. They reminded me of pumped-up ex–football players doing
pregame analysis.

It was excruciating to be silenced while myth and misinformation went
unchallenged. Military analysts typically appeared unopposed; they were
presented as experts, not advocates. But their closeness to the Pentagon
often obstructed independent, skeptical analysis.

When Hans Blix led UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq in Nov. ’02
after a four-year absence, Countdown: Iraq‘s host asked an MSNBC
military analyst, “What’s the buzz from the Pentagon about Hans Blix?”
The retired colonel declared that Blix was considered “something like
the Inspector Clousseau of the weapons of mass destruction inspection
program. . .who will only remember the last thing he was told. That he’s
very malleable.”

Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey was the star military analyst on NBC and
MSNBC, a hawk who pushed for an invasion every chance he got. (After the
war started, McCaffrey crowed, “Thank God for the Abrams tank and the
Bradley fighting vehicle.” Unknown to viewers, McCaffrey sat on the
board of a military contractor that pocketed millions on the Abrams and
Bradley.)

As the war began, CNN news president Eason Jordan admitted that his
network’s military analysts were government approved:

“I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the war started and
met with important people there and said, for instance, at CNN, here are
the generals we’re thinking of retaining to advise us on the air and off
about the war. And we got a big thumbs-up on all of them. That was
important.”

Pentagon-approved analysts calls to mind FAIR’s protest chant: “Two,
four, six, eight/Separate the press and state.”

Besides military analysts, each news network featured “weapons
experts”—usually without opposition or balance—to discuss the main
justification for war: WMD. The problem for U.S. media was that there
was wide disagreement among WMD experts, with many skeptical about an
Iraqi threat. The problem only worsened when UN inspectors returned and
could not confirm any of the U.S. claims.

How did MSNBC and other networks solve the problem? Management favored
experts who backed the Bush view—and hired several of them as paid
analysts. Networks that normally cherished shouting matches were opting
for discussions of harmonious unanimity. This made for dull, predictable
TV. It also helped lead our nation to war based on false premises.

CNN and other outlets featured David Albright, a former UN inspector who
repeatedly asserted before the war that Iraq possessed chemical and
biological weapons. Asked about his assertions later, Albright pointed
his finger at the White House: “I certainly accepted the administration
claims on chemical and biological weapons. I figured they were telling
the truth.”

Another CNN expert was former CIA analyst Ken Pollack, who fervently
pushed for war. He warned Oprah viewers that Saddam could use WMD
against the U.S. homeland and was “building new capabilities as fast as
he can.” Later, he blamed his errant remarks about Iraq’s WMD on a
“consensus” in the intelligence community: “That was not me making that
claim; that was me parroting the claims of so-called experts.”

Not every weapons expert had been wrong. Take ex-Marine and former UN
inspector Scott Ritter. In the last months of 2002, he told any audience
or journalist who would hear him that Iraqi WMD represented no threat to
our country. “Send in the inspectors,” urged Ritter, “don’t send in the
Marines.”

It’s telling that in the run-up to the war, no American TV network hired
any on-air analysts from among the experts who questioned White House
WMD claims. None would hire Ritter.

Inside MSNBC in 2002, Ritter was the target of a smear that he was
receiving covert funds from Saddam Hussein’s government. The baseless
slur was obviously aimed at reducing his media appearances. It surfaced
like clockwork at MSNBC when we sought to book Ritter as a guest on Donahue.

The irony is that MSNBC at the time regularly featured another
commentator who would soon become a recipient of covert government
funds. The covert funder was the Bush administration. I’m talking about
pundit Armstrong Williams, who pocketed nearly a quarter-million dollars
to promote Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. When I repeatedly debated
Williams at MSNBC, I had no inkling of Bush’s No Pundit Left Behind program.

As war neared, MSNBC Suits turned the screws even tighter on Donahue.
They decreed that if we booked one guest who was antiwar on Iraq, we
needed two who were pro-war. If we booked two guests on the left, we
needed three on the right. At one staff meeting, a producer proposed
booking Michael Moore and was told she’d need three right-wingers for
political balance.

I thought about proposing Noam Chomsky as a guest, but our stage
couldn’t accommodate the 23 right-wingers we would have needed for balance.

It’s says a lot about TV news that people like Phil Donahue, who
correctly questioned the Iraq war, have been banished from the system.
Yet I’m unaware of a single TV executive, anchor, pundit or “expert” who
lost their job for getting such a huge story so totally wrong. I do know
of a hawkish host on MSNBC who was taken off the air—he became the
general manager of the channel.

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********