Danny Schechter of MediaChannel has written an eloquent indictment of the mainstream corporate media for their lopsided, propagandistic coverage of Bush's latest plan for Iraq, the "surge" of 21,500 troops. I propose that we look critically at our lopsided coverage of the mainstream corporate media right here on DailyKos and make a concerted effort to read and cite more alternative news sources, such as other blogs, the international press, and liberal magazines.
Here is an excerpt from Schechter's article, about coverage of Bush's speech the other night:
For the newscasters, this war debate is now only between the Congress and the White House. PBS ran the Democratic response by Senator Charles Durbin who explained why his plan can’t work and won’t work. No one else did. Most of the networks offered only one side as usual.
As for the public and the anti-war movement, they were briefly heard chanting slogans outside the White House but not seen on CBS. The anti-war activists are always marginalized in the debate.
The substance of the speech -– its assumptions, claims and policy direction -- was not subjected to any scrutiny. There was no analysis of likely consequences, especially the threats to attack Syria and Iran. In short, there was no reporting. How is this possible on an event that had been hyped for a week and whose key tenets were well known BEFORE it was delivered?
If this is the kind of coverage we can expect from the mainstream corporate media, why do we here on DailyKos rely on it and cite it so much more frequently than more balanced, alternative news sources? Here Schechter indicts the corporate media for facilitating the crimes of the Bush Administration:
We are in the year 2007 in a war that has lasted longer than World War 2. This outrage has been underway since 2002 -– before the first cruise missiles were fired -– when the Congress shamefully rubberstamped Bush’s demand for authority to make war. And yet, there is almost no context offered.
Everyone in the media knows its not working, that we are losing, that its implementation has been, in the words of the title of Washington Post military writer Tom Ricks's book, "a fiasco." Everyone knows that the contractors are ripping us off, and that men and women are dying for nothing. Everyone knows that this war is shaming America from the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib to the despicable lynching of Saddam Hussein.
There is no sense of decency this war does not offend.
The public has defected. The world has turned against us. The Iraqis want us gone. All the wisest policy wonks who have studied it agree that the only sensible recourse is to get out fast as we can.
And yet two institutions seem stuck in this big muddy. One is the White House, desperate to hang on and achieve something, anything, it can use to justify the most mismanaged war in history and call it "victory."
...
The other party to the bloodletting to come is the media, which can’t and won’t learn from its mistakes, which can’t and won’t refuse to stop reinforcing this crime against our constitution and humanity. It is the media which collectively lacks the guts and gumption to refuse to carry more White House propaganda, to scrutinize the options and give more air time to the critics. It is stuck in the business of legitimizing institutions that have lost all credibility.
Why do we stand for this? If we don't, then why do we here on DailyKos contribute to it by spending so much time analyzing Bush's latest propaganda speech and the media's reaction to it? Clearly it is propaganda, and stories devoted to it necessarily take the place of stories that tell the truth, or give background, or do any of the things Schechter says they should do.
If we are complaining that "the anti-war activists are always marginalized in the debate", then why don't we give more coverage to them, right here on DailyKos? Let's look at the front page of DailyKos right now, as I'm writing this:
First, we have a story about poster boy Barack Obama, who is already getting plenty of corporate media coverage. Why not cover someone less high-profile but more brilliant, like Noam Chomsky? I complain that the corporate media don't cover Chomsky's speeches and writings, but I could level the same criticism at DailyKos, and criticize it equally for not covering other brilliant political analysts from the left. We seem to cover the same commentators that the mainstream corporate media has deemed "acceptable". Why is that?
Second, we have a YouTube segment from Meet the Press demonstrating that some Republicans sound like Democrats and vice-versa. Why are we propping up corporate television? This story isn't even important.
Third, we have an open thread to suggest more things for the new Democratic Congress to do. Fine. Fourth, another open thread. Fifth, another open thread on science.
Sixth, we have a long story observing that it is Republicans now who are divided, not Democrats. This is a trivial story, like a typical superficial story one might see on the front page of the New York Times.
Seventh, an open thread and diary rescue. Eighth, yet another open thread.
Ninth, finally something of substance: "Administration Official Attacks Pro-Bono Lawyers for Detainees". This is substantial, and I'm glad to see it here, and I commented on its thread last night, but even so it was reported heavily in the corporate media: the story cited is from the New York Times. We are still not doing the job of reporting under-reported news, at least on the front page.
Tenth, another open thread.
Eleventh, another story of substance, "Does the Pentagon Know Your Bank Balance?", but again it's from the New York Times.
Twelfth, "Another Failed War Needs 'Redeployment'", on the war on drugs, again from the New York Times. Yes, the New York Times is better than the Washington Times, but it's still mainstream corporate media and still supports the status quo, hardly ever takes a difficult position -- it supported the war, supported the Patriot Act, etc. It carries the White House's public relations propaganda without context or criticism.
That's it! Look at our sources: MSNBC's Meet the Press and the New York Times! How can we criticize the mainstream corporate media's completely lopsided coverage, its support of the war and so many other crimes of this administration, and its continuing facilitation of White House propaganda via its completely uncritical coverage of White House speeches, and then cite only mainstream corporate media sources here on our own blog? What is wrong with us? There are hundreds of other good liberal blogs, there is the international press, there are sites like CommonDreams and Cursor covering fascinating stories every day, there are magazines like Harpers and The Nation, and yet we seem to be trapped inside the corporate media bubble.
I propose that we at DailyKos reconsider our reliance on and trust in the mainstream corporate media and make a concerted effort to read and cite alternative sources of news. After all the times it has betrayed us, let's put the corporate media in its place. Just because it's large and on 24 hours a day doesn't mean it's trustworthy or balanced. We can start the well-deserved boycott of the corporate media right here.
P.S. Post links to good alternative press sources in the comments... Thanks!