Propaganda 24

Achteraf zag iedereen dat die Goebbels niet deugde. Maar vooraf? Hoe zit dat nu? Wie spreekt namens wie? Van wie zijn de commerciele massamedia een spreekbuis?

Amy Goodman van Democracy Now schrijft in The Nation: 'If President Bush had stood on the steps of the White House with a megaphone when he set out to sell the Iraq War, he might have convinced a few people about the imminent threat posed by Saddam Hussein. But he had something far more powerful that convinced far more people: He had a compliant press corps ready to amplify his lies. This was the same press corps that investigated and reported for years on President Clinton's lying about an extramarital affair. The difference here was that President Bush's lies take lives.
In order to be able to get that all-important leak from a named or, better yet, unnamed "senior official," reporters trade truth for access. This is the "access of evil," when reporters forgo the tough questions out of fear of being passed over.
And then there is the embedding process. Journalists embedded with US troops in Iraq bring us only one perspective. How about balancing the troops' perspective with reporters embedded in Iraqi hospitals, or in the peace movement around the world? Former Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke proclaimed the embedding process a spectacular success. For the Pentagon, it was. More powerful than any bomb or missile, the Pentagon deployed the media.
During the Persian Gulf War, General Electric owned NBC (it still
does). A major nuclear weapons manufacturer--which made parts for many
of the weapons in the Gulf War--owned a major television network. Is it
any surprise that what we saw on television looked like a military
hardware show? According to the New York Times, CBS executives "offered
advertisers assurances that the war specials could be tailored to
provide better lead-ins to commercials. One way would be to insert the
commercials after segments that were specially produced with upbeat
images or messages about the war."
After the Gulf War, Pentagon spokesperson Pete Williams jumped ship,
but he was hardly crossing enemy lines. He became a correspondent for
NBC. Just over a decade later, another Pentagon spokesperson, Victoria
Clarke, gave up her position to work as a CNN commentator.
During the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, MSNBC, NBC and CNN--not only
Fox--called their coverage Operation Iraqi Freedom. We expect the
Pentagon to research the most effective propagandistic name to call its
operation. But the media's adoption of Pentagon nomenclature raises the
question: If this were state media, how would it be any different?' Lees verder:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060703/goodman