The Daily Grasshopper

Thousands of our fellow Americans will soon be en route to the nation’s capital, in preparation for what organizers hope will be the biggest anti-war demonstrations since the Vietnam era. The website to visit to find out more about these activities is here:

http://www.unitedforpeace.org/

There’s been some reporting of the buildup to the protests in the mainstream press, including a report in the New York Times the other day that I felt was balanced and accurate. The demonstrations come at a critical time. A new poll, reported in today’s Boston Globe, shows that the American public has reservations about the need for a unilateral strike on Iraq: “More than half, 53 percent, say the president has not yet explained clearly what’s at stake to justify the United States using military force to end Hussein’s rule.” The full story is here:

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/017/nation/Public_qualifies_backing_for_war+.shtml

There are a couple things I’d ask you to reflect upon over the next 24 hours, as reports from mainstream media sources about the anti-war rallies start to appear. The first, and I’m speaking from experience, is that the corporate media almost always do a poor job covering these demonstrations. They like to focus on the spectacular: kids with spiked hair and bandanas around their faces, tear gas canisters flying, confrontations between heavily-armored police and crouching, peace sign-waving hippies. You almost never get a reporter asking a demonstrator substantive questions about “why they’re there.” As I said, I have been to several of these large demonstrations, and dozens of smaller ones, and the most common complaint from activists is that the media coverage, when it’s done at all, is terrible. The reporters focus on the negative aspects of the event, without trying to delve into the weightier issues behind it – the reason the protesters are there in the first place.

The last big anti-war demonstration happened a few months back, and the coverage by big media outlets was, well, pretty bad. In fact, the New York Times had to write an apology for its published account, which undercounted the number of participants by a factor of 10. National Public Radio was forced to make a similar retraction. You can read more here:

http://www.fair.org/activism/npr-nyt-update.html

But, wait a minute, you might be saying… aren’t the New York Times and NPR the “liberal” media? Wouldn’t they want to lend their support to demonstrations that oppose Bush and his “conservative” administration?

Well, in my opinion, the mainstream media, including the New York Times and NPR, tend to be very centrist, and show a real deference to their corporate sponsors most of the time. In a way, they have to be, because to be openly partisan violates all principles of journalism, and the big newspapers and public radio do retain some integrity. And that brings me to the second item I’d ask you to reflect upon: the idea that the media is somehow “liberal.” If you’ve tuned into talk radio, or watched FOX News at all, you know that there is a sense among some people that the “liberal” media are the cause of all that’s wrong in America today.

Yesterday I sent you a story about the New York Times having to accept the resignation of one of its Venezuela correspondents for his bias against the leftist President of that country. There was also the Times link to the latest Human Rights Watch report, which ignored some very damaging details about U.S. military aid to Colombia, in favor of a story about how our treatment of P.O.W.s gives other countries license to abuse their citizens. For the last two weeks now, I’ve been taking stories out of the Times and the Globe, two of the most “liberal” papers, and pointing out what I thought were serious shortcomings in the quality and accuracy of their reporting. Needless to say, I don’t consider myself a right-winger.

But the right wing is out there, and they’ve made quite the cottage industry out of moaning about the takeover of the “liberal” media (at the same time they are tightening their grip on all levels of government). If the liberals, through the media, do control how people think to the extent that people like Rush Limbaugh insist they do, then they’re doing a pretty lousy job, wouldn’t you agree? According to the likes of Rush, anyone who’s not dashing off to the dry cleaners to pick up their Klan robes at the end of their talk show is a “liberal." But a very thorough study (granted it’s a few years old) shows that on a host of issues, mainstream journalists are to the right of the public. Check it out:

http://www.fair.org/reports/journalist-survey.html

The typical right-wing response to recent polls on war with Iraq can be found in today’s Boston Herald, in a piece by syndicated columnist Cal Thomas ("Poll doesn't toll for substance"). Here’s the best quote: “We elect a president to lead us, not follow our opinions.” That’s funny, I thought this was a democracy, not a monarchy. But then again, two of the last three administrations have been led by people named Bush, so maybe we’re not as far removed from feudalism as some like to think. On the other hand, maybe Thomas wants to go back and take a look at those popular vote totals before he gets too carried away with talking about whom “we elected.”

Thomas claims that anyone getting their information from “the broadcast networks, or the New York Times and the Washington Post … will reflect the bias against Bush’s policies contained in those media.” Actually, there have been many notable instances of bias TOWARD Bush by the broadcast networks and their mega-corporate owners (General Electric owns NBC, Viacom owns CBS, and Disney Corporation owns ABC), as well as by the Times and the Post.

The myth of the liberal media is a red herring offered by people who know full well that corporate consolidation of media is resulting in an ever-narrowing spectrum of debate, and one in which truly dissenting voices are increasingly marginalized. It makes you wonder if some of these people even pay attention to other media. In Boston, we have a right-wing nitwit named Jay Severin on 96.9 "FM Talk" from about 3 to 7 p.m. each day, and he makes it sound as if he’s the only conservative voice around, despite the fact that he’s sandwiched in the middle of a wall-to-wall right-wing lineup, with Margery Eagan of the Boston Herald hosting before him and Laura Ingraham (who may be even more of a reactionary than Severin) coming on after. His ludicrous pretension to being a lone voice in an otherwise "liberal" wilderness would be comical if the consequences, as evidenced by November’s election returns, weren’t so potentially fatal.