Of the 393 people interviewed about Iraq during those crucial weeks, only three were antiwar advocates. That’s a fraction of 1 percent -- a nondebate, at a time when polls showed half the country opposing a rush to war.
(Editor's Note: Chirolas submitted this story March 25)
William Chirolas -- World News Trust
April 14, 2007 -- Once again, someone says something, and says it better than I could have, about the ongoing poor media performance that equates to bias and coverup in our media that is "Only Getting Worse"
Jeff Cohen was previously a weekly producer and pundit for MSNBC, frequent guest on CNN, had five years with Fox News, is currently the founder of Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, and is the author most recently of “Cable News Confidential” (downloadable selected audio excerpts -running time: 32:34 / 29.8 MB)
"As I sat at my MSNBC desk watching Bush or a top associate carry on, I knew painfully well that my network would not be following the administration event with a critical view, no matter how dubious or manipulative were the official claims. To do so -- to practice actual journalism -- might prompt the dreaded charge of “liberal bias.”Dominance of the media agenda bred contempt at the White House for facts and journalism. In a conversation with author Ron Suskind during this period, an anonymous senior Bush adviser dismissed journalists and others of “the reality-based community”-- explaining, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality ... we’ll act again, creating other new realities.”
And actual journalism might undermine the “show.” Stars might refuse to appear on your channel. Big “gets” from the White House would be found only on rival programs.
When Phil Donahue toughly interviewed big-name guests, MSNBC execs were petrified that the VIPs would be offended and not make return engagements. They’d complain that Phil was “badgering” the guests. “Access is everything in Washington,” Phil later told a reporter. “If you’re the executive producer at one of the big news shows and you piss off Karl Rove, you’re not going to get Condi or Rummy or any of those guests who would legitimize your show as a serious, important program.”
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"Not all “weapons experts” got it wrong before the Iraq invasion. In the last months of 2002, Scott Ritter told any audience or journalist who would hear him that Iraqi WMD represented no weapons 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 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 slur, obviously aimed at reducing his appearances, insinuated that Ritter’s views were not genuine and heartfelt, but procured. The “covert funding” charge surfaced repeatedly at MSNBC, especially 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 be receiving covert government funds. The covert funder was the Bush administration, specifically its Education Department -- which, beginning in 2003, paid pundit Armstrong Williams nearly a quarter-million dollars to promote Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. The Bush team broke its promise to fully fund the Act but kept faith with the pundit. When I repeatedly debated Williams at MSNBC, I had no idea he’d become part of a No Pundit Left Behind program."
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"TV’s big broadcast networks were no more open to critical voices than cable news, as illustrated by FAIR’s study of the nightly newscasts on CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS in the week before and the week after Colin Powell’s bellicose U.N. Security Council presentation on Iraqi WMD. Powell’s February 2003 speech was built on obvious exaggerations and falsehoods. But nightly news viewers would have been largely clueless. Of the 393 people interviewed about Iraq during those crucial weeks, only three were antiwar advocates. That’s a fraction of 1 percent -- a nondebate, at a time when polls showed half the country opposing a rush to war. "
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Cohen’s website is http://www.jeffcohen.org/ and his homepage is http://www.cablenewsconfidential.com/ for “Cable News Confidential.”