WhoaitsZ

a very interesting and well written POV from a Brit.

one of the few things i didn't like though is at a spot or two it was hard telling if he were truly speaking fact or giving he and his comrades an ego boost.

also, the "Americans still go the church." line has me blink and I reread it several times.

so what? I honestly know of very, very few people who attend church. those who do, again, so?. wtf does that have to do with spineless journalists?


We ask the questions


It took a British journalist to put the American Defence Secretary on the spot. Why, asks Justin Webb, are the US media so timorous?

24 June 2003

My favourite weapons-of-mass-destruction moment came at a Pentagon briefing a few weeks ago. Just as the storm over the failure to find said weapons was breaking in Britain, deep in the bowels of the Pentagon one of the deputies of the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was asked a potentially tricky question on the subject. His imperious response: "I'm not here to answer that."

And, lo and behold, he didn't. And nobody complained about it.

It reminded me of the famous BBC doorstep interview with Clement Attlee, which went something like this: "Prime Minister, do you have anything to say...?"

"No."

British broadcasters have moved on since then. The American media, well...

Just before the Iraq war, David Dimbleby came to Washington to interview Donald Rumsfeld. They talked for half an hour. As you would expect, the questioning was persistent, forensic. Americans who heard the interview were shocked. The world's most powerful nation does not have the world's most powerful press. Specifically, it has no daily forum for the close questioning of politicians - no Today programme, no Channel 4 News, no Newsnight.

Incredibly - in this cultural and political superpower, in this supposed beacon of world freedom - radio stations were reduced to running interviews with experts from the BBC on their airwaves; a plucky station in Boston laid on an hour-long discussion and phone-in to follow the broadcast, during which I had to explain to the listeners that this kind of thing happened all the time in Britain.

What surprised people most was the style. Mr Rumsfeld's answers were followed up. His reasoning was tested. He was put on the spot and not allowed to leave it. When Dimbleby asked him why he had repeatedly referred to the "so-called" occupied territories of the West Bank, Mr Rumsfeld said he might have done it once but certainly not repeatedly.

Dimbleby had the dates and occasions in front of him. The Defence Secretary was forced to concede the point.

What a far cry it was from the Donald Rumsfeld Americans know and love. Strutting his stuff on the Pentagon podium, Mr Rumsfeld is lord and master of all he surveys. The Defence hacks titter nervously at each other and hope to get off with as light a beating as possible. Difficult questions are avoided; difficult questioners are lampooned. Anyone who persists is taken out and beaten senseless. (I made that up, but the atmosphere is genuinely one of laughing menace; a truly independent spirit would not enjoy being a Pentagon correspondent. The Today programme's Andrew Gilligan would not get through the door.)

So why the transatlantic journalistic rift? Are American journalists simply spineless? Do they toe the line because they love the President? Or because their employers do?

The answer, I think, is more complex. Americans in all walks of life have a respect for authority that the cynical Brits jettisoned somewhere around the time of Profumo and Christine Keeler. Americans, remember, still go to church. For all their rhetoric of freedom, there is nevertheless an acceptance of a higher power here in the United States. And an acceptance, too, of unimpeachable motives. President Bush, you may remember, declared the Iraq war won while on board a US aircraft carrier out in the Pacific Ocean. He flew to it on a navy jet, emerging with his flight suit on, looking for all the world like the Top Gun that he never was. I watched the performance live on US television and marvelled at the difference in coverage that there would have been on a British TV channel for a British prime minister attempting the same stunt.

Only once did the anchor people remark to each other - in the most delicate fashion - that the pictures would likely be used by the Bush team during next year's election.

Likely be used! The whole thing was set up for political use - it had no other purpose. The President could have stepped on board the carrier on shore; but it had been slowed down to make sure that it was still at sea. Incidentally, some questions were asked after the event about whether the White House had overstepped the mark with the carrier landing, but they were asked in a tone of hurt surprise, a tone that said: "We trusted you and you let us down." The British media would surely have sunk the whole enterprise.

If a President's motives are generally considered worthy until proved otherwise, the same can be said of the President's appointments. When he appoints a Defence Secretary, your average American is willing to believe that this man or woman is worthy of trust, worthy of respect. He or she is the choice of the President. The journalists charged with the task of questioning the President and his advisers must work within the bounds of a culture that is willing to give national leaders the benefit of the doubt. Even after Watergate. Even after Monica Lewinsky. Even after Wag the Dog.

That's why the BBC's Correspondent programme caused a minor sensation here when it questioned the veracity of the Jessica Lynch story. Lynch was the 19-year-old West Virginia soldier taken prisoner by the Iraqis and rescued by US special forces during the war. [For the full story, see pages 4-5.] At the time, Pentagon sources said - and the American media reported - that Lynch had fought back against the Iraqis; that she had been stabbed and shot; that she had been abused in hospital.

The BBC team went to the hospital and heard a different story. Her injuries, according to the Iraqis, were caused by a car accident; after the accident, she had been brought to the hospital and treated well. The "rescue" had been unnecessary; the doctors had been trying for some time to hand her back.

It does not matter which story is true. The issue is that there were conflicting accounts but the American media overwhelmingly chose to report the Pentagon's version as fact.

Let's be honest, though: much of the questioning of American motives and purposes in the British press is equally one-sided. My heart sinks when junior producers ring from London, enthused by an article in a British paper that proves that the war was all about oil, or that the Zionists are in charge, or that the Vice-President's former company is taking over the world. The view from this side of the Atlantic is that the Brits have axes to grind.

It's still the case, though, that the US media have not covered themselves in glory in recent weeks. And I am glad to be able to report that the Bush administration is properly grateful. I went to see the Vice-President make a speech a few nights ago. He finished with a reference to the war in Iraq, telling his audience: "You did well - you have my thanks."

Were these troops or government officials he was addressing? Neither, in fact: the occasion was the annual dinner of the American Radio and Television Correspondents Association.

It's all very, very cosy. No wonder the BBC table was No 148. Next to the lavatories and the emergency exit.

Justin Webb is Washington correspondent for the BBC

Fade

interesting points, though it does sound a bit biased, but not altogether falsified...

tlimbert

Kinda long winded, actually. *shrug*

lurkette

I didn't find it long-winded. I'm sure they could have thrashed the hell out of the "roll-over-and-rub-my-belly" submission of the US media. I don't know whether to wake up my righteous outrage or let it sleep and just go "meh." Clearly I'm in the minority of people who even find the current situation outrageous, and I don't know what to do about it.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

TaLoN

i don't really see the point of this article. they are just kicking a dead horse

MustLoveCorn

Here's a good one:

National Catholic Reporter
The Independent Newsweekly
Joan Chittister: From Where I Stand
Web address: NCRonline.org

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May 27, 2003 Vol. 1, No. 9


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Is there anything left that matters?
"The spirit we have, not the work we do, is what makes us important to the people around us."




By Joan Chittister,OSB

This is what I don't understand: All of a sudden nothing seems to matter.

First, they said they wanted Bin Laden "dead or alive." But they didn't get him. So now they tell us that it doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one man.

Then they said they wanted Saddam Hussein, "dead or alive." He's apparently alive but we haven't got him yet, either. However, President Bush told reporters recently, "It doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one man."

Finally, they told us that we were invading Iraq to destroy their weapons of mass destruction. Now they say those weapons probably don't exist. Maybe never existed. Apparently that doesn't matter either.

Except that it does matter.

I know we're not supposed to say that. I know it's called "unpatriotic." But it's also called honesty. And dishonesty matters.

It matters that the infrastructure of a foreign nation that couldn't defend itself against us has been destroyed on the grounds that it was a military threat to the world.

It matters that it was destroyed by us under a new doctrine of "pre-emptive war" when there was apparently nothing worth pre-empting.

It surely matters to the families here whose sons went to war to make the world safe from weapons of mass destruction and will never come home.

It matters to families in the United States whose life support programs were ended, whose medical insurance ran out, whose food stamps were cut off, whose day care programs were eliminated so we could spend the money on sending an army to do what did not need to be done.

It matters to the Iraqi girl whose face was burned by a lamp that toppled over as a result of a U.S. bombing run.

It matters to Ali, the Iraqi boy who lost his family — and both his arms — in a U.S. air attack.

It matters to the people in Baghdad whose water supply is now fetid, whose electricity is gone, whose streets are unsafe, whose 158 government ministries' buildings and all their records have been destroyed, whose cultural heritage and social system has been looted and whose cities teem with anti-American protests.

It matters that the people we say we "liberated" do not feel liberated in the midst of the lawlessness, destruction and wholesale social suffering that so-called liberation created.

It matters to the United Nations whose integrity was impugned, whose authority was denied, whose inspection teams are even now still being overlooked in the process of technical evaluation and disarmament.

It matters to the reputation of the United States in the eyes of the world, both now and for decades to come, perhaps.

And surely it matters to the integrity of this nation whether or not its intelligence gathering agencies have any real intelligence or not before we launch a military armada on its say-so.

And it should matter whether or not our government is either incompetent and didn't know what they were doing or were dishonest and refused to say.

The unspoken truth is that either as a people we were misled, or we were lied to, about the real reason for this war. Either we made a huge — and unforgivable — mistake, an arrogant or ignorant mistake, or we are swaggering around the world like a blind giant, flailing in all directions while the rest of the world watches in horror or in ridicule.

If Bill Clinton's definition of "is" matters, surely this matters. If a president's sex life matters, surely a president's use of global force against some of the weakest people in the world matters. If a president's word in a court of law about a private indiscretion matters, surely a president's word to the community of nations and the security of millions of people matters.

And if not, why not? If not, surely there is something as wrong with us as citizens, as thinkers, as Christians as there must be with some facet of the government. If wars that the public says are wrong yesterday — as over 70% of U.S. citizens did before the attack on Iraq — suddenly become "right" the minute the first bombs drop, what kind of national morality is that?

Of what are we really capable as a nation if the considered judgment of politicians and people around the world means nothing to us as a people?

What is the depth of the American soul if we can allow destruction to be done in our name and the name of "liberation" and never even demand an accounting of its costs, both personal and public, when it is over?

We like to take comfort in the notion that people make a distinction between our government and ourselves. We like to say that the people of the world love Americans, they simply mistrust our government. But excoriating a distant and anonymous "government" for wreaking rubble on a nation in pretense of good requires very little of either character or intelligence.

What may count most, however, is that we may well be the ones Proverbs warns when it reminds us: "Kings take pleasure in honest lips; they value the one who speaks the truth." The point is clear: If the people speak and the king doesn't listen, there is something wrong with the king. If the king acts precipitously and the people say nothing, something is wrong with the people.

It may be time for us to realize that in a country that prides itself on being democratic, we are our government. And the rest of the world is figuring that out very quickly.

From where I stand, that matters.

---------------------------------

A Benedictine Sister of Erie, Sister Joan is a best-selling author and well-known international lecturer. She is founder and executive director of Benetvision: A Resource and Research Center for Contemporary Spirituality, and past president of the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Sister Joan has been recognized by universities and national organizations for her work for justice, peace and equality for women in the Church and society. She is an active member of the International Peace Council.

Comments or questions about this column may be sent to: fwis@nationalcatholicreporter.org


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All rights reserved.
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__________________
Remember last year when my Sig File advocated voting wisely in the 2004 Election? Well, we now have an Attorney General who is sicking the FBI on pr0n. All I can say is, I told you so!

Sparhawk

It's not that they're completely spineless. It's the culture in the administration now that any questioning of its motives is seen as unpatriotic or treasonous.

Any journalist that turns on his brain is asking to have his white house press room privileges turned off.

__________________
"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

Daval

great articles, thanks.

__________________
"It is impossible to obtain a conviction for sodomy from an English jury. Half of them don't believe that it can physically be done, and the other half are doing it."
Winston Churchill

Conclamo Ludus

I don't think it started with this administration although they are certainly keeping it that way. The U.S. media clings to what they think will sell. They will lean more liberal when they have a Democrat in power and they will lean more conservative when there is a Republican in power. They aren't going to ask the tough questions to George W when he's got a 60% approval rating. If it really took a dive, then they would jump all over it. Which we may see in the coming election.

__________________
Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
I wouldn't mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold.
-Son House, Death Letter Blues

andyc

The difference in the UK is that if you don't question the politicians and give them a hard time, that is when you are seen as treasonous. !!

Sparhawk

They certainly never gave the last administration any slack. -gate this and -gate that. I think W must have taken reagan's teflon out of cold-storage.

__________________
"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

The_Dude

agree on that to a certain point.

you really dont see american journalists pushing a question till they get a satisfied answer.

if somebody wants to avoid a question, the interviewer knows it and the vierwer knows it, but the journalist doesnt push it forward.

__________________
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." - Darrel K Royal

Conclamo Ludus

Problem is that a "satisfied answer" is different for whatever your bias is.

__________________
Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
I wouldn't mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold.
-Son House, Death Letter Blues

The_Dude

no no no, i remember this.

i remember the gary condit interview by connie chung.

every hard question she asked, he basically said "i did not have anything to do w/ the disappearence of that woman" (or somethin like that, maybe i'm gettin it confused w/ what clinton said).

and she didnt push the issue any further

__________________
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." - Darrel K Royal

healyk

And just how would you suggest she 'push the issue any further'? If someone doesn't want to answer a question, what should an interviewer do? As for pointing out inconsistencies in answers given, I see that all the time on serious US news programs, like Nightline on ABC.

The_Dude

a brit reported wouldnt leave it where connie chung left it.

__________________
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." - Darrel K Royal