From: Witness For Peace Date: 20 Dec 91 09:11 PST Subject: WFP: January 92 Myth of the Month Message-ID: <1563600107@igc.org> Lines: 316 Status: RO Witness for Peace 1492-1992 Expose the Myths: Calling for a Just World Order Myth of the Month--January 1992 Myth: Just as colonization was inspired by true and accurate reports of the "New World", so too do our free and open media now provide us with objective, unbiased reporting which contributes to the formation of well-informed public opinion. Response: The reports of European exploration and colonization were usually false and distorted to serve economic and political ends, just as currently the media is tightly controlled to distribute a minimum of information and to enforce the status quo. False Reports Justify Colonization Jorge and Josefina walk slowly out of the stone church. It's a warm day, and the wind stirs up clouds of dust. A crowd is gathering near the fountain, where a drawing is posted. They approach to see what is receiving the attention. The village folk are mumbling, saying things about the "New World" and its inhabitants. They look first at the posted paper, then at one another; they shake their heads in disbelief and fear. Monster-people with strange heads; naked dances around pots of boiling arms and legs. "Surely the 'padre', the king and queen, and the merchants of Seville are right. We must defeat such devils. We must bring them God, and save them from horrible, violent ways." Such a view of the Indians we know to be false today. Many engravings and woodcuts from the early 16th century gave a distorted view of who the Indians were and how they lived. The indigenous peoples were not monsters. They did not have strange faces or look like animals. Equally perverse things were written of the Indians: The men on the mainland of the Indies eat human flesh and are more sodomistic than any generation. There is no justice among them, they go about naked, they feel neither love nor shame, they are asses, stupid, mad, insane; to kill or be killed is all the same to them; ... they keep neither faith nor order; ... they are sorcerers, soothsayers, and necromancers; they are as cowardly as rabbits, as dirty as pigs; they eat lice, spiders, and raw worms.... Fray Toms Ortiz, 1524, reporting on the Indians of Colombia Judging from engravings and accounts of 16th century artists and chroniclers, the characteristics listed above were consistently attributed to the Indians. Yet most Indians never participated in cannibalism, had developed elaborate religions, had developed astronomy and mathematics, engaged in extensive agriculture, and were active and healthy people. Writing and circulating false and distorted accounts of the so-called "New World" helped to justify the European conquest of the indigenous peoples. Europeans portrayed the indigenous populations as dirty, ignorant, godless, barbaric, violent and cannibalistic. As such, the Indians were clearly inhuman, or, at best, subhuman. Therefore, killing them was not seen as a sin, subduing them was seen as a generous gesture, and bringing them the Christian God was portrayed as the greatest service that could be done for them. Of course, these attitudes also conveniently contributed to achieving the political and economic goals of the European governments and merchant class. The Europeans realized there was much wealth in the Americas: gold, silver, wood, etc. The problem was that the Europeans wanted and needed resources for their economies_but they had no right to them. The resources were part of lands ruled by other people. So the Europeans found themselves in the position of having to justify to the populace why they were taking what was not rightfully theirs. Depicting the Indian as inhuman and inferior served to justify the brutal manner in which Europeans were to go about taking the wealth and labor of the Americas. Being able to murder, pillage, and enslave the indigenous people made it easier to confiscate their wealth and lands, and to force the Indians to work the mines and farms. Thus, distorted and false portrayals of the Indians and the "New World" were circulated largely to justify the brutal actions taken against the Indians in order to support the economic exploitation of the New World to benefit the Old. The Media Today A key part of the dominant myth in the U.S. regarding the media is that it is objective and panders to the "liberal" elements of our society. However, in analyzing the coverage one sees that the media is biased and "conservative," particularly in reporting on international affairs. The bias can be seen clearly in coverage of the contra war in Nicaragua, the Panama invasion, and the Persian Gulf war. One way the media present biased accounts is by choosing to emphasize some stories while de-emphasizing others. For instance, during the contra war in Nicaragua, U.S. reports on Central America focused on negative aspects of Nicaragua, while repression in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador received far less attention. According to the July/August 1988 issue of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR): FAIR counted column inches in the New York Times from May 1 to July 31 [1988]. During this 90-day period, the Times devoted two and a half times more space to Nicaragua than to the three other countries combined. The ratio of Nicaragua coverage to that of El Salvador was 5 to 1; Honduras 5 to 1; and Guatemala 22 to 1. During these ninety days Guatemala experienced a coup attempt, violent attacks on the press, and the continued execution of civilians by right-wing death squads. Not only does the media opt to not cover many important stories, it often covers only half a story. For example, during the pre-election period in Nicaragua, the New York Times reported (9/14/89) that "There is only one genuinely democratic ticket in the running," referring to the Chamorro/Godoy ticket. As FAIR points out in it October/November 1989 issue, "More precisely, there is only one ticket backed and bankrolled by the US government. Eight other opposition parties are vying in the election." Another example of ways in which media terms reveal bias is in the double-standard used to describe events in Central America. As FAIR pointed out in its May/June 1989 issue: [A] report by Nightline's Judd Rose (5/8/89) featured unusually gruesome footage from Panama's election showing a journalist gasping for air, after having been wounded in the chest. In his voice over, Rose sarcastically referred several times to "democracy, Panamanian style." By contrast, when the Salvadoran military marked that country's last election by killing three journalists, there was no endless footage or sarcastic references to "democracy, Salvadoran style." The brutality of events in Panama is not to be denied; the issue is the uneven coverage given to events in the Central American nations. By any standard, the human rights situation in El Salvador was much more serious than that in Panama: according to the Catholic Church, the security forces in El Salvador are responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 civilians since the early 1980s. Yet, because the U.S. government was supporting El Salvador while it was planning to undermine and invade Panama, the Bush administration portrayed El Salvador as a "burgeoning democracy" and Panama as "thuggish"_and the media conformed to that line perfectly. Often the bias comes out in the terms used to describe events. During the recent Persian Gulf war, for instance, journalists frequently used the word "we" to refer to U.S. military forces. Walter Cronkite said (1/17/91), "We knocked one of their SCUDs out of the sky," as if he were operating the Patriot missiles himself. When reporters identify themselves with one side or the other in a war, objectivity is undermined. Filters in the Media The bias in the national media can be attributed in large part to the filters through which information passes. Before the public has access to any mass media, information passes through several filters, as identified in Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. One filter which determines how and what information is reported is who controls the resources_the size, the concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the mass media firms. Many of the individuals who serve as chief executive officers or as board members of newspapers or networks have major industrial and establishment ties. For example, NBC is owned by General Electric (GE), a company that is consistently among the top Pentagon contractors, and is a financial and industrial giant which manufactures and operates nuclear power plants, not just light bulbs and refrigerators. Owners of the mass media also affect the flow of information, according to their own specific interests which do not necessarily coincide with the free flow of information. For example, The Washington Post is owned by Katharine Graham, who in a November 1988 address made to senior CIA employees, said: We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows. A second filter which information must pass through is the concerns of advertisers. Advertising is a primary source of income for the mass media. For instance, when a television station aired an advertisement on the Folger's Coffee boycott in which a prominent celebrity revealed the connection between Folger's coffee and the terrible human rights situation in El Salvador, Proctor and Gamble_which owns Folger's_pulled all of its advertising from the station, a loss of a major source of income to the station. A third filter is the reliance of media on information provided by government, business, and "experts" who frequently receive funding from government and business. The media are often willing to immediately parrot the "official" line presented to them by the government, and ask questions later, if at all. In the U.S. invasion of Panama, for instance, Los Angeles Times Pentagon correspondent Melissa Healey told a call-in talk show audience on C-SPAN that Noriega had "declared war" on the United States. According to FAIR (Jan/Feb 1990): When a caller asked why that hadn't been front page news, Healey explained that the declaration of war was one of a series of "incremental escalations." When another caller pointed out that Panama had only made a rhetorical statement that U.S. economic and other measures had created a state of war, the Pentagon correspondent confessed ignorance of what had actually been said, and suggested that it was certainly worth investigating. A fourth filter on information is the use of "flak" as a means of disciplining the media. When the media overstep their bounds as prescribed by those who hold the power, they frequently take flak for it. For example, the government may file a law suit against a newspaper, station or network when it does not approve of a story covered. Flak may also take the form of an advertiser who pulls out business because a story criticizes their interest. These filters serve to prevent the free flow of information, which is crucial to open, objective reporting. When the interests of the mass media's owners are disproportionately reflected in the reporting, the media cannot be truly open. When advertisers provide the main source of income for the media, there is danger that a story can be "bought" or "sold" to reflect the interests of the advertisers rather than serve the interests of the general public. Relying heavily on government sources, or a narrow range of "official" sources of information presents the general public with a distorted view of what is happening and how is affects them. Using flak to prevent the media from covering stories is a means of censorship. In a free and objective media, balance and a wide variety of perspectives is fundamental. The free flow of information is crucial for the fostering of a well-informed public, a pubic which guides the government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Examples 1. During the U.S. invasion of Panama, there were serious holes in media coverage, particularly in regard to civilian casualties. While the journalists conscientiously tried to find out how many Americans had lost their lives, they were remiss in reporting the numbers of Panamanian civilians killed. According to FAIR: TV's continuous focus on the well-being of the invaders, and not the invadees, meant that the screen was dominated by red, white, and blue draped coffins and ceremonies, honor rolls of the U.S. dead, drum rolls, remarks by Dan Rather (12/21/89) about "our fallen heroes" ... but no Panamanian funerals. This despite the fact that the invasion claimed perhaps 50 Panamanian lives for every U.S. citizen killed. When questioned about this critical lack of information, the Pentagon-pool journalists said they did not know about civilian casualties because they were travelling with the U.S. army, and had no way of verifying the numbers. However, during Christmas weekend of that year (just days after the U.S. invasion of Panama), U.S. journalists covered the civilian deaths in Rumania_quickly reporting that 80,000 people were killed. The reports could not be verified and should have been dismissed immediately. "Tom Brokaw's selective interest in civilians was evident when he devoted the first half of NBC Nightly News (12/20/89) to Panama without mentioning non-combatant casualties, then turned to Rumania and immediately referred to reports of thousands of civilian deaths." (FAIR, Jan/Feb 1990). 2. The United Auto Workers (UAW), concerned about bias against unions and working people, put out A Worker's Guide to the Media. The Guide discusses who owns the media and how the coverage is biased against workers and unions. The Guide targets editors and media owners, who are said to be overwhelmingly anti-union: a 1985 Los Angeles Times survey found that in business/labor disputes, 54 percent of newspaper editors said they generally took business' side while only _7 percent sided with labor. After studying the editorial positions of the nation's leading dailies, the Guide concludes that, "Editors are far more conservative on economic issues than most Americans." The booklet cites the fact that "by a two-to-one margin, the newspapers editorially opposed raising the minimum wage, they opposed notification requirements for factory closings by four to one, and opposed tax increases for the richest Americans by three to one." (FAIR, July/August 1988). The Guide also offers action suggestions for improving media relations and eliminating bias, discusses legislative proposals to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and to limit any single newspaper chain to no more than 30 papers and 3 percent of the total daily circulation. Calling for a Just World Order: To expose the "myth" of unbiased media and to work toward a truly objective, free media: * Sign up to be a Witness for Peace Media/Legislative Contact (see enclosed form). * Subscribe to the WFP Central America Newsline, to get twice-monthly news from Nicaragua, Guatemala, and southern Mexico, as well as Panama (see enclosed order form). * Analyze the editorial positions of your local newspapers and inform your community of these biases through letters-to-the-editor. * Contact local reporters and work with them to see how you can help provide them with good sources. Let them know you are willing to help organize support for them when they do a good, revealing, objective piece and are having trouble with their editor. * Carefully analyze the headlines of newspaper stories and editorials and compare them with the actual contents of the article. Often the headlines are misleading, and the article emphasizes a different aspect than the headline would suggest_yet frequently people only read headlines and are left with wrong impressions. * Analyze photo captions_often these are mismatched with what the photo shows. * Survey the advertisers in newspapers, magazines, journals, or television and radio stations to get an idea of which companies and business may be influencing the reporting of these media. * Contact your senators and representatives, telling them to support legislation to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. * Point out the loaded, biased terms used in stories, for example, terms like "discovery," "New World", etc. in stories about the quincentenary. Resources: Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky. Pantheon Press: 1988. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, 175 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2245, New York, New York 10010. Central America Newsline, Witness for Peace, 2201 P Street NW, Room 109; Washington, D.C. 20037. Workers' Guide to Media, UAW Ammo, 8000 E. Jefferson, Detroit, Michigan 48214.