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June 2003

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The Media, Gulf War II, & The FCC

By Norman Solomon
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June 2003
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A new poll tells us that—by a two-to-one margin—Americans “use clearly positive words in their descriptions of the president.” The Pew Research Center, releasing a nationwide survey on May 7, declared “there is little doubt...that the war in Iraq has improved the president’s image” in the United States. 

Such assessments stand in sharp contrast to views of George W. Bush overseas. In mid-March, the Pew center put out survey results showing, “U.S. favorability ratings have plummeted in the past six months”—not only in “countries actively opposing war,” but also in “countries that are part of the ‘coalition of the willing’.” 

So, why do most people in the U.S. seem somewhat positive about Bush, while the figures indicating a “favorable view of the U.S.” are low in one country after another —only 48 percent in Britain, 31 percent in France, 28 percent in Russia, 25 percent in Germany, 14 percent in Spain, and 12 percent in Turkey? In large measure, the answer can be summed up with one word: media. 

Overall, the U.S. news media do a great job of telling us how wonderful top U.S. leaders are as they direct our stride across the planet. The contrast with evil-doers —especially on our TV sets—could hardly be more plain. 

Researchers at the media watch group FAIR recently pointed out, U.S. news outlets “have been quick to declare the U.S. war against Iraq a success, but in-depth investigative reporting about the war’s likely health and environmental consequences has been scarce.” 

During the war, the London- based Guardian reported, the Pentagon dropped 1,500 cluster bombs —weaponry that fires small pieces of metal, which slice through human bodies. Unexploded cluster bombs are now detonating, sometimes in the hands of Iraqi children. As it did during Gulf War I, this spring the U.S. government fortified some munitions with depleted uranium, which leaves fine-particle radioactive dust that has been linked to cancer and birth defects. 

Those are important stories, known to many news watchers on several continents, but not in the United States. Searching the comprehensive Nexis media database through May 5, the FAIR researchers found, “there have been no in- depth reports about cluster bombs on ABC, CBS or NBC’s nightly news programs since the start of the war.” Those news shows provided just “a few passing mentions of cluster bombs.” 

The network evening news programs did even worse on DU reportage. “Since the beginning of the year,” FAIR discovered, “the words ‘depleted uranium’ have not been uttered once on ABC ‘World News Tonight,’ ‘CBS Evening News’ or ‘NBC Nightly News,’ according to Nexis.”  Meanwhile, the deck of cards featuring 52 Iraqi villains—with Saddam Hussein as Ace of Spades —became one of the great PR innovations of the war on Iraq. By coincidence, on the same day that FAIR completed its research, five “Army intelligence specialists”—who designed the cards—stepped forward to take a bow in Washington. 

A spokesperson for Central Command said that there was “no word on the cards helping find anyone.” But the Pentagon’s deck has tapped into the U.S. public’s appetite for fun ways to identify bad guys who’ll be hunted down. 

News media keep encouraging us to believe that leaders in the United States are cut from entirely different cloth than the Iraqi thugs on the most-wanted cards. But in some respects, the terrible choices made by those men and women are more explainable than ones that are routine in U.S. politics. 

Many of the Ba’ath Party operatives had good reason to fear for their lives—and the lives of their loved ones—if they ran afoul of Saddam. In contrast, many politicians and appointed officials in Washington have gone along with lethal policies merely because of fear that dissent might cost them prestige or power. Why take a moral position against a war and risk losing the next election? 

A deck of cards might be printed someday featuring the faces of certain high officials in the Republican and Democratic parties of the United States. Of course, in the absence of independent-minded news media, the cards would need extensive annotations on the back to explain the human costs of decisions made by those officials. 

The FCC’s Rules Matter 

I n early June, the FCC is scheduled to vote on a revision of media ownership rules. Around the country, grassroots activists have been challenging the move to further loosen regulations. But clearly the interests of huge media conglomerates are getting a big boost from the FCC chair, Michael Powell, son of the secretary of state. 

For a long time, the situation has been grim. Two decades ago, former Washington Post assistant managing editor Ben Bagdikian sketch- ed out the nation’s terrain of media ownership. In 1983, when his book The Media Monopoly first appeared, “50 corporations dominated most of every mass medium.” With each new edition of the book, that number kept dropping—to 29 media firms in 1987, 23 in 1990, 14 in 1992, and 10 in 1997. 

Published in 2000, the sixth edition of The Media Monopoly documented that just a half-dozen corporations were supplying most of the U.S.’s media fare. 

Overall, the news coverage of the latest FCC proposal has been badly skewed, with radio and TV networks opting to tread lightly on the matter. That’s not surprising. Billions of dollars in revenues are at stake for mega-media owners. 

A few prominent journalists, such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, have raised an alarm this spring. Some newspaper stories have laid out basic facts. But—as part of a classic pattern —news coverage of the FCC controversy has been largely relegated to business sections, as though the FCC decision was just a financial matter. “Most people in this country have no idea what’s about to happen to them,” says dissenting FCC commissioner Jonathan Adel- stein, “even though their very democracy is at stake.” 

One of the impending rule changes would allow a single company to own TV stations reaching 45 percent of the nationwide audience (instead of the current on-paper limit of 35 percent). But that understates the impact, as Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project points out: “The 45 percent number that has been floated is a fake number. It will realistically be much much higher.” 

Another FCC change would end the ban on a single firm’s cross- ownership of daily newspapers and TV stations in four-fifths of the country’s media markets. The limits on ownership of television stations in large metropolitan areas would also be eased, so that one company could own three TV stations. 

A ppearing on Bill Moyers’s program “Now” on PBS in early May, FCC commissioner Michael Copps warned: “This is not just some little mechanical thing about numbers or a little decision about numbers of stations. This is something that has very widespread and profound implications.” 

Said Copps: “I understand they [broadcasters] live in a commercial culture and a business culture. But this is a special industry with a special charge—administering the public airwaves. Nobody owns these airwaves. There’s no TV company or radio company that owns the airwaves. The people of the United States of America own the airwaves.” 

All the signs indicate that early June will bring another triumph for the corporate forces that have hijacked the public airwaves for private gain; and they call it democracy.  

Norman Solomon is co-author of Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You.  
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