[Peace-discuss] Lehrer flyer draft

Fri Sep 16 00:19:13 CDT 2005

[The Lehrer Flyer Working Group, few but intense, have
produced not one but two flyers for the WILL dinner Saturday
night.  Here's a draft of one, attached (formatted) as well as
appended.  Comments welcome.  --CGE] 

    FAIR (“FAIRNESS AND ACCURACY IN REPORTING”)
    CRITIQUES THE NEWSHOUR WITH JIM LEHRER

5/23/05 - There was no golden era of PBS. The crown jewel of
the network’s news programming -- with the most viewership and
influence -- has long been the nightly NewsHour With Jim
Lehrer. As with many other subjects, the program’s coverage of
war has relied heavily on official U.S. sources and
perspectives in sync with them. The media watch group FAIR
(where I’m an associate) has documented that during one war
after another -- such as the Gulf War in 1991, the bombing of
Yugoslavia in 1999 and the invasion of Iraq two years ago --
the NewsHour’s failure to provide independent coverage has
been empirical and deplorable. Such failures are routine and
longstanding for the show, as FAIR’s research makes clear. 
--Norman Solomon, at the National Conference for Media Reform,
held May 13-15 in St. Louis.

8/19/04 – [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld was back in
media action for a long interview Aug. 17 on the PBS NewsHour
with host Jim Lehrer. Mostly, Rumsfeld spun the fine fabric of
public relations. Along the way, he talked about how to get
"the best intelligence" and "good all-source analysis" without
"having it all single-perspective."
Minutes later, Lehrer got around to asking whether Pentagon
analysts doing "lessons-learned studies" on Iraq had
determined "why the intelligence turned out to be so wrong
about weapons of mass destruction." Rumsfeld: "Ooh, no, that
wasn’t what we did, no. The CIA did that."
Lehrer: "Right. So you didn’t — that was not part of your
lessons learned?"
Rumsfeld: "No. We’re not in that business." The evasive reply
came from the Pentagon honcho who’d flatly declared before the
Iraq invasion that the U.S. government knew where Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction were located.
But — without a word of followup — Lehrer changed the subject,
moving on to a matter of tactical foresight. "What about the
intensity of the insurgency after major combat," he asked,
"was that an intelligence failure within the Pentagon — or not?"
Rumsfeld’s response was predictable and easy ("things are
always different than one anticipates ... a war plan doesn’t
ever outlive the first contact with the enemy..."). In an
interview that involved several thousand words and focused
largely on intelligence, Lehrer permanently dropped the WMD
question as soon as Rumsfeld blew it off. --Norman Solomon

4/16/04 - On the April 7 edition of the PBS NewsHour, anchor
Jim Lehrer offered a rationale for the U.S. closure of the Al
Hawza newspaper, affiliated with Shiite cleric Moqtada
Al-Sadr. But so far the program has been unable to supply
evidence to back up Lehrer's charge, and is refusing to
correct the host's error.
Lehrer explained on the program, "The reason we shut down his
press is because it was calling for violence." One of Lehrer's
guests interrupted to agree with him, but Lehrer finished by
saying, "I just want to get that on the record."
Syndicated columnist (and FAIR associate) Norman Solomon was
puzzled by Lehrer's attempt to set the record straight, since
what he said actually contradicts the evidence that is on the
record. Solomon called the NewsHour and asked what Lehrer was
relying on to support his claim. A NewsHour spokesperson
offered newspaper articles from the NYT (4/6/04) and the
Chicago Tribune (4/5/04).
But those articles don't support Lehrer at all; they report
U.S. charges that the paper was printing inaccurate
information that could incite violence, but do not mention any
calls for violence by the paper. In fact, another New York
Times article (4/5/04) actually pointed out that "the paper
did not print any calls for attacks."
Solomon continued to press the NewsHour, asking if they would
issue a correction for what is clearly a mistake by their
anchor. But the program rejected that idea; in an email to
Solomon, a spokesperson wrote, "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
stands behind the 'Iraq: What Now?' discussion segment from
April 7 and will not be making a correction."
Correcting a false statement by an anchor would seem to be an
easy call. But FAIR activists might remember that the NewsHour
seems to have peculiar standards when it comes to such
matters: Last month, Lehrer actually read an apologetic
"editor's note" two days after a segment (3/2/04) where one
guest criticized the reconstruction contracts granted to
companies like Halliburton and Bechtel. Lehrer faulted the
segment (3/4/04) for "not being as balanced as is our standard
practice." Viewers might be left wondering what the show's
"standard practice" is for correcting errors made by the host.
--FAIR

[The U.S. closure of the Al Hawza newspaper led directly to
the death of Casey Sheehan.  His mother, Cindy Sheehan is
demanding that the US leave Iraq.  Casey was killed on April
4, 2004 in Sadr City, the poor Shi'ite section of Baghdad, by
supporters of Moqtada Al-Sadr. US occupation administrator
Paul Bremer closed the Al Hawza newspaper – apparently because
it insulted Bremer – and, according to reporter Aaron Glantz,
“demanded Sadr's arrest for opposing the occupation ... Until
April 4, 2004 Muqtada Sadr had urged his followers to protest
peacefully against American occupation. But the American
assault lead him to urge his followers to 'terrorize the
enemy.' In the first 48 hours of fighting Sadr's followers
seized police stations and government buildings across the
country including the Governor's Office in Basra. At least 75
Iraqis and 10 American servicemen were killed, among them Army
Specialist Casey Sheehan.”]

8/16/01 -  Ignore the commercials on noncommercial broadcasts.
Remember that they're not really commercials, just "enhanced
underwriter credits." It might bother you that every broadcast
of the "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" starts with a lush spot for
the global agribusiness titan Archer Daniels Midland, but push
any concern out of your mind. Assume it's only a coincidence
that you don't see the most influential news program on
television doing any sustained investigative reporting about
manipulation of the world's food supply by huge corporations.
--Norman Solomon

This flyer was assembled by members of AWARE, the Anti-War
Anti-Racism Effort, but it does not necessarily represent the
views of AWARE as an organization or of any particular member
of it.  AWARE is an open organization and meets every Sunday
evening 5-7PM at the Independent Media Center, the old post
office building at 202 South Broadway in Urbana (use the Elm
Street entrance).

For information about the war beyond that available on PBS,
see (among many others) <antiwar.com>, <counterpunch.org>,
<cursor.org>, <english.aljazeera.net>, <lefti.blogspot.com>,
<www.anti-war.net>, <www.commondreams.org>,
<www.democracynow.org>, <www.informationclearinghouse.info>,
<www.juancole.com>, <www.newsfromneptune.com>,
<www.ucimc.org>,
<www.will.uiuc.edu/am/mediamatters/bobmcchesney.htm>, and
<www.zmag.org/weluser.htm> 
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