[Peace-discuss] MSM attack WikiLeaks
C. G. Estabrook
galliher at illinois.edu
Sun Jan 30 22:55:19 CST 2011
--and forfeit any claim to be called journalists.
The attack in the NYT magazine today by its executive editor, the awful Bill
Keller, is bad enough; but this is absurd:
60 Minutes: Putting the BS in CBS
Sun, 2011-01-30
By David Swanson
The reason people in Tunisia, Egypt, and other parts of the world have been
influenced to some extent by the work of Wikileaks is that they have read or
heard about the material that Wikileaks has helped to make public. The CBS
program "60 Minutes" has just published video of an interview with Wikileaks'
Julian Assange -- with the video focused, of course, on Assange himself, with
almost no substantive content related to the massive crimes and abuses that have
made news around the globe.
The value of the "60 Minutes" video is not in its potential to inform anyone
about Wikileaks. We can't, after all, judge the utility of informing Americans
about their nation's illegal spying, bombing, war making, or coup facilitating
until Americans are actually informed of it, which will require that we finally
drop the BS "reporting" on Assange's childhood and haircuts.
The value of the "60 Minutes" video is in its potential to inform us about CBS
and the corporate media in the United States, of which it is a typical or even
above average example. 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft shot six hours of interview with
Assange, which "60 Minutes" cut down to snippets for tv viewing. Some decent
questions may have been asked. If so, they didn't make the cut.
Kroft tries desperately in the interview to distinguish Assange from respectable
journalists. At one point he explains to Assange that most reporters interpret
information, whereas Wikileaks puts out raw data for others to interpret. Of
course, this isn't true of Wikileaks, which has often provided context and
explanations, transcriptions and timelines. What it hasn't done is pile
ideological spin and fluff on the information it has sought to communicate.
An example of what's wrong with the practice of most U.S. reporters is Kroft's
video presentation of this interview. Kroft does show a bit of the famous
"Collateral Murder" footage but "interprets" it by leaving out the criminal
shooting of the van, a clear crime committed by U.S. forces in Iraq.
Immediately after accusing Assange of not really being a reporter, Kroft asks
Assange why he mistrusts authority. Assange begins to answer, and before three
words are out Kroft jumps to a voiceover focusing on Assange's childhood. Who
knows whether Assange tried to answer the question Kroft should have asked:
"Where do you see the greatest and smallest gaps between actual governmental
behavior and public pretenses?" Kroft had already introduced the segment by
calling the belief that governments use secrecy to suppress truth a
"conspiratorial view," so presumably Kroft thought he already knew the answer:
there are no such gaps.
Kroft describes Assange as paranoid and explains nonsensically: "There are
reasons for his paranoia." Kroft cites Wikileaks' release of information that
might have displeased governments in Kenya and Tunisia, a neo-Nazi group, and
the Scientologists. When Kroft finally comes to the United States, it doesn't
seem as likely a source of danger to Assange as the dreaded Scientologists'
death squads. Assange points out the number of U.S. government officials and
media figures who have called him a terrorist or proposed killing him. Kroft
insists that not many people take seriously the idea that Assange is a
terrorist. And yet Kroft later claims that Americans believe Bradley Manning, an
accused leaker of information to Wikileaks, is "a traitor." Kroft cites no
polling to substantiate either claim. We're just supposed to credit his wisdom
as a real journalist.
Digging for a way to accuse Assange of something (just as the U.S. Department of
Justice is openly and criminally engaged in trying to invent a crime for which
to prosecute him), Kroft reaches for that old standby, the laughably inaccurate
suggestion of hypocrisy. Kroft tells Assange that he abhors secrecy and yet runs
a secretive organization. Assange rightly responds that he keeps sources secret
for good reason (something U.S. journalists were once able to relate to) and
that he does not oppose governments keeping any secrets at all, he opposes them
covering up crimes and blocking accountability.
Well, well, well, says Kroft, you're just weird, cult-like, and paranoid -- or
at least that's what I heard. Kroft always attributes his fluff and BS to
others, which is what makes it "objective," although it fails to make it
valuable. When the you're-weird accusation doesn't seem to stick, Kroft tells
Assange that he can't be a journalist because he's an activist. When Assange
replies that "activist" has become a dirty word in the United States, Kroft
agrees. But Assange points out that Wikileaks does a particular sort of
activism; it doesn't advocate for policies, it informs people so that they are
able to advocate for or against things. This strange sort of activism could also
be called journalism, if "journalism" hadn't come to mean advocacy for a
corporate agenda and celebration of government secrecy.
Without noting the power of investigative journalism, Kroft does note the power
of Wikileaks -- without apparently wondering where it comes from. This is
another, more absurd than ever, chance to accuse Assange of hypocrisy. If you
are a check on the powerful, Kroft says, who is a check on you? A-ha, caught him!
Assange replies that sources and donors would dry up if Wikileaks were not doing
good work. There is a far better answer than that one. For all I know, Assange
gave it and it was cut. That answer is this: If Wikileaks releases information
that people find valuable and informative, then that information will make its
way to those who diligently search for it on the internet or live in nations
with decent communications systms. If not, then Wikileaks will be ignored. But
as long as Wikileaks is interesting masses of people, any error of any sort made
by Wikileaks will be attacked by those in control of governments and television
networks.
When Kroft calls Assange anti-American, Assange claims the lineage of Jefferson
and Madison. In fact, Jefferson, on his best days, wanted the public fully
informed of what its government was doing, and believed that only an informed
public could prevent complete corruption. We're almost there -- at complete
corruption -- right now. Wikileaks is an exception. Those following its lead are
a threat to the current system. Kroft, a so-called journalist, tells Assange
that there are special rules to be followed in handling classified information.
Assange corrects him. There are rules, Assange points out, for government
employees and members of the military, but not for publishers. Publishers are
covered by the First Amendment. Assange is right, of course, but shouldn't Kroft
know this already? And shouldn't he be deeply ashamed to have published this video?
If they let you get away with this . . . , Kroft tells Assange, who interrupts
to finish his sentence: ". . . they'll have to have freedom of the press."
Exactly. Assange tells Kroft he's willing to risk jail for that. Kroft gives us
no reason to believe he doesn't hold such behavior in contempt. No doubt the
early Christian saints, if alive today, would be smart enough not to risk
punishment and professional enough to intersperse advertisements for Pfizer's
drugs in their pronouncements, as Kroft does.
And yet, Kroft almost certainly believes that by asking Assange about every
crazy point of view invented on Fox News he has done Assange a great favor,
played devil's advocate, offered Assange a platform from which to respond to
what everybody who's anybody thinks of him. In an extra video on the "See BS"
website, Kroft declares Assange a journalist or at least a publisher.
This extra clip, believe it or not, is an interview of Kroft by one of his
colleagues who praises him for his "intellectual sparring" with Assange, as he
recounts the exciting behind-the-scenes work of conducting an all-fluff
interview of an actual reporter.
It's all the more frustrating to watch this crap after having spent days
watching actual live television news reporting from Egypt on Al Jazeera English.
The lack of journalism in the United States is not a function of the medium of
television. It is a function of many systemic weaknesses, but also of our
willingness to treat the pretense of journalism like the real thing.
Those who consider "activist" among the cleanest of words can get involved in
preventing the United States from imprisoning or killing Assange here:
http://warisacrime.org/node/56469
http://warisacrime.org/content/60-minutes-putting-bs-cbs
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