Page 234 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

224 Chapter 9

work. Goodman has long been interested in holding political officials and
prominent mainstream media figures' feet to the fire by challenging pro-war
propaganda. Goodman takes issue with corporate ownership and dominance of
the media, as well as the resulting pro-war ideological apparatus that is sup-
ported by such dominance. Speaking of corporate consolidation, Goodman ar-
gues: "Since the first Gulf War, the media have become even more homoge-
nized-and the news more uniform and gung ho. Six huge corporations now
control the major U.S. media: News Corporation, General Electric, Time War-
ner, Disney, Viacom, and ~ertelsmann."~~ Goodman warns that narrow monop-
oly ownership has dire implications for professional journalism: "the lack of
diversity behind the news helps explain the lack of diversity in the news."33
Speaking about the trend toward "sanitization of the news"34 during times
of conflict, Goodman believes that the mainstream press has conformed to the
agenda of the major political parties: "The rules of mainstream journalism are
simple: The Republicans and Democrats establish the acceptable boundaries of
debate. When those groups agree--which is often-there is simply no debate.
That's why there is such appalling silence around issues of war and peace.. .the
media provides a forum for those in power. When there is an establishment con-
sensus-such as during the period leading up to the [Iraq] war-the media just
reflects that.. .but what about the nonofficial voices around the country and the
world who have been consistently opposed to the invasion, the millions of peo-
ple who took to the streets to say no to war? These voices have been almost
completely excluded."35 Attempting to rectify this marginalization of voices of
dissent has been a main goal of networks such as Free Speech T. V. in general,
and programs like Democracy Now! in particular. Democracy Now! is aired on
over 400 public radio and television stations throughout the United States.
Anti-war activists in the independent media were quick to frame the pros-
pects for going to war from an international law perspective. Doug Ireland, writ-
ing for In These Times, attacked the war plan as "a foolhardy project" that is
"illegal under international law."36 Ireland was referring to the illegality of pre-
ventive war under the United Nations Charter, which specifically outlaws the
use of force outside of self-defense and Security Council authorization.
The question of the war's legality was not the only focus of Left anti-war
reporting and editorializing. The Bush administration's misleading claims about
Iraq's "threat" to U.S. national security were covered in in-depth refutations of
U.S. weapons charges. Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies
painted a polar-opposite picture of that seen from the Bush administration rheto-
ric and in mass media reporting. Iraq posed no real threat to the U.S., Bennis
claimed. Iraq lacked essential missile capability for attacking the U.S., and
lacked the necessary delivery systems to use weapons of mass destruction. In
Bennis' words, Iraq "simply was not a threat. They have been qualitatively dis-
armed and are probably now one of the weakest countries militarily in the entire
region."37
Interpreting the motivations of the Bush administration in the Iraq war, dis-
sident scholar Noam Chomsky argued that Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant,
but added that he cannot be "anywhere near as dangerous as he was when the