Page 96 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

86 Chapter 4

Whether it was print and television outlets as conservative as the Wall
Street Journal and Fox News, or more liberal sources like the New York Times
and ChN, the mainstream media transmitted government promises of democ-
racy, as well as rose-colored assessments of U.S. military progress in Iraq, with
only pragmatic interjection. But the transmission of propaganda and official
statements did not represent the only trend in the media's reporting of the events
in Iraq. As will be discussed below, the crux of the media's criticisms of the
Bush administration and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" fall within the parameters
of acceptable discourse over the war as determined by the Democratic and Re-
publican parties. Such dialogue over the Iraq war ranges from the least critical
perspectives-portrayed in detail in the first half of this chapter-to the most
critical perspectives which do not typically venture further than tactical, prag-
matic evaluations of how to better pursue the pacification, stabilization, and
Westernization of Iraq. These criticisms have not historically included attacks
on the U.S. as imperialist or repressive in its foreign policy, although there are
rare exceptions.

"Anti-War" Criticisms in the Mass Media

A common stereotype in the corporate press frames the media as liberally biased
and vigilantly opposed to the war in Iraq. Some pundits complain about the
"overwhelming liberal dominance of the media.'"2 Fox News talk show host
Sean Hannity discusses the "pervasive liberal slant of the dominant news or-
ganizations" including "left" corporate news channels such as CBS, ABC, NBC,
and ChN, and newspapers such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times,
and the Washington Brent Bozell, founder and president of the Media
Research Center and author of Weapons of Mass Distortion: The Coming Melt-
down of the Liberal Media, takes a slightly more nuanced approach to what he
sees as liberal control and conservative submission and marginalization
throughout the media. While admitting that conservatives are well represented in
television commentary, Bozell maintains that liberals overwhelmingly dominate
corporate news reporting-and as a result, unfairly dominate the mass media in
general.64
As the leading liberal establishment newspaper in the nation, the New York
Times has been the focus of many conservative attacks. Bill O'Reilly lambasted
the paper for its allegedly anti-Bush, left-leaning bias, assailing it for "not work-
ing in the best interest of the American people.'"5 Bernard Goldberg, formerly a
reporter for CBS News, chastised the New York Times because he felt it "went
out of its way to attack and undermine the [Bush] administration at every turn"
throughout the Iraq war.66
For such an extraordinary amount of debate over the prevalence of liberal
media, there has often been inadequate effort made by pundits to define pre-
cisely what they mean by liberal bias. General attacks on "the liberal media"
seem to be more commonplace than in depth conversations over what exactly
constitutes a liberal bias. The question remains, however: what does it really