Media Muzzles Itself
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday October 13, 2001
Propagandist Osama bin Laden has robbed Americans of one of their most cherished liberties media freedom, writes Phillip McCarthy, Herald Correspondent in New York
It might be termed blank-cheque journalism the main news media of the United States sign away their right to make judgment calls because of vaguely hinted national security concerns and even in the charged atmosphere of terrorism it is raising eyebrows.
In a situation where the free flow of information was already constrained by the nature of the Afghanistan terrain, the strictures of the Taliban and Washington the Bush Administration this week extracted an unprecedented concession from the main US TV networks. They agreed to stop running the pronouncements of Osama bin Laden live and to omit his more inflammatory oratory.
The Administration also asked newspapers not to publish the full text of bin Laden statements in case they contained coded calls to action.
Asked for evidence about possibly cryptic messages, the White House said it had none.
``This is not about code words. It's about air time, pure and simple, and it is utterly insane," Rick MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, said. ``They've built him up into a superstar, and now what Bush is saying is that this guy's words are so dangerous and so effective that he has to be censored. In fact his words are utterly banal, self-serving and crazy. Bin Laden's got to be so pleased with himself."
Mr McArthur, author of the book Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War, was profoundly disturbed by the conference call the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, initiated to seek a ban on unedited bin Laden telecasts.
Dr Rice's move would have been absurd before September 11. But in a country where the Stars and Stripes have become synonymous with national resolve, the new climate of patriotism has left the networks powerless to refuse.
Bin Laden's television spin is not the only programming initiative the White House has felt free to take. It also asked Rupert Murdoch's Fox Network to air a special edition of America's Most Wanted, to engage ordinary Americans in the hunt for terrorists. As a loyal American, Mr Murdoch agreed.
Yet the Administration has so tightly controlled domestic information that last week the US media breathlessly covered a parliamentary speech by the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, detailing the case against bin Laden. It contained far more information than Washington had released, and several US networks carried Mr Blair's speech live and newspapers published his document about bin Laden in full.
In the weeks before the bombing there was so little information that the media was reduced to staking out coffee shops in the base town of the elite US commando unit, Delta Force, to see if townsfolk thought they might have been already deployed.
The media's dilemma is especially acute because, even in comparison to the tightly controlled and sanitised coverage of the 1990-91 Gulf War, there is a dearth of on-the-ground coverage. Even CNN's designated hotspot reporter, Christiane Amanpour, has ventured only as close as Islamabad. Except for the Pentagon reconnaissance shots, the networks have had to rely on the almost indecipherable images of video phones.
``That they bucked down and agreed suggests that the network chiefs in this country are willing to surrender their obligation to provide unfettered coverage," Mr MacArthur, said. ``But they are confusing patriotism with their obligations. As a viewer you could easily draw the conclusion that the media now sees itself operating on behalf of the government more than on behalf of the people."
The media outlets, in their rush to seem as patriotic as their rivals, were paralysed in pursuing the sort of background investigation that the public interest demanded.
This included the recurring issue of what is termed ``blow-back", where US foreign policy objectives come back to cause new grief in this case helping fundamentalists drive out Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers in the 1980s.
``Pure and simple, I think they are upset that bin Laden is getting too much air time," Mr MacArthur said. ``He's getting almost as much coverage as Bush. And they are literally asking the networks to stop giving Bush's PR rival so much air time. It's bad for business. But the Administration has no-one to blame but themselves because they're the ones who elevated bin Laden to a media celebrity.
``The last thing you do with someone like bin Laden is turn him into a superstar. You walk softy and carry a big stick. You keep your mouth shut and try to capture the bastard. You don't build him up into a figure that you then have to censor."
Like many home grown religious fundamentalists in the US, bin Laden has proven to have a deft media touch. He delivers his wordy pronouncements to an Arab language satellite channel, al-Jazeera, in Qatar. Networks such as CNN have to rely on it for their bin Laden quotes.
Dr Rice's request to the US networks apparently followed a request to the Emir of Qatar to crack down on al-Jazeera. The authorities in the sheikhdom said they were powerless to interfere with media freedom.
Key players in the action against bin Laden Vice-President Dick Cheney, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld were in control during the Gulf War when the Pentagon tightened its media reins. They were also around during the Vietnam War when, with reporters free to roam and talk to the troops, the folks back home gradually grew disenchanted with the war.
They were also keen observers of the US military fiasco in Somalia, which reached its denouement after president Bill Clinton came to office. Eighteen US soldiers were killed by a mob in Mogadishu, leading to the abrupt withdrawal of US troops.
In a lot of ways it is not so much the Gulf War but the Somalia operation three years later that provides the better media model for war coverage. Kabul is a barely functioning city more like Mogadishu than Baghdad and Afghanistan is as socially economically dysfunctional as Somalia. In both situations a maverick figure, a secular warlord and religious terrorist is the prime target of US firepower.
In Somalia it was a troublesome clan leader named Mohamed Farah Aideed who was to be taken out by the botched US commando mission. The lesson of that mission was clear. The media had been there, camera ready, when the troops landed on the Somali coast. They were there when things went wrong, and by telegraphing the bloody truth back home, forced Mr Clinton's hand.
The Bush Administration wants to avoid the sort of coverage that might force its hand in the same way.
© 2001 Sydney Morning Herald
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