Corporate Media Defaults on 9-11
By Peter Phillips
Corporate media are ignoring many important questions related to 9-11 and
have defaulted on their First Amendment obligation to keep the American
electorate informed on key societal issues. Corporate news star Dan Rather
in a recent interview with Matthew Engel for The Guardian admitted that the
surge of patriotism after 9-11 resulted in journalists failing to ask the
tough questions. Rather stated, "It starts with a feeling of patriotism
within oneself. I know the right question, but you know what? This is not
exactly the right time to ask it."
When was the right time to question the levels and intensity of civilian
deaths during and after the bombings of Afghanistan? According to CNN
Chairman Walter Isaacson there was never a good time. In a memo to his CNN
correspondents overseas Isaacson wrote, "We're entering a period in which
there's a lot more reporting and video from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
You must make sure people [Americans] understand that when they see
civilian suffering there it's in the context of a terrorist attack that
caused enormous suffering in the United States." Isaacson later told the
Washington Post, "Šit seems perverse to focus too much on the causalities
of hardship in Afghanistan."
Marc Herold, an economics professor at the University of New Hampshire
compiled a summation of the death toll in Afghanistan-saying that over
4,000 civilians died from U.S. bombs-more than died at the World Trade
Center. Yet only a handful of newspapers covered his story. Time magazine
reviewed Herold's report but dismissed it stating, "In compiling the
figures, Herold drew mostly on world press reports of questionable
reliability." Time went on to cite the Pentagon's unsubstantiated claim
that civilian casualties in Afghanistan were the lowest in the history of
war.
We were all shocked after 9-11. That same shock may well have extended to
families being bombed in Afghanistan, but our corporate media refused to
investigate civilian deaths. Media chose instead to do be "patriotic" and
propagandize the public on behalf of the Pentagon.
Other big questions abound. Both the BBC and the Times of India published
reports several months before 9-11 that the U.S. was then planning an
invasion of Afghanistan. The Unocal oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea
region was to be built through Afghanistan and the U.S. needed a
cooperative government in power. Agence France-Press in March 2002 reported
that the U.S.-installed interim leader of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has
worked with the CIA since the 1980s and was once a paid consultant for
Unocal.
An explosive post 9-11 report emerged from France regarding how the Bush
administration, shortly after assuming office, slowed down FBI
investigations of al-Qaeda and terrorist networks in Afghanistan in order
to deal with the Taliban on oil. This slowdown has been related to the
resignation of FBI Deputy Director John O'Neill, expert in the al-Qaeda
network and in charge of that investigation. O'Neill later took a job as
chief of security at the World Trade Center where he died "helping with
rescue efforts."
And what ever happened to the story in the San Francisco Chronicle
September 29, 2001 about how millions of dollars were made on pre-9-11 put
options on United & American Airlines stocks?
Or what about the October 31 report in the French daily Le Figaro
describing how Osama bin Laden met with a top CIA official while in the
American Hospital in the United Arab Emirates receiving treatment for a
chronic kidney infection last July?
Corporate media today is interlocked and dependent on government sources
for news content. Gone are the days of deep investigative reporting teams
challenging the powerful. Media consolidation has downsized newsrooms to
the point where reporters serve more as stenographers than researchers.
Emerging in the vacuum are hundreds of independent news sources.
Independent newspapers, magazines, websites, radio and TV are becoming more
widely available. Labeled by the corporate as having "questionable
reliability", emerging news sources are building their own audiences
worldwide. For listings and links to independent news sources try
www.indymedia.org. http://globalresearch.ca/,
http://www.projectcensored.org/, http://www.mediachannel.org/,
Peter Phillips is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State
University and director Project Censored a media research group. He can be
reached at peter.phillips@sonoma.edu
Project Censored
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
Tax deductable donations accepted.
http://www.projectcensored.org/contacts/donor.htm
Peter Phillips Ph.D.
Sociology Department/Project Censored
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
707-664-2588
http://www.projectcensored.org/
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