MediaBloodhound

Story of the Day: Media Buries U.S. Complicity in Suharto's Bloody Rule

(updates I and II below - the nightly news Suharto blackout and Amy Goodman's powerhouse Suharto coverage; update III: John Pilger focuses on Britain's key role in supporting Suharto; update IV: mainstream media's Suharto whitewash continues in original NY Times and WaPo articles.)

Suharto, former Indonesian president and brutal dictator, is laid to rest today, the U.S. mainstream media has chosen to bury or ignore outright our government's role in his murderous reign.

Consider the Associated Press 1,441-word article on Suharto's burial, the main story on the subject currently running on the websites of The New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC and CNN, in which one sentence - just 31 words, 30 paragraphs into the report - is allocated to this relationship:

During the Cold War, Suharto was considered a reliable friend of Washington, which did not oppose his violent occupation of Papua in 1969 and the bloody 1974 invasion of East Timor.

ABC News' website is currently running a 736-word Reuters dispatch on the burial, in which no mention exists whatsoever of U.S. complicity in Suharto's bloody rule.

Spoon-fed such revisionist history, in which our government's murderous alliances are ignored or glossed over with clipped and blunted allusions, it's no wonder so many otherwise well-meaning American citizens are unaware of past and present implications of U.S. foreign policy.

Meanwhile, here are some fun facts on the U.S.-Suharto relationship from the East Timor Action Network (via Common Dreams):

The Wounded-Courier: R2-D2 Backs Fellow Robot Mitt Romney

R2-D2, the lovable and limited robot who played C-3PO’s sidekick in the blockbuster Star Wars films, endorsed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney yesterday.

“R2,” as he is known among friends and family (and billions of geeks worldwide), doesn’t speak English, but, through a translator, announced his support in a series of bleeps, tweets, whistles and flashing lights. 

“While much has been made of the historic possibility of Obama being the first black president or Hillary the first woman president,” began R2-D2, “the media has completely overlooked the third historic candidate in this race. Robots might be accepted, even beloved, in movies or on TV, but in everyday American life, they remain second-class citizens, if they’re treated like citizens at all. The first robot in the White House would go a long way to change all that. Mitt Romney is the clear choice for concerned robots across America.”

R2-D2’s backing of Romney came on the same day that movie star Sylvester Stallone officially endorsed Senator John McCain, and the National Association of Newsletter Editors with Convenient Memory Loss  (CML) threw its support behind Ron Paul.

On MSNBC’s Countdown last night, host Keith Olbermann asked Newsweek senior political correspondent Howard Fineman and Air America host Rachel Maddow, “Is the former Massachusetts governor’s embrace of R2-D2’s endorsement just one more example of Romney trying to be all things to all people, so to speak?”

“I don’t think so,” said Fineman. “Romney certainly has a genuine claim to robot voters. In fact, Keith, aside from his Mormonism, this may be the first time in his campaign when he’s not attempting to be someone he isn’t.” Maddow agreed, saying, “I think Mitt Romney is as proud, or more proud, of his robot heritage as he is of his religion. This is who he is and, quite frankly, we in the media should be asking ourselves why it took an endorsement from R2-D2, an out-of-work astromech droid, to get us to focus on this.”

But not everyone in the robot community is happy with R2-D2’s announcement.

Hymie the Robot, famed for his stint on the television series Get Smart and who in some circles has drawn direct comparisons to Mitt Romney in both appearance and bandwidth (which rankles Hymie, a highly assimilated android), says R2-D2’s endorsement is solely based on race and overlooks key issues facing America.

“I’m supporting Obama because he was right on the war, and, yes, I do find him inspiring,” Hymie admitted.

Yet other longtime acquaintances of Hymie, including Twiki from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and the nameless Model B-9 Environmental Control Robot from Lost in Space, note that Hymie has a well-known reputation as a self-hating robot who’ll do anything to distance himself from his roots. 

Following R2-D2’s endorsement, a new Gallup poll suggested Americans are concerned that Romney would be an overly pro-robot president, holding the wishes of his fellow wired countrymen above those who are made of flesh and bone and stuffed pizza.

Romney campaign spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom, however, sought to quell such fears, assuring reporters that “Mitt Romney will be president first, and a Mormon robot second. A Romney presidency will represent all Americans – those with hearts and those with integrated circuits.”

Speaking this morning with Today co-host Matt Lauer (who many in the robot community believe is trying to “pass”), R2-D2, in an interpreted stream of blips, whirs and blinks, admitted a bias in supporting Romney.

“I endorsed Mitt to bring the plight of American robots into our national consciousness. Sure it’s personal. Look, Matt, when I see him up there on the stump, his accent of bloops and bleeps nearly imperceptible, an accomplished and English-speaking robot…well, it makes me kvell a little, I’m not embarrassed to admit.”

R2-D2 had fallen on tough times after not being invited back for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. (It’s little known that throughout the wildly successful film series he was paid mostly in RAM and received zero percent of merchandising profits.) In the July 2005 issue of Cigar Aficionado magazine, “the garbage can with legs,” as Harrison Ford used to call him, revealed that “[George] Lucas used CGI instead of me in the last movie. So it just looked like I was in it. I didn’t even get scale. I f***ing made Lucas and this is how that anti-technite son of a bitch returns the favor. Hey George, I got your force right here.”

Shortly thereafter, R2-D2 found himself back east, working as a repair robot in a body shop in the Bronx, where he remained for over two years before he and a few of the mechanics went in on a winning Powerball ticket with a payday of $10 million. Since then, he has dedicated himself to robot rights, helped his longtime friend C-3PO battle an oil addiction and started dating a Roomba Intelligent Sweeper Vac.

Story of the Day: AP Deserves Credit for Covering MLK Complexity

In honor of Martin Luther King Day last year, I wrote about the mainstream media's reluctance to reflect on anything other than the iconic orator of the "I Have A Dream" speech. Along with many others in alternative media, I pointed to Dr. King's speech "Beyond Vietnam" as an example of the forgotten, inconvenient King: the anti-war humanist who called for a "revolution of values" and excoriated the United States for being "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today"; the moral leader who better than anyone connected the dots in America between food and bullets, poverty and power, reality and propaganda.

So it was pleasantly surprising to see Sunday's Associated Press article "Popular View of King Ignores Complexity." It's one thing for this to pop up in an alternative media outlet, but quite another for it to land on our nation's #1 newswire. (Is this the result of alternative media's efforts, propelled by its growing clout and popularity? Whatever the case, let's just say easy access to all those online articles, posts, videos and transcripts - the democracy of the Internet that Big Telecom seeks to curtail - didn't hurt.)

With the exception of "some say," AP journalist Deepti Hajela frames his piece by expressing, in part, the longtime alternative media view on King's treatment:

But nearly 40 years after his assassination in April 1968, after the deaths of his wife and of others who knew both the man and what he stood for, some say King is facing the same fate that has befallen many a historical figure — being frozen in a moment in time that ignores the full complexity of the man and his message.

Hajela soon delves into the reality usually absent in mainstream media coverage of MLK Day.

At the time of his death, King was working on anti-poverty and anti-war issues. He had spoken out against the Vietnam War in 1967, and was in Memphis in April 1968 in support of striking sanitation workers.

King had come a long way from the crowds who cheered him at the 1963 March on Washington, when he was introduced as "the moral leader of our nation" — and when he pronounced "I have a dream" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

By taking on issues outside segregation, he had lost the support of many newspapers and magazines, and his relationship with the White House had suffered, said Harvard Sitkoff, a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire who has written a recently published book on King.

"He was considered by many to be a pariah," Sitkoff said.

But he took on issues of poverty and militarism because he considered them vital "to make equality something real and not just racial brotherhood but equality in fact," Sitkoff said.

The most salient passage in the article describes one reason (though there are many of course) why it's so crucial for the mainstream media, along with politicians and teachers, to discuss and examine the other sides of King and his message.

That does a disservice to both King and society, said Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University.

By freezing him at that point, by putting him on a pedestal of perfection that doesn't acknowledge his complex views, "it makes it impossible both for us to find to new leaders and for us to aspire to leadership," Harris-Lacewell said.

She believes it's important for Americans in 2008 to remember how disliked King was in 1968.

"If we forget that, then it seems like the only people we can get behind must be popular," Harris-Lacewell said. "Following King meant following the unpopular road, not the popular one." [Emphasis mine.]

King himself echoed this in "Beyond Vietnam," unwittingly foreshadowing his sanitized image:

Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world.

Today, with our mainstream news fully commodified and distilled through a handful of corporations, with our "citizens" long ago having been supplanted by "consumers," our country has moved with ever greater "difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought."

Thus, it should come as no surprise why this Dr. King was boarded up and abandoned: almost 40 years later, this King still threatens the establishment. Meanwhile, members of the same establishment shamelessly continue to co-opt and manipulate his legacy while discarding his uncomfortable truths.

King has "slipped into the realm of symbol that people use and manipulate for their own purposes," [Glenn] McNair [associate professor of history at Kenyon College] said.

Harris-Lacewell said that is something people need to push back against.

"It's not OK to slip into flat memory of who Dr. King was, it does no justice to us and makes him to easy to appropriate," she said. "Every time he gets appropriated, we have to come out and say that's not OK. We do have the ability to speak back."

This article certainly has its flaws. Why not, for example, show us how "by taking on issues outside segregation, he [King] had lost the support of many newspapers and magazines"? This passing detail fails to impart the impact of Time magazine having called his "Beyond Vietnam" speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi" or of the Washington Post having proclaimed "King had diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."

Another glaring omission is the article's failure to mention by name "Beyond Vietnam" or any of King's other more progressive addresses or writings, or to provide links to their transcripts or videos. How can a news story on Martin Luther King - specifically one purporting to spotlight his forgotten legacy - report that "He had spoken out against the Vietnam War in 1967..." but not cite even one major speech in which this occurred?

Yet considering the mainstream media's negligent track record in reporting on Dr. King's legacy, journalist Deepti Hajela and the AP deserve some credit for presenting this story at all, despite its shortcomings. Though the words and deeds of the latter day King should also be reported widely each year, the fact is it's not. So if this is a step in the right direction, I applaud the AP for "following the unpopular road."

Editor's Note: Candid NYC Rental Ads (New Published Fiction)

McSweeney's published "Candid New York City Rental Ads" this past week, a literary humor piece inspired by my recent apartment hunt. It has nothing to do with media, per se. (Though your inner deconstruction monkey might spot a connection.) So thanks in advance for indulging me.

Op-Ed Column: The AP Tried to Go to Rehab, Then It Said No, No, No: Or How AP’s Vow to Increase Coverage of Britney Reveals Its True Nature

The drought of news on Britney Spears, an obscure and underreported pop star, has finally reached a merciful end.

Last week, Gawker obtained a same-day internal memorandum, written by Frank Baker, Associated Press Los Angeles Assistant Bureau Chief, in which he announces, “Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal.”

Of course, since the AP feeds every major news outlet in our country, this means more Britney Spears coverage for all of us. Already demonstrating its dedication to this reportorial call-to-arms, on the day of Baker’s memo alone, the AP covered not only how Ms. Spears had missed her scheduled custody hearing, but, even more pressing, how she lost her car. And just yesterday comes news the AP, two steps ahead of the Grim Reaper, has already prepared Ms. Spears’ obituary. (“Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted” be damned. The AP has opted for the more industrious Boy Scout motto: “Be prepared.")

The rest of Baker’s memo went to say, “That doesn’t mean every rumor makes it on the wire. But it does mean that we want to pay attention to what others are reporting and seek to confirm those stories that WE feel warrant the wire. And when we determine that we’ll write something, we must expedite it. Thanks.”

It’s heartening to know that Baker and the AP won’t send “every rumor” over the wire. Such integrity-driven lines in the sand are surely the last barrier between professional journalism and the fetid, bottom-feeding, brain-dead fare of less serious news outlets.

Kudos, Mr. Baker!

And while the AP and Baker have taken some heat for this move, it’s only fair to point out the AP’s valiant, cold turkey effort to break its addiction to reporting on Paris Hilton, a forgotten weeklong struggle that began on Feb. 19, 2007, at the end of which the newswire king - conjuring images of night sweats and hallucinations of giant babies crawling on ceilings - reported, “We didn’t cover her weekend birthday bash in Las Vegas.” In its battle with the demons of newsworthiness, the AP also noted, “During ‘blackout week,’ the AP didn’t mention Hilton’s second birthday party at a Beverly Hills restaurant, at which a drunken friend reportedly was ejected by security after insulting Paula Abdul and Courtney Love. And editors asked our Puerto Rico bureau not to write about her visit there to hawk her fragrance.”

Imagine the journalistic restraint marshaled here. A second Paris birthday party. A drunk friend sent home. Abdul. Courtney Love. And a new Paris perfume. Still, the AP, like a monk getting a lap dance from Angelina Jolie, wavered not. And certainly it’s this kind of iron will that makes Frank Baker’s current promise not to report on every rumor about Britney something we can put in the bank.

Though, in the end, the monkey on the AP’s back was an unrelenting, pitiless temptress. While the weeklong moratorium was an admirable goal, Paris Hilton, an infinite source of news that impacts all of our lives, proved too strong. Before the week’s end, the AP admitted, “However, her name did slip into copy unintentionally three times, as background: in stories about Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, and even in the lead of a story about Democrats in Las Vegas.”

Nevertheless, this historic journalistic effort – worthy of the industry’s highest accolades - must never be forgotten. For if quitting cigarettes is, as the medical community has noted for years, as difficult as kicking heroin, then the AP’s addiction to Paris and Britney and the infinite pool of talentless, vapid Americans famous for being famous can only be compared to, say, a speedball of cocaine and heroin, or, possibly, the largest hunk of journalistic crack ever smoked in the western hemisphere.

So before throwing stones at the AP’s dedication to broader Britney coverage, maybe it’s time to look at some of our country’s other long-celebrated but comfortable-in-their-own-skin addicts - Keith Richards, Greta Van Susteren, Dean Martin, Larry King, William Burroughs, Nancy Grace, John Bottom, Geraldo Rivera, Jonah Goldberg, Cheech and Chong, Maureen Dowd, Timothy Leary, Bill O'Reilly – and commend the AP for finally embracing William Shakespeare's sage words: “To thine own self be true.”

BREAKING: MSNBC Driving Visitors to Donate to Clinton Campaign

(updated below: including responses from MSNBC executives)

Hillary Clinton's name on MSNBC's Meet the Press homepage (she spoke with Tim Russert yesterday) is currently hyperlinked directly to Clinton's campaign website, where visitors are prominently encouraged to "Drive Hillary's campaign to victory by donating today."

There is no contextual reason for this. The link, for example, is not an allusion to an aspect of her campaign's web presence or fundraising strategies. Rather, it's merely her name in the headline (see "Sen. Hillary Clinton" below, the hyperlink in question, under "Sunday, Jan. 13."):

Specifically, the "Sen. Hillary Clinton" link in the above headline takes you here:

Looking back at appearances of other 2008 presidential candidates, I've found no evidence that any of them has received the same treatment from Meet the Press on MSNBC's website, including her two closest rivals for the nomination, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

So the question remains: Why is MSNBC driving their visitors to contribute to Hillary Clinton's campaign?

Certainly this is a breach of the most basic journalistic ethics or a huge gaffe. Either way, the result is the same.

(Stay tuned...)

UPDATE: Day two. This link remains intake. Keep in mind that according to MSNBC's About section to Advertisers: "On average, msnbc.com delivers well over a billion page views per month to more than 85 million computers." So how many tens or hundreds of thousands of visitors has MSNBC/Meet the Press already driven to Clinton's site, where they are prominently encouraged to donate and support her campaign? Meanwhile, MSNBC is in the middle of appealing a judge's decision yesterday to allow Congressman Kucinich to attend its debate.

How's that for fair and balanced?

UPDATE II: I have since been in contact with Randy Stearns, Deputy Editor, News, for msnbc.com and Jim Ray, a concepts producer at msnbc.com, and am in the process of further inquiring about aspects of this matter. On its face, it does appear that Meet the Press on msnbc.com has given similar treatment to prior candidates on its website. But whether it was exactly the same is difficult to confirm because I am told by Stearns and Ray that those original pages no longer exist. As Mr. Ray explained to me, there is a grid used on the MTP msnbc.com page that swaps out information when updated. Yet while Ray was able to locate what he claims is the original grid (though not the original formatting) for John McCain's appearance, showing his name similarly linked to his campaign website, for some reason, this is the only one to which Ray says he has access. Mr. Stearns sent me the archived links of the candidates' MTP appearances (inexplicably buried on msnbc.com - more on that later), which include a link to each candidate's website (here's an example) but not in the prominent and misleading fashion as the current "Sen. Hillary Clinton" headline link, which causes, as some readers have noted, for visitors to click on her name at the top thinking it will take them to the beginning of the MTP interview rather than her campaign website. In other words, as in the examples of archived candidate interviews sent by Stearns, in which the candidates campaign links are clearly labeled "Candidate site," the link in question, the current Clinton link, is handled in a wholly different manner, both prominent and unlabeled.

Moreover, questions remain, including those pertaining to the necessity of having access to original information (which led me to report on this in the first place and others to come to the same conclusion, i.e., no evidence available at msnbc.com showed otherwise); having clear access to even altered archived information (it's currently buried); and their defense that they have "no control" over what candidates put on their sites (on the surface that might sound logical; contextually, it's not). I sent Mr. Stearns and Mr. Ray follow-up questions and will report back after I receive their replies.

UPDATE III: I sent the following email to Randy Stearns, Deputy Editor, News, for msnbc.com:

Randy, thanks for getting back to me.

I want to post a follow-up/correction, but there are still some questions left unanswered for me.

1) In the comments section, you said, "Mitt Romney, Barak Obama, Ron Paul, John McCain and Mike Huckabee have all been given the same treatment when those candidates appeared on "Meet the Press." As in those cases, the links should not be construed as implying any kind of endorsement of the candidates, nor can "Meet the Press" or msbc.co m control how those candidates organize their sites, (all of which feature fund-raising pitches, of course)."

But if a candidate's campaign is aware it will receive such a link (and it must be), then shouldn't it be obvious that the campaign will make sure its homepage, at least for that time frame, is set up as a de facto donation page? Or, in other cases, that the campaign's regular homepage is heavily weighted for donations, as Clinton's is right now (I'm not sure if her camp altered it for her MTP appearance)?

In either scenario, however, and in this context, isn't MTP/MSNBC.com, for all intents and purposes, wittingly or unwittingly (which is worse?) driving their visitors to de facto donation pages. So your defense claiming to have "no control" over what candidates put on their websites doesn't hold water contextually. If you have no control over what campaigns put up, which I, of course, agree you don't, then wouldn't the more ethical approach be to refrain from linking to their sites in such cases? But you can't have it both ways. You can't link there, claiming ignorance that your visitors will be hit with prominent requests to donate and then turn around and say you have no control over what campaigns put on their websites. Right?

2) By not archiving the original pages as they were, do you understand that your visitors (which included me in this case and others who looked into it) are not given a clear representation as to how MTP on msnbc.com covered past candidate interviews? Shouldn't there be a way to archive the original web representations of those interviews?

3) Also, why are the current web representations of those interviews, in which candidates' websites are linked, buried on your website? (Note: I'm not suggesting it's done maliciously; this is simply a question of usability and allowing your visitors clear access to original information.)

Again, thanks for your time in addressing these questions.

Sincerely,
Brad Jacobson

--
MediaBloodhound
http://mediabloodhound.com

Here is the email response I received from Mr. Stearns:

You make some fair points that we will take into consideration and share w/ our colleagues at Meet the Press.

OK, not the most in-depth response. But if this inquiry actually spurs msnbc.com to provide clearer information to visitors on its Meet the Press page, I welcome the brevity.

I also sent an email to Jim Ray, a concepts producer at msnbc.com, with whom I'd also corresponded in the comments section here. Mr. Ray took a decidedly more loquacious approach (my questions in black; his responses in blue):

Dear Mr. Ray,

I want to post a follow-up/correction, but there are still some questions left unanswered for me.

1) In the comments section you said: "Oh, also, I wanted to say that you bring up an excellent point about the fact that the text is completely lacking in context - I wouldn't necessarily expect a candidate's name to link directly to her campaign site. I'll work on getting that fixed."

As a "concepts producer at msnbc.com, which hosts content for Meet the Press," why wouldn't you "expect a candidate's name to link directly to her campaign site," to such a degree that you said you'd "work on getting that fixed"? Initially, you seemed as surprised as I was about this. As someone who hosts MTP on msnbc.com, isn't that kind of your domain? Or am I totally missing something?

>> Let me clarify exactly what it is that I do at msnbc.com – my title is “editorial concepts producer,” which is sort of a think-tank kind of a role. While I used to be very involved in content and production, I now deal almost solely with conceptual design,particularly as it relates to news. So, while I have access to to our CMS, it’s very much not my job to deal with the day to day production of the site. I brought up the issue with the MTP folks, who are ultimately responsible for the content of that page. I point this out not because I want to absolve myself of any blame, simply by way of explanation.

2) I understand your grid explanation. But by not archiving the original pages as they were, do you understand that your visitors (which included me in this case and others who looked into it) are not given a clear representation as to how MTP on msnbc.com covered past candidate interviews? Even with the grid explanation, shouldn't there be a way to archive the original web representations of those interviews? Also, why are the current web representations of those interviews, in which candidates' websites are linked, buried on your website? (Note: I'm not suggesting it's done maliciously; this is simply a question of usability and allowing your visitors clear access to original information.)

>> I really don’t have a good answer for you. We’re a news organization, the content of our cover and fronts is meant to reflect the news as it happens, not serve as a definitive archive of events. You may disagree with this approach, that’s certainly your right, but we frankly don’t have the resources to maintain an archive of every front every time they change. The point of that space is to act as a promotion to the actual archived content, in the form or written stories, multimedia pieces or video.

3) Finally, on the issue of links to homepages in which donation requests are prominent, you said, "As has been stated by myself and several colleagues at this point, we are linking to the candidate homepage, not directly to a donation page or in any way encouraging readers to donate to candidates. We tend to think that our readers are actually smart enough to figure out that you don't have to click on the 'donate' button just to get information." Prior to that you also note: "Clinton, like every presidential candidate running right now, has a rather prominent 'donate here' image on her homepage, presumably to encourage supporters to donate to her campaign. This doesn't mean that Meet the Press or msnbc.com is encouraging our readers to donate to the Clinton campaign, we're simply linking to her official site. As best I can figure, a link is by no means an endorsement, nor should it be implied as such."

But if a candidate's campaign either requests a link prior to appearing on MTP or is aware that they will receive such a link without requesting it, then shouldn't it be obvious that the campaign will make sure its homepage, at least for that time frame (i.e. see McCain link in your grid example and then go to his current homepage) is set up as a de facto donation page? Or in other cases, it might just be that the campaign's regular homepage is heavily weighted to donate, as Clinton's is right now (I'm not sure if her camp altered it for her MTP appearance).

>> First of all, no candidate has ever requested a link to their homepage that I’m aware of and we are not in the business of granting such requests even if they did. Very simply, we link to candidate sites as a way to provide more information to our readers, in much the same way that we would link to a corporate homepage in a story about that company. As I’ve said, a link is not an endorsement of any kind.

In either scenario, however, and in this context, isn't MTP/MSNBC.com, for all intents and purposes, wittingly or unwittingly (which is worse?) driving their visitors to de facto donation pages. So a defense claiming to have "no control" over what candidates put on their websites doesn't hold water contextually. If you guys have no control over what campaigns put up, which I, of course, agree you don't, then wouldn't the more ethical approach be to not link to their sites in such cases? You can't have it both ways; you can't link there, claiming ignorance that your visitors will be hit with prominent requests to donate and then turn around and say you have no control over what campaigns put on their websites. Right?

>> I think I’ve been clear that I disagree with your basic premise here. Forgive me, Brad, but you seem to be implying some level of collusion that, frankly, has never existed and is borderline conspiratorial. Yes, we do link to every candidate’s homepage at various places on the site – in our candidate comparison matrices, multimedia packages, candidate profiles. Yes, most candidates have donation links prominent on those homepages. Should we simply not link to their official site because a candidate is asking for donations? Is that serving our readers?

Not so long ago, media watchdog bloggers were accusing “big media” of “not getting it” because many mainstream media sites refused to link offsite. You seem to be saying that by linking to the official campaign site that we’re somehow intentionally confusing our readers. Perhaps I’ve just grossly misunderstood your argument, but I fail to see how linking offsite to a page that is clearly not affiliated with MSNBC is an ethical breach. You’ve also set up something of a false dichotomy with your question about wanting to have it both ways – we’re not “claiming ignorance” about the fact that candidates put donations links on their homepages, we’re saying that linking to a candidate’s official site isn’t a tacit endorsement and is by no means an encouragement to donate to a campaign. If we had such powerful means of persuasion, I guarantee you that our advertisements would be far more lucrative.

Furthermore, your original post headline continues to be grossly misleading. No page on msnbc.com encourages any reader to donate to any campaign. When you land on the campaign website, you still have to click through to yet another page to donate, something that we are unable to force our users to do (I hear that Microsoft is working on that technology though [joke. Ha.]). Here’s a hypothetical for you: let’s say a story on msnbc.com linked to a weblog about political media bloggers and on that page was a link to, oh, I don’t know, mediabloodhounds.com and on that page is a button that says “this is a one-man operation that could really use your donations” with a “make a donation” button. Would you consider that link to be an endorsement from msnbc.com? Would you run the headline “MSNBC driving visitors to donate to media watchdog group” ? I should hope not.

At this point, I’m afraid that we’re going to have to agree to disagree about this particular matter. You clearly feel that we have crossed some ethical line in the sand, my colleagues and I clearly disagree. I appreciate your attention to this matter and would really appreciate that you clarify to your readers that we are not in the business of supporting particular political candidates or encouraging our readers to donate to political campaigns. Also, I’d really appreciate if you’d turn your watchful eye to other media organizations that have the temerity to link to official candidate homepages, such as the nation’s paper of record, here: http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/candidates/index.html

Best,

Jim

Yes, I guess Mr. Ray and I will have to agree to disagree, though not because he has sufficiently addressed my concerns. Mr. Stearns, in one sentence, did a better job of that. Ray's assertion that "You clearly feel we have crossed some ethical line in the sand, my colleagues and I clearly disagree" not only misrepresents what contextually is irksome about the Clinton link (and any others like it in the past that may have existed at one time), but also, in light of Stearns' response, Ray's colleagues don't necessarily "clearly disagree." In fact, to reiterate, Stearns said, "You make some fair points that we will take into consideration and share w/our colleagues at Meet the Press."

Stearns appears to grasp what I'm getting at - not that I'm either claiming MSNBC is specifically telling its visitors in clear directional links and text to "Donate to Hillary" or to another candidate, or that I'm asserting no candidate's link should appear on MSNBC. That's just silly. Rather, as is, in the context of the information provided - an unlabeled hyperlinked candidate's name in a Meet the Press headline - is misleadingly driving visitors to a de facto donation page. That is inarguable.

You say, "Very simply, we link to candidate sites as a way to provide more information to our readers, in much the same way that we would link to a corporate homepage in a story about that company." But my point is that the link in question - I'm not referring to those in msnbc.com's "candidate comparison, matrices, multimedia packages, candidate profiles," etc. - is not linked in a way a corporate homepage might be in a story about a company. "Sen. Hillary Clinton," the link in question, is part of the headline. It is not text in the story (or, in this case, interview) or labeled as her campaign site. A headline implies the story at hand. This is why at least some visitors clicked on that thinking it would anchor link them down to the beginning of the interview. It is misleading. And I am calling out the result of misleading your visitors in this particular case. Whether it was intentional or not - what Mr. Ray can't seem to get beyond in his somewhat overly defensive stance - is really beside the point. Whatever the case, the result is the same.   

Stearns also seems to understand that this whole matter, the inspiration for my inquiry, also comes down to the accessibility of information. If I, and others, were able to access on msnbc.com examples of prior candidates being treated in the exact same way, I would've at least been able to confirm that other candidates were linked as such in the past. Though I would've still maintained that such linking - in this particular context - is misleading, it wouldn't have appeared as inequitable as it initially did.

The Wounded-Courier: Obama Calls Kerry Endorsement A Cheap Shot

Less than 48 hours after suffering an upset in New Hampshire, Barack Obama was dealt another serious setback when Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) endorsed his candidacy for president yesterday.

Without warning, Senator Kerry - who ran a masterfully inept 2004 presidential campaign, stewarded by Bob Shrum, The Worst Campaign Manager on the Face of God’s Green Earth™ (as stated on his business card) - blindsided the charismatic Obama in South Carolina. As Mr. Obama addressed a cheering crowd in Charleston, Kerry broke through security and took the stage. With what Senator Obama would later describe as “a mixture of deference and horror,” he initially played along, allowing the battle-worn Massachusetts senator to present his prepared speech.

“I’m John Kerry and I am reporting to duty…to tell you, the audience, on this day, Thursday, January 10, 2007, that I, John Kerry, have decided to support Barack Hussein Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, in his quest to become the next president of these United States of America,” Mr. Kerry began. “I know Barack Obama,” he continued, as Mr. Obama turned to the crowd and shook his head, mouthing the words, “No, he doesn’t.” “History gives us moments, my friends, such as when I decided to take a stand against contesting a fraudulent election at a time when our country needed me most, when our citizens cried for accountability and mourned the inevitable tragic and bloody prospect of four more years under the Bush administration. I believe this moment is the moment we should make Barack Obama president of the United States. I know our country needs this leader to take us forward in the coming years, to build a new way to a better future and to reinvigorate the ideas bestowed upon us by our Founding Fathers, those wise men who, like me, today, embraced hope, the hope in people and places and things, the hope in the universe surrounding us, hope in the starry sky aloft at night as we lay in reverie, dreaming of the glory of hope beyond every hill and mountaintop, into every hamlet and haberdashery. And, of course, change. I believe, my friends, that we need change that revolutionizes. I believe we need a change that changes the way we ponder the meaning of change, a change that changes the earth beneath us in heretofore unforeseen, unimaginable and immeasurable ways….”

Forty minutes later, someone in Obama’s camp signaled security, who, to the relief of the stunned, long-silenced crowd, led Mr. Kerry off the dais. Not quite finished, Senator Kerry did put up a struggle as he neared the exits, crying out, “Excuse me, sir, but please remove your mitts from my lapels! I did nothing untoward to you, sir, nothing that warrants your creasing my suit’s sleeve! May I ask what you’re doing with that particular instrument?! I should forewarn you, my good man, not to apply that taser to my being! I believe that would be a rather ill-conceived act on your part should you decide to tase me, bromide…” At which point Mr. Kerry was tased.

The crowd erupted in applause, concluding the rally. U2’s “Beautiful Day” boomed from the loudspeakers as Mr. Obama waded through a sea of shaken admirers, pumping hands and apologizing for Kerry’s endorsement and hijacking of the event.

Having yet to schedule a campaign stop in South Carolina, rival candidate Senator Hillary Clinton broke down when she heard news of Kerry’s endorsement of Obama.

“Wow,” Clinton said, beaming, tears streaming down her cheeks as she met with reporters outside her Chappaqua, N.Y., home. “You know, I work hard every day. I go out there and try to do the right thing for America. I listen to people. But sometimes, sometimes things are out of your control. Those little blessings you don’t expect but receive in return for all of that work.” Clinton added, “I’d just like to thank Senator Kerry for once again serving his country.”

At a fair in Columbia, S.C., Senator John Edwards, before biting into a mustard-drenched corndog, said, “Elizabeth and I just want to send our deepest condolences to Barack Obama and his family for this tragic turn of events. I speak from experience when I say that Barack did nothing - nothing - to deserve this. It’s one thing to attack a candidate’s record, but quite another to defame someone’s character as Senator Kerry did to Mr. Obama today. My heart goes out to him and his former supporters.”

“Senator Obama thought the endorsement was a bit of a cheap shot,” Obama’s campaign spokesperson Bill Burton explained. “But Mr. Obama has nothing personal against Senator Kerry. It’s just politics. Our reaction was no different from the tactics Mr. Kerry applied in the jungles of Vietnam. If you’re getting hit, you have to hit back. We learned our lesson in New Hampshire.”

Pundits differed over the fallout from Kerry’s endorsement.

Speaking with Joe Scarborough on MSNBC, commentator Pat Buchanan said, “Look, I think Kerry’s sneak attack in endorsing Obama was a test for the junior senator from Illinois. I think Obama did the right thing. He showed he’s got that fire in the belly. Obama passed the test. With the way he handled it there in the end, I don’t think Kerry’s endorsement will have a lasting effect the way some are predicting.”

Yet only hours after Kerry’s endorsement, MSNBC projected Hillary Clinton the winner of South Carolina, which is scheduled to hold its primary on January 26. “You don’t have to be Nostradamus here, folks,” Chris Matthews asserted. “Hillary’s a lock for South Carolina now and most likely the nomination.” Matthews added, “Hey, tell Brokaw to suck it.”

But maybe the most dire assessment occurred on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, where Gary Hart, former Colorado senator and one-time Democratic presidential hopeful, declared John Kerry’s endorsement “worse than seventeen Donna Rices sitting on Obama’s lap on a luxury yacht called ‘Monkey Business.’”

Op-Ed Column: Advocating for a Revolution in News

advocacy journalism: journalism that advocates a cause or expresses a viewpoint (Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary)

Another year. Another annual Doctors Without Borders "Top Ten Underreported Humanitarian Stories."

Coverage of such stories by alternative media sources and independent journalists is often labeled "advocacy journalism” by the mainstream media. But if mainstream outlets were doing their job, it might just be called "news."

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman is often identified as an advocacy journalist. But Goodman's reaction to this categorization crystallizes how the term is used to marginalize stories – as well as the journalists and outlets who report them - that don't support the prevailing views of corporate-owned media or the state. Says Goodman, "I am accused of advocacy journalism. If that is true, then the mainstream media is my model."

In other words, why should reporting on uncomfortable, underreported, fact-based stories be framed as advocacy journalism while mainstream reporters and their outlets regularly produce news stories that advocate the worldview of media-owned conglomerations, their corporate sponsors and their friends in government.

The run-up to the war in Iraq, of course, served as a prime example of this advocacy journalism. As Goodman has shrewdly questioned, “If we had a state-run media, how would it be any different?" Indeed, our mainstream media advocated daily for the Bush administration's view: pre-emptive war with Iraq was justified on the flimsiest of evidence, against a country that never attacked us.

As Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote in his revealing (and, in alternative media circles, now infamous) 2004 op-ed “Red Flags and Regrets”:

“In a sense, the media were victims of their own professionalism. Because there was little criticism of the war from prominent Democrats and foreign policy analysts, journalistic rules meant we shouldn't create a debate on our own. And because major news organizations knew the war was coming, we spent a lot of energy in the last three months before the war preparing to cover it -- arranging for reporters to be embedded with military units, purchasing chemical and biological weapons gear and setting up forward command posts in Kuwait that mirrored those of the U.S. military."

Their craven acquiescence to the war's inevitability and their equally disgraceful exuberant embrace of the TV generals’ war-gaming, epitomizes a kind of advocacy journalism, steeped in bias and oblivious to facts, that has no place in journalism at all. Moreover, because it purports to be “serious news” - the official word from the most trusted outlets – it’s all the more damaging. And, in the end, all the more damnable.

In his article “Corporate Media and Advocacy Journalism,” Norman Solomon, a media critic well-versed on this issue, says, “We’re encouraged to see high-quality journalism as dispassionate, so that professionals do their jobs without advocating. But passive acceptance of murderous priorities in our midst is a form of de facto advocacy. It’s advocacy of the most convincing sort -- by example.”

Nevertheless, in typical Orwellian fashion, it’s this type of “journalism,” one pushing a point of view regardless of the facts, of which the media elites accuse skilled (not to mention brave and principled) journalists like Goodman.

But if a journalist is advocating for the facts - for the relevant and accurate application of historical context, for logic and science over fear and jingoism, for vetting assertions of the government and big business and holding them accountable when they break the law - is that not advocacy for what should be the guiding journalistic principles in any democratic society?

How did it ever come to pass that this is the marginalized version of journalism in our country, while the version presented by Fox News and other more subtle (to varying degrees) yet also complicit members of the media class - from “respected” circles such as The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, NPR, PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC – is not considered advocacy journalism for the elite corporate-imperialistic interests of those who fund it?

As fake news journalist Stephen Colbert said in an interview in 2005, "When Dick Cheney says, 'I never said that,' and then we play the tape, why did we do it? Why wasn't it done broadly? Because he wasn't speaking about something inconsequential. It wasn't like we were playing gotcha journalism over some quibble. It was over weapons of mass destruction. That's not advocacy journalism. That's objectivity in its most raw form."

Conversely, the journalists in our mainstream media who advocated omitting, altering, ignoring or inventing “facts” in their efforts to champion the Bush White House's war, as well as the shredding of our Constitution and civil liberties, presented not even a form of advocacy journalism that might be subjective yet fact-based (i.e. potentially viable), but rather corporate-and-state-sponsored propaganda. Nearly 100 percent unadulterated.

Meanwhile, with all-consuming, ever-intrusive, pathological obsession, mainstream media outlets bombard us daily with coverage of the pop or movie star du jour’s rise and fall, the latest missing Caucasian female or newest serial killer on the scene. Go ahead and try to tune out every news item about Britney & Co. These days, in order to avoid glimpsing or overhearing tidbits of this bottom-feeding sludge called “news,” U.S. citizens would have to almost completely disengage with society at large. It is our daily muck. And like it or not, it still takes up space by omission in our national consciousness. 

For every story of Britney and Co.’s latest escapade, millions of human beings truly deserving of news coverage are abandoned in the darkness, destroyed by tyranny and neglect. Alone. Starving. Tortured. Raped. Murdered. Displaced. Silenced.

Of course, daily coverage of Britney and Co. serves as a masterfully distracting counterpart – aka “weapons of mass distraction” - to the hawkish, corporate-slanted news. In the process of squeezing time that might otherwise be used to disseminate substantive information, this daily muck dulls critical faculties and squelches empathy, isolating us not only from our own citizens and fellow human beings around the globe, but from reality itself.

Let’s be blunt here: it is a preemptive attack against natural human impulses to reverse injustice and to block the hand of a bully before it strikes another innocent victim. The very opposite approach of the journalistic credo to “comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.”

In Amy Goodman’s interview with Doctors Without Borders-USA executive director Nicolas de Torrente, she noted, “You’re talking about some of the worst crises in the world. And according to Andrew Tyndall, publisher of the online media tracking journal, the Tyndall Report, the countries in context that you highlight at Medecins Sans Frontieres [Doctors Without Borders] account for just eighteen minutes of coverage from January to November 2007 on the three major nightly newscasts.”

That’s roughly 1.6 minutes a month.

Keep in mind this occurred during the same year that after Anna Nicole Smith died, as Jon Stewart (yes, another fake newsman) pointed out on The Daily Show, “The media unleashed a full-scale coverage orgy, with CNN at one point going 90 minutes without a commercial, making the death of Anna Nicole Smith a more significant news event than a State of the Union address and slightly less than 9/11.”

So when the next war comes down the pike, events will once again move with an inexorable sweep. Too many of our citizens simply don’t have the tools to assess the situation: to cut through propaganda, read between the lines, ask necessary questions, contact their representatives, and stand up for their rights and the rights of people abroad. Too many of our citizens no longer understand what it means to be a citizen. And while, of course, free will (a concept often manipulated in defense of our national media’s diseased fare) does exist, free will is inarguably dependent upon the quality of knowledge one receives and is capable of comprehending. 

For the relatively ghettoized segment of our society that does stay abreast of domestic and world events, that actively fights to circumvent or break through the onslaught of received corporate-imperialistic wisdom and numbing relentless banality, the brake lines, nevertheless - as was the case with Iraq - have often already been cut. Or as Bob Dylan once said, "The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles." (Maybe we can avoid war with Iran; though new opportunities await.)

So, at that point, the best we can hope for is the smoothest of crashes, the least bloody and tragic of aftermaths.

Make no mistake about it: American citizens, and the rest of the world often more so, suffer as a direct consequence of the mainstream media’s complicit hand in this entrenched pathological cycle. The assertion that our news outlets wouldn’t have been able to stop the administration from going to war even if they had asked the right questions - another excuse used to defend the status quo of the media elite - is akin to a drug pusher saying of his client’s OD, “Well, you know, if it wasn’t me he got the stuff from, it would’ve been someone else.”

Certainly we, and the rest of the world, deserve better than a drug pusher mentality from our national news outlets. And if the stories on the Doctors Without Borders list constitute “advocacy journalism,” then maybe nothing better illustrates how crucial a need there is to advocate for a revolution in the quality of our news. 

Editor’s Note: I would be remiss not to direct you once again to read about each story in the Doctors Without Borders report. And feel free to contact the editors and owners of our big media outlets to demand they do a better job in 2008.

(Cross-posted at Larisa Alexandrovna's at-Largely.)

Story of the Day: Distinguished Journalist Slams NBC's Censorship

(updated below)

Kudos to veteran journalist and erstwhile Dateline reporter John Hockenberry:

A former "Dateline NBC" correspondent claims that in the aftermath of September 11, the network diverted him from reporting on al Qaeda and instead wanted him to ride along with the country's "forgotten heroes," firefighters.

John Hockenberry, who was laid off from "Dateline" in early 2005, wrote in this month's Technology Review that on the Sunday after the September 2001 attacks he was pitching stories on the origins of al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism. He claimed that then-NBC programming chief Jeff Zucker, who came into a meeting Hockenberry was having with "Dateline" executive producer David Corvo, said "Dateline" should instead focus on the firefighters and perhaps ride along with them a la "Cops," the Fox reality series.

According to Hockenberry, Zucker said "that he had no time for any subtitled interviews with jihadists raging about Palestine."

NBC's defensive, nasty response to Hockenberry's accusations is somewhat surprising. Usually an effortless "no comment" suffices, with the implicit assurance that such claims will disappear down the memory hole. Moreover, keep in mind that Mr. Hockenberry is no journeyman hack, but rather a highly decorated veteran journalist - a recipient of four Emmy awards, three Peabody Awards and an Edward R. Murrow award, among other accolades, and is currently a distinguished fellow at the MIT Media Lab.

Nevertheless, NBC speaks of its former award-winning reporter as if he's suddenly a card-carrying member of the tinfoil hat crowd:

"It's unfortunate that John Hockenberry seems to be so far out of touch with reality," an NBC spokesperson said. "The comments are so utterly absurd, we will have no further comment." Another NBC executive said it didn't sound like Zucker, who was promoted out of the news division and was at one time "Today" executive producer.

Yes, after decades of mainstream respectability, John Hockenberry, having called out one of our big media outlets for some of the reprehensible censorship and jingoism of the last seven years, is now loony as a tune. Please.

Here are further "out of touch" assertions by Hockenberry:

Another bombshell is Hockenberry's claims that General Electric, NBC's parent company, discouraged him from talking to the Bin Laden family about their estranged family member. Hockenberry asked GE, which does business with the Bin Laden family company, to help him get in contact with them. Instead, a PR executive called Hockenberry's hotel room in Saudi Arabia and read a statement about how GE didn't see its "valuable business relationship" with the Bin Laden Group as having anything to do with "Dateline."

In another instance, Hockenberry claimed a story he did about a Weather Underground member wouldn't appear on the Sunday edition of "Dateline" unless its lead-out, the 1960s family drama "American Dreams," did a show about "protesters or something." And for another story on the abuse of mentally ill inmates, Hockenberry was told by a producer that video of a fatal attack on a prisoner by guards wasn't enough.

The only thing unbelievable about these claims is that more mainstream journalists - those who genuinely respect their profession and its central role in any healthy democracy, who are disgusted by big media's complicity in the Bush White House's unprecedented executive branch criminality - have not stepped forward like Mr. Hockenberry.

Each time big media outlets respond to warranted criticism with such glib condescension, as though the reporting of news still operates in a pre-Internet vacuum, they accelerate their hemorrhaging audience shares and further degrade their already tattered reputations.

Finally, putting aside the reporting of news, per se, for just a moment, aren't corporations supposed to at least excel at PR? Who does that anonymous NBC spokesperson think he or she is benefiting with such a belligerent response (aside from, of course, the growing forces in alternative media)?

Note to NBC news executives: it's 2008, not 1998. It's time to act accordingly.

Cross-posted at Larisa Alexandrovna's at-Largely.

UPDATE: Hockenberry's piece in Technology Review (excerpts of which served as the basis for the Reuters report cited above) is a keenly observed insider's view of the entrenched, myopic, self-defeating stupidity in network news. You have to wonder if that anonymous NBC spokesperson took the time to read Hockenberry's article before making his or her embarrassing statement. My guess is no. Regardless, Hockenberry's skills as a journalist of substance and integrity - not to mention unimpeachable credibility - are in full display. In contrast, NBC's petty, baseless response only further supports Hockenberry's analysis.

I implore you to read in full Hockenberry's "You Don't Understand Our Audience: What I Learned About Network Television at Dateline NBC."

Here's the unforgettable anecdote from which that title derives:

To get airtime, not only did serious news have to audition against the travails of Diana or a new book by Dr. Phil, but it also had to satisfy bizarre conditions. In 2003, one of our producers obtained from a trial lawyer in Connecticut video footage of guards subduing a mentally ill prisoner. Guards themselves took the footage as part of a safety program to ensure that deadly force was avoided and abuses were documented for official review. We saw guards haul the prisoner down a greenish corridor, then heard hysterical screaming as the guard shooting the video dispassionately announced, "The prisoner is resisting." For 90 seconds several guards pressed the inmate into a bunk. All that could be seen of him was his feet. By the end of the video the inmate was motionless. Asphyxiation would be the official cause of death.

This kind of gruesome video was rare. We also had footage of raw and moving interviews with this and another victim's relatives. The story had the added relevance that one of the state prison officials had been hired as a consultant to the prison authority in Iraq as the Abu Ghraib debacle was unfolding. There didn't seem to be much doubt about either the newsworthiness or the topicality of the story. Yet at the conclusion of the screening, the senior producer shook his head as though the story had missed the mark widely. "These inmates aren't necessarily sympathetic to our audience," he said. The fact that they had been diagnosed with schizophrenia was unimportant. Worse, he said that as he watched the video of the dying inmate, it didn't seem as if anything was wrong.

"Except that the inmate died," I offered.

"But that's not what it looks like. All you can see is his feet."

"With all those guards on top of him."

"Sure, but he just looks like he's being restrained."

"But," I pleaded, "the man died. That's just a fact. The prison guards shot this footage, and I don't think their idea was to get it on Dateline."

"Look," the producer said sharply, "in an era when most of our audience has seen the Rodney King video, where you can clearly see someone being beaten, this just doesn't hold up."

"Rodney King wasn't a prisoner," I appealed. "He didn't die, and this mentally ill inmate is not auditioning to be the next Rodney King. These are the actual pictures of his death."

"You don't understand our audience."

"I'm not trying to understand our audience," I said. I was getting pretty heated at this point--always a bad idea. "I'm doing a story on the abuse of mentally ill inmates in Connecticut."

"You don't get it," he said, shaking his head.

The story aired many months later, at less than its original length, between stories that apparently reflected a better understanding of the audience. During my time at Dateline, I did plenty of stories that led the broadcast and many full hours that were heavily promoted on the network. But few if any of my stories were more tragic, or more significant in news value, than this investigation into the Connecticut prison system.