Escobar has written in detail on the continuing conflict in Iraq and has been a continued source of unsanitized reality on the subject. In 2005, while many in the Irish media worshiped at the feet of U.S. imposed ‘democracy’ in Iraq -- ‘Poll success eclipses past blunders for U.S.’ (Conor O’Clery, The Irish Times, February 1 2005) -- Escobar pointed out the absurdity of what was happening: ‘History will salute it in kind: the US administration of George W Bush, parts 1 and 2, has introduced to the world the concept of election at gunpoint.’
Pepe Escobar is also author of the highly recommended ‘Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving Into Liquid War’, and most recently, ‘Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge’.
- PE -- Pepe Escobar,
- MB -- MediaBite, David Manning and Miriam Cotton
MB -- In your opinion where does the major pressure influencing journalism come from? E.g. ownership, time and space restrictions, ideology, concepts of balance and impartiality, corporate pressures, PR agencies etc. And how does it manifest itself?
PE -- Journalism is tremendously influenced by all these factors -- and, to the detriment of independently minded journalists, they tend to overlap.
Ownership -- Corporations, as we all know, rule most of the world’s media. Investigative journalism is the antithesis of shady mega-profits or corridors of power mega-deals. When ultra right-wing Murdochs and Berlusconis proliferate, there’s not much space left for critical thinking. The same goes in the developing world -- from the Edwards family in Chile (who supported Pinochet) to the Marinho family in Brazil (who supported the military dictatorship). I have friends in some of Europe’s big papers in an utter state of despair -- facing relentless tabloidization, some even refuse to write and just stick to sub-editing agency copy.
Time and space -- “Efficient” journalism now means a newsroom filled with young people, still inexperienced, loaded with multitasking, facing merciless deadlines, working sometimes 12 or 14 hours a day, and on top of it getting meager salaries. Under these circumstances there’s no room for critical thinking, for researching and investing in a story long-term, for escaping what the French call “la pensée unique”. In TV newsrooms journalists are overwhelmingly reduced to cut and pasting feed from Associated Press or Reuters and adding a vapid voice over. Exceptions at the top of the food chain are some “clean” faces promoted by corporate management to star anchor status: the clearest example is “glamorous” poster boy Anderson Cooper at CNN, the butt of endless jokes among hardcore journos everywhere.
Ideology -- This is essentially tied up with corporate pressure. Corporate ideology, except in very few cases, has nothing to do with social justice -- as any reader of the U.S. mainstream press will attest. Time Warner or News Corporation will never sacrifice their privileged ties with branches of the U.S. government to break a major story. The best example is the blitzkrieg before the war on Iraq; some writers and editors knew the Bush administration was lying all along, but the New York Times, for instance, preferred to print crap provided by Ahmad Chalabi to Judith Miller on the front page virtually every day. When I was a foreign correspondent for a major national paper, every time I met the owner he was more interested in checking the Dow Jones index every five minutes than asking about what was going on in the world.
Balance and impartiality -- Take a simple test: the Western coverage of the Iran – U.S. nuclear row. Take virtually any copy by Associated Press or Reuters -- translated and printed verbatim by all the major papers in the world. The premise is always that Iran is lying and the U.S. is just trying to get to the “truth”. Whatever is dished out by the White House, State Dept. or Pentagon is treated with reverence. Whatever comes from Iran is a “threat”.
There’s virtually no balance and impartiality whenever corporate Western media treats contentious issues regarding the developing world. It’s an “us and them” mentality -- not to mention a superiority complex -- inbuilt in the copy itself, if not by the reporter certainly by his/her editor. During the Asian financial crisis in 1997 I remember thick American reporters with no understanding of Asia whatsoever crucifying then Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad like he was the Anti-Christ -- after all he dared to defy the Washington Consensus. Mahathir in the end turned out to be right -- but the Western corporate press never admitted it.
MB -- Hugo Chavez is a divisive character, sustaining almost constant criticism from certain Western powers. The recent defeat of his proposal to, among many other things, abolish presidential term limits, a move that would probably be welcomed by the U.S. in Columbia, is already being framed as a defeat of dictatorship as opposed a success of democratic process, how can readers and media activists challenge this biased framing?
We don’t intend to say that a defeat for Chavez was necessarily a ‘success of democratic process’, but that it simply evidences the continued success of the process there and ridicules the cries of ‘dictatorship’. Unfortunately, if Chavez had won, the cries would no doubt be louder.
PE -- Chavez is the perfect bogeyman for Western neo-liberal -- or neo-con -- elites and for their comprador classes in the developing world. He wants steady progress towards a socialist system -- a real Third Way (not the Blair variety). And he is a mestizo -- we must never underestimate the racism factor when white elites have to deal with supposedly “inferior” natives. There were no less than 69 proposals at the recent referendum, but the right and the extreme right, in Venezuela and in the West, zeroed in on him taking power for eternity. The result of the referendum, according to some sharp Venezuelan analysts, turned out to be a blessing; it was indeed a victory for democracy, and Chavez once again proved he was a true democrat (compare with U.S. supported Middle East dictators or autocrats; citizens in these countries have done it, and no wonder “Chavez of Arabia” enjoys tremendous street credibility).
The reaction of mainstream/corporate media everywhere, from South to North America and Europe, was muted -- graphically enhancing the double standards. Since Chavez had lost, and gracefully accepted the result, he could not be damned as a dictator. But if he had won, dictator he would be, for life. What people can do to offset this kind of prejudice is to get informed. For instance, the website Venezuela Analysis, in English, offers a wealth of info on all aspects of the Bolivarian revolution, and it is duly critical when necessary.
MB -- One of the interesting things you wrote in your latest piece, ‘Beat the (Red) Devil’, was that the majority of students in Venezuela support Chavez. This is not something that comes across in the mainstream media, where the anti-Chavez student demonstrations are wielded as evidence of the ‘intellectual left’s’ disdain for the ‘populist’ and certainly the fact they receive substantial support from the U.S. is rarely if ever mentioned. This is particularly ironic when you consider the reception similar student protests would no doubt receive in the U.S. Is it that the pro-Chavez students are not vocal, or that the media is simply not vocal in reporting their existence?
PE -- The way Western mainstream/corporate media played up student protests in Venezuela looked like the whole university establishment was anti-Chavez. It was impossible to read anywhere that these students came from elite, private universities, were more interested in fleeing the country after graduation to snatch a MBA in the U.S., and were a minority. The majority studies in public schools, and they are chavistas with widely varied degrees of fervor. As for the intellectual left’s disdain for Chavez as a “populist”, this is a phenomenon observed all over South America. For Brazilian intellectuals who consider themselves social-democrats -- starting with former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a close friend of Tony Blair’s -- Chavez is nothing but a populist. Comprador elites in South America reason in block: whenever a charismatic politician strives for social justice, he’s derided as a “populist”. Wealth redistribution is the utmost nightmare of arrogant, corrupt, predatory South American elites.
MB -- More generally, why is the Western media so interested in ‘Hugo Chavez’? Are there not more immediate concerns in Latin America?
PE -- We come back to the “perfect bogeyman” theme -- the ideal successor to El Comandante Fidel, former favorite Latin American Cold War bogeyman. The menu in the Middle East is much more diversified -- we have had everyone and his neighbor playing the role, from Khadafi to Arafat to Saddam. Coverage of Latin America by English-speaking media is in most cases abysmal. In the U.S. is minimalist. In Britain it’s basically disasters or deforestation of the Amazon. France, Spain or Italy dedicates more space to Latin America -- but in many cases with an unbearable paternalistic strain, as in Spain. France offers a little more insight -- but in the case of Chavez and Morales in Bolivia, for instance, it’s as if one’s reading a White House or State Dept. press release. There are endless crucial concerns in Latin America -- but they don’t register, especially for hegemonic English-language media. There’s a language barrier -- and there’s a lack of knowledgeable correspondents working on site. The BBC coverage of Latin America is pitiful -- considering their resources. CNN in Spanish makes you want to shoot every talking head on screen.
MB -- Noam Chomsky, I believe, has suggested that it is sometimes instructive for readers to consider news reports in reverse, i.e. that important contextual information is often ‘tacked’ on loosely to the end of pieces. Would you have any advice for readers wishing to become more discerning or critical consumers?
PE -- If you read the mainstream/corporate press, that’s exactly the case: the crucial info most of the time is in the next to last paragraph, and the story is buried in the bottom half of page A-21. News agency copy is required to provide contextual info -- but it’s usually superficial and in many cases (e.g. Iran, Palestine, Russia) heavily biased. Papers always need to fill up blank space. That leads to papers in the Middle East, for instance, publishing agency copy -- or conservative syndicated columns -- that totally contradict their own reporting.
My suggestion is that readers forget about reading serious news on mainstream/corporate media: stick to the sports and entertainment pages. At least you can’t politicize infotainment to death -- like Sarkozy having an affair with Carla Bruni (well, the Times of India put it on the front page, like it was a major political story…). In the case of weeklies, stick to the actual reporting and forget about editorials (well sometimes even that is impossible; in Time magazine ideology drips from every report). The Wall Street Journal or The Economist may carry excellent reportage, but frankly no one has to swallow as fact Wall Street and the City of London’s wishful thinking.
For politics/economics, the real info is on the net. The problem for most people is how to fish for info on the net. You need a lot of time, a lot of patience and a lot of discipline to cut through the ideological fog, the lunatic ravings, the hardcore propaganda and tons of disinformation. Plus you have to keep it all up on a daily basis.
But it is possible. Websites like Global Research, based in Canada, Information Clearing House, based in southern California, or rebelion.org in Spanish, provide an excellent analytical digest of top themes in one go. On TV it’s a Sisyphean task. Al-Jazeera used to sharply criticize U.S. imperial designs on the Middle East, but now that the House of Saud and the Emir of Qatar have decided to become cozy with each other, all the critical edge is gone. CNN is a (bad) joke -- a tsunami of press releases from the State Dept. and the Pentagon read by bubbleheads. Problem is when you are in a hotel anywhere you simply cannot escape it. I stick to local TV networks even if I don’t understand the language.
MB -- If we are to believe the hawks, the pacification of Iraq is impending, but does this really constituent a ‘win’ for the home teams? How have the PR machines been so successful in continually re-branding what ‘success’ would mean?
PE -- As far as the PR machines are concerned, congratulations: you have done a “heck of a job”, as the Little Emperor would say. “Success” in Iraq has been rebranded so many times that by now the whole country should look like Dubai, and not like the set of a huge disaster movie. When great swathes of American public opinion can be completely manipulated, or easily swallow tsunamis of disinformation -- we’re back to our theme of the death of journalism by corporate interests -- you provoke untold death and devastation, declare it “victory”, and get away with it. At least now, mostly thanks to the net, millions of Americans have started to see Iraq for what it is.
Mainstream/corporate media cannot tell it like it really is because they would instantly lose privileged access to The White House, the Pentagon, the State Dept., etc. Furthermore, the U.S. government -- and none more than the Bush administration -- acts to defend the interests of major corporations, including the ones who own mainstream media. Fox News, for instance, is no more than the media arm of the Republican Party. The only thing that matters to Rupert Murdoch is to solidify his empire -- so he needs to keep his government connections intact.
MB -- Balance is a complicated concept for journalists to aim for. In some cases applying ‘balance’ can simply skew the story away from the verifiable facts. For instance, for months now the mainstream media have been qualifying IAEA findings by framing them in terms of the United States’ well known political ‘concerns’. However, now that the latest NIE report has dispelled all credibility from the apocalyptic talk of World War 3 will the media begin to question their previous unchecked regurgitation of Washington’s rhetoric, or will this represent just an instantaneous glitch in the PR siege?
PE -- “Balance” has long disappeared from mainstream/corporate media. Everything and everyone that goes against the hegemonic system -- from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Sadrists or the Islamic Republic of Iran to Chavez, Morales or Putin -- has to be demonized. But “our” “dictators” are exempt -- from Mubarak to... King Abdullah in Jordan, from the House of Saud to the Persian Gulf monarchies. Even the ghastly Burmese dictatorship got away with their recent bloody repression campaign: Western “pressure” was pathetic. As far as most of the developing world is concerned -- especially in terms of plundering of national resources -- this is how it works: it if profits Western elites, it is allowed. If it embodies nationalist aspirations somewhere, it’s a “destabilizing factor”.
Iran once again is a classic case. Everyone who follows the Iranian dossier knew the IAEA had not found any evidence whatsoever of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Those of us who spent time working in Iran also knew there was no “invisible” WMD: what they wanted, as Rafsanjani told a visiting American delegation in 2005, was to master the nuclear fuel cycle and enrich uranium by themselves for civilian purposes -- as any country who subscribes to the NPT is entitled to.
Now, after the NIE, don’t expect mainstream/corporate media to perform even a half-hearted mea culpa. Washington’s PR campaign overdrive still stands -- and in fact is being re-packaged to “alert” the world that Iran may restart its “military” nuclear program any time it deems fit, especially now that it has started to receive enriched uranium from Russia. You simply can’t win against Western propaganda if you are a “problem” developing country -- or nationalist movement. The Chinese of course have long ago discovered the best way to deal with it: they simply don’t give a damn to whatever the West is complaining about.
This all reflects a major theme: U.S. -- and Western -- elites are simply terrified that a brand new multipolar order is emerging. China is an unstoppable juggernaut. South America has ditched the IMF and the World Bank with the Bank of the South -- and the next move towards integration will be, in the next few years, a common currency, just like the euro.
Russia reasserted itself as the Gazprom nation. Iran is inescapably the key regional power in the Middle East. I have heard from a few investment bankers what their wet dream is all about -- it’s the Bush administration’s dream, for that matter: the world as a Green Zone guarded by Blackwater types, everything privatized, provided Halliburton-style, and “out there” a Mad Max Red Zone. In this sense Baghdad is a living metaphor of the future. That’s what the Bush administration accomplished. So in this sense they are “winning” the war on Iraq.
They get a key node in the worldwide empire of military bases, thus fulfilling “national security interests”. The invasion, occupation and fake “reconstruction” was a huge privatized bash -- bound to be replicated further -- and created with public funds, Mafia racket-style. Now they need “just” an icing on the cake: the Iraqi oil law -- which any Iraqi government would accept at the price of endless civil war. None of this, of course, fits into the mainstream/corporate media officially sanctioned narrative, with its avalanche of “benchmarks” measuring “success”.
MB -- How is it that the context of current U.S. pressure on Iran is kept almost completely separate from that of Iraq? It is as if the U.S. has been given a clean slate, a fresh historical starting point. Up until the release of the NIE summary few journalists chose to frame the ‘concerns’ and ‘beliefs’ of the U.S. towards Iran in the context of the illegal invasion of its neighbor. Since the release of the document the mainstream media, which for the most part sold the fabrications of WMDs in Iraq, is now questioning this new intelligence on the basis of Iraq’s intelligence ‘mistakes’. In your opinion is this coincidental conversion with powerful rhetoric borne out of faithful concern?
PE – Iran and Iraq cannot be covered as separate stories. The disaster perpetrated by the Bush administration in Iraq worked to the benefit of Iran. There’s no possibility of an Iraqi government… not enjoying very close relations with Iran…
Before the NIE estimate the U.S. mainstream/corporate media was all out bent on war, uncritically accepting even torpid variations of the demonization campaign, such as “Iranian weapons” killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq. I could bet a case of sublime Bordeaux that post-NIE, the U.S. corporate media will accept any other excuse the neocons may come up with to once again demonize Iran. Because the ultimate goal has nothing to do with the nuclear issue: it’s about regime change. The neocons are so desperate that they would go for a false flag operation, or a Gulf of Tonkin gambit, to get their war. Corporate media also loves wars. The 1991 (Persian) Gulf War made CNN. The Bush administration still has enough time to wreak havoc -- and provoke a new war, or at least a new civil war. That’s what they do best. They did it in Iraq, in Gaza, in Somalia, and the next is Lebanon. They are trying in Iran -– by financing the PJAK, the sister arm of the Kurdish PKK. And they won’t stop trying. As for mainstream/corporate media, forget it. It simply cannot speak truth to power because it’s embedded with power.
read more | digg story|by David Manning and Miriam Cotton (MediaBite)
