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May 14, 2005
Session: News, Information and Corporate Media - Naomi Klein
[Naomi Klein, as usual, cuts to the core of the issues with incisive, original language that encapsulates deep insights in easily understood language.]
Her first point is: The Issue of media reform in the U.S. is a global issue in the sense that what happens in the U.S. reverberates throughout the world. Yet our children learn about "geography through war" and "religion through torture".
Media is the "meta-issue", which pervades all other social justice issues. It's an "invisible concrete wall that blocks the sunlight from all our social movements".
We should not be reduced to pleading with the media, being content with letters to the editor, etc. We must "revolutionize" the media.
Primary point of her talk: We *must* root the media reform movement in resistance to the war. This because it hits both the administration and the media where they are the weakest.
There actually is a good deal of great low-level reporting going on. The amplification is what's missing.
What's not being amplified is Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, 9 million missing dollars.
Television networks exist to be outraged - it's just that they're outraged about extremely odd things. The judgment on when to scream and when to shrug is off.
"How do we make people care about torture?" - Abu Ghraib details are available in existing documents, but the information is not getting out. Helped by Kerry campaign. the message became "it's not that bad - you don't really have to care about this".
The media focuses on outrage, but not on topics like U.S. torture.
If we're all "outraged together", it's a scandal if we're "outraged alone" we're "crazy". Outrage needs company.
We need our own methods of amplification.
Example: The Afghanistan/Pakistan riots regarding the Koran desecration, also released U.S. prisoners in Afghanistan are talking about their experiences of abuse at the hands of the U.S. Instead, U.S. media coverage focusses on what *might* have happened with the Cessna airspace violation in DC if it had been terrorism.
Another example: The "ritualized mourning" and "controlled compassion release valves" of the Terry Schaivo story and the Pope's death. "spasms of compassion or moral outrage". But no coverage or compassion about U.S. soldiers coming home critically injured or dead.
A free press is a threat to war. It's "arguably incompatible" with war.
Example: During the April 2004 seige of Fallujah there was straight footage of the carnage at the main hospital on Middle-East channels like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, including interviews with hospital staff who affirmed over 600 deaths. This lit a firestorm among the Iraqi public. But Rumsfeld said "What Al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable". During the second seige of Fallujah, just after the election. Al-Jazeera was banned from Iraq. The single Al-Arabiya journlist present in Iraq was arrested. The first thing the military does is take over the hospital to prevent the release of information in the way it got out during the first seige.
Currently 9 iraqi journalists in detention and many are being harassed.
The reason this is happening is because the press is such a threat to war and occupation.
It should be the "central demand" of the media reform movement to demand coverage of the war. We should "use the media's jingoism against itself", pointing out the paradox of waving the flag, yet not showing what's actually going on with the soldiers, not covering their deaths.
"We can't bring the troops home if we can't see them".
The Media reform movement should join with the anti-war movement and make the simple demand "show us the war".
Posted by Randall at May 14, 2005 03:13 AM