A short walking tour through the garden of the fourth estate

On Sunday 16 March I picked up the Washington Post from the 7-11 up the road and looked at the front page. I had berated them the day before here in these pages because the Google news service did not list them as a link on stories about that days peace protests and I inferred that meant they hadn't written one. When I saw the large above-the-fold picture of the DC march right there in my hand I briefly felt humbled. It seemed they had written one after all. Sort of. There was only the picture, story on page sixteen (and probably hadn't been amiable to being scrapped off their web site). Well still, a picture is worth a thousand words- so they say. It's just happened in the course of layout that that picture was surrounded by four stories having very little to do with peace combining for about 27 column inches on the front page alone. The picture floating on that page there is drowning not waving.

On the other hand for the first time in many months the Post actually ran some articles analyzing the approach to this splendid little war. Days later the war got under way and the flood gates of reportage opened.

But that day in the Outlook section two stories appeared that indicated the Post felt a little defensive. The first ostensively a commentary on the gulf between US coverage of events against that of other national press corps. The Post is a good newspaper - one of the best - with three bad habits. An information annihilating fondness for unattributed sources. It allows us to get news from people, they tell us, but they are just kidding themselves. Another questionable tact which you see is to run a story for every viewpoint - no one leaves unhappy because nothing has actually been said. All terms cancel, the answer is one. Last the Post is very fond of its reputation as the capital of the free world's paper of record, there is very little they will leave unreported. So they have developed a fine mastery of laying problematic column inches into interior pages so they blend seamlessly with the toaster ads; and are, quite invisible. David Greenberg's article (16Mar03, B1) ended up being a laundry list of stories barely covered, sometimes no more than a mere mention in another story, or not covered at all. The author jumps into to the commentary to suggest only a cynic would regard this as distortion of the news of the day and call this bias: Generally only people without journalistic experience adhere to this view. As he saw it no newspaper would choose not to cover a story because prestige is only gained when you get a story. Prestige is all important in this town, but so is not becoming a pariah, and nobody rocks the boat when it is in deep water - only for show when its near the shore. Greenberg himself after making that stand on behalf of journalism makes two concessions. He admits that existing narratives get more play than anomalous ones, that pack journalism probably intensifies this, further he admits that deeper blind spots of a given cultures subconscious assumptions about itself form a type of ideology. One result of this merging factors: "[t]he stories are reported, but regulated to inside pages without the high-voltage language language of exposes and contextualized to fend off charges of sensationalism" (3rd column of art).

The companion piece it ran with by James Mann (16Mar03, b1) also noted the radically different views of American motivations reached at home and abroad - while ostensively observing the same set of facts and events. The author of this analysis piece tentatively attributed this to the US press nominal adherence to the shibboleth of objective and balanced journalism. The American press he believes is more squeamish about setting up news agendas. To this he tacks on a notion of a cycle of skepticism in american public life which allows for if not news agendas at least a permissible normative ground for confrontations with authority. In a time of resurgent backlash against self-criticism, the regime cannot be questioned. I note that what he terms is the antipode of this, he calls "robust cynicism". Cynicism is not a scaling of skepticism - it is a quite different philosophical approach to facts or phenomenon. Regarding the combined argument of both articles I will say that what is not written is as much a part of an agenda as what is written - and the American press has never at any point had a problem with agendas.

The test of any news operation is the gatherer/ consumer interface. Newspapers have evolved a curious creature to sit at that interface - the ombudsman. He or she is the reader's advocate within the guild, readers champion, stakeholder, gatekeeper of the fourth estate. When the reader feel their time on the pages is well spent and closes them feeling informed, the ombudsman does crosswords. Michael Getler, the Washington Post's Ombudsman didn't get many crosswords in this spring.

Starting with with the column in the same 16 March paper. Getler tries to get a handle on the critical letters and comments he's accumulated by focusing on one, now largely forgotten incident in months leading to the war. This was the resignation of the U S Ambassador to Greece and his publicly released letter of conscience. Getler responds to those who wondered why the Post didn't cover that or reprint the letter when this occurred. Getler responds by pointing out that the Post did run this finally on the 9th of March. Illustrating by example why "better late than never" is not a common journalistic rallying cry. He goes on to point out that this incident is of little matter in the grand scheme of things, but that possible the Post's treatment is noteworthy because it seemed of a pattern. [P}art of a perplexing flaw in coverage that has persisted throughout the long run up to a controversial war. In the rest of the column he notes that the intention and direction of the Administrations has been as clear as it has been unremarked upon: a year long shift in emphasis to Suddam Hussien over Osama Bin Laden (and the Al Qaeda network as America's greatest threat, and the September unveiling of the new National Security Strategy which clearly signaled the ascendancy of the neo conservatives and the doctrine of preemptive action. Doubts and concerns voiced by former National Security advisors, retired and active military officials, and ranking Senators were down played and minimized. Whether concerning force size or ultimate cost of the operation, only the administrations' view got through consistently. Anti war rallies when covered at all, were treated as perplexing spectacles, the opinions of the people not engaged with. "One small blip" is how Getler characterizes the non coverage of Amb. Kieslings resignation. "Connecting the blips" is how he names the column.

The 23 March Ombudsman's column picks up on the question left hanging in the air. What does it all mean? Getler would not have us see it as meaning the Post is biased. The public may equate a perceived news lapse with an editorial stance, where none in fact exists. At the same time he notes a story of this magnitude requires exceptionally alert and guided coverage every day a nod towards editorial engagement with the writers.

When the question is to go to war, when an administration can command attention anytime it wants, and when military momentum is building to a point where war seems inevitable, the responsibility to be all you can be and to put stories before the public when they happen is much larger than individual blips.

They took their que from the halls of power that concern and alarm about this new preemptive unilateral powerbased foreign policy was either ignorant, misguided or inconsequential. A degree of benefit of the doubt should be due the administration of the executive branch. The press must continue to ask questions nonetheless. At the start of this war and in the months leading up to it, it was clear they were not. They had instead assumed the role of cheerleaders for the war - a position - an assumption that was neither natural nor obvious. Implicit in the administrations position is that there is no residing wisdom in the opinions of the people. That they alone possess the direction, the information and experience to decide what-must-be-done. Implicit in the press and the media's position is acquiescence to a culture of fear. A strong disinclination to report on unpopular subjects. A genuine fear rising to the level of panic at the possibility of reprisals, loss of power and prestige, access and station. Behind this there was the observable, active seeking after such fear causing power by some within this society.

The press cycled critical briefly in the middle of the war, but got back on message when the war ended quickly. Now as casualties continue to mount - in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq. As political and social stability eludes the military and executive bureaucracy in these places. As the sand foundation of the administrations war rational shifts out from beneath it, raising some very serious questions as it does so. The press again deigns to pose some questions and seek some answers. No doubt they feel the chill from lack of political cover on this. Democrats, when, you can corner one, will mumble that the administration's wars are probably necessary. The next you see of them are the soles of their shoes as they run from the subject in headlong flight. What can be said of such fairweather friends of the people. Is there any reason to believe they will continue asking any questions at all?

I don't doubt that in the end the U.S will get the entire Bagdad electrical back up, and that they will overlay a municipal government and a bureaucracy relatively free of Baathist functionaries on an Iraq. They don't seem to realize that if it is perceived as not going well, it will not matter. Maybe they do realize this - it's hard to tell. Its hard to imagine they could have regarded the myriad embedded multi-layered contextually evolved institutions of western democracy as some black box to be dropped onto Iraq like a food drop of Snickers bars or so many bombs. But that is what they say they are doing. They champion a foreign policy that dissipates sovereignty, in order to fight an enemy that while real has assumed such a nebulous character as to appear to folk as nearly anything, and to require nearly everything. An enemy so conceived can only become a chimera, a will of the wisp, or assume the function of an other. Something we believe we cannot understand, and so project everything we believe not to be us onto. The enemy is not the discontent of the Arab street, I can find discontent on many streets in many places. It is not Islam, which like Christian is resistant of being any one thing, to be any one thing, certainly not a political ideology. It is not even explicitly anti American, not in the grand philosophic antipathy it has been cast. There is nothing about us they need to know (and indeed seem to know) for us to be their convenient enemy. We are the leading nation of the world, our interest in the natural resources of the region involves us in it's politics. This terrorism is a more mundane and familiar thing. It is the combined product of the regions state security and intelligence apparatuses. They themselves, and those internal and external forces: anarchist, revolutionary, and clerical who resist them work for them and seek their power.

*photo by author- Univ. Maryland Journalism building graffiti 19Mar03

© Copyright 2003 Paul Bushmiller. Last update: 8/30/03; 19:01:45.