Media Monitor

October 29, 2009

Is Fox News a legitimate news organization?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — mcburton @ 9:49 am

MAINSTREAM MEDIA RUSHES TO FOX ‘NEWS’ DEFENSE

DEFINITION OF NEWS IS NEVER DEBATED

  By Michael C. Burton

           The inability of the mainstream media to discuss whether Fox News is a legitimate news organization points to the decline of traditional journalism in cable television and the rise of the partisan press as a new model for cable news networks.

In mid-October, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said that Fox News is “opinion journalism masquerading as news” and that the organization operates “as a research arm or communications arm of the Republican Party.”  She did not say that Obama administration officials would never appear on Fox programs, only that they would do so with the knowledge they were debating the opposition – the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

The news coverage since that announcement was predictable, with most news outlets covering the story as “the White House war on Fox” (The Baltimore Sun) and “The White House bullying of Fox” (The Washington Post), and “Obama delegitimizing any significant dissent” (Chicago Tribune).  One TV news correspondent, Jake Tapper of ABC News, publicly came to Fox News’ defense, questioning how the White House could define what is news and what is not. On CBS News, Katie Couric teased the story at the top of the October 23 newscast: “They report and the White House decides it’s not fair: the President’s feud with Fox News Channel.”  Even Mark Shields and David Brooks on the PBS News Hour defended Fox News, saying they had “real journalists” who report the news with minimum bias.

The mainstream media’s defense of Fox News is like an angst-ridden teenager who defends his crazy aunt in the basement – she may be loony, but by God she’s still a member of the family and he will defend her honor (especially since she runs a very profitable business in that basement and he wants a cut).

Despite the spin by the mainstream media that this was a war the White House instigated, the facts show that Fox has consistently viewed itself as the voice of the opposition to the current administration. Back in March, Fox News Vice-President of Programming Bill Shine described his network as “the voice of opposition [to Obama] on some issues.”  Conspiracy-theorist Glenn Beck, who called the president “a racist,” claims Fox News President Roger Ailes wooed him over to the conservative network from CNN headline News in part by stressing the network’s opposition to Obama, saying, “I see this as the Alamo.” 

Seems pretty clear who started the “war.”

 Still, Anita Dunn’s central premise – that Fox News does not operate like other mainstream news organizations but is driven by partisan ideology—went largely unaddressed in news coverage.  That’s because of the mainstream media’s inability to examine its own journalism practices and also because there is a trend in television news towards ending manifest objectivity as the journalism standard in favor of partisan political advocacy.

This is not to say that Fox News is disingenuous in defending its news programs as “separate” from its opinion commentators.  In a statement, Fox Senior Vice-President for News Michael Clemente claimed that its news hours – 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays – are objective. “The average consumer certainly knows the difference between the A section of the newspaper and the editorial page,” Clemente said.  Yet as Media Matters cogently points out, not only does the Fox News Channel’s purportedly “straight news” programs echo its editorial programs, but they also contain a disproportionate share of smears, falsehoods, doctored  & deceptive editing, and GOP talking points (see http://mediamatters.org/research/200910130047).

Media Matters also makes a good case how Fox News violates almost every ethical canon outlined by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics  in “30 Reasons Why Fox News is not legit” (http://mediamatters.org/columns/200910270002).  On the other side of the political spectrum, the conservative media watchdog group NewsBusters claims that MSNBC is also biased because they have left-leaning commentators Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz.  However, the organization funded by Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center is unable to show overt political bias on MSNBC’s straight news programs.  That is because there is no comparison (for short video examples of how Fox constantly disparages Obama in its supposedly “straight news” reporting, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/20/the-ten-most-egregious-fo_n_327140.html).

This is the main flaw in the conservative’s argument that other cable news networks such as MSNBC, CNN, ABC and CBS are also biased and have ideological agendas. True, the other cable news networks are biased towards a corporate profit agenda and sensational infotainment on a wide range of issues – but manifest political objectivity in news programming is still the order of the day — using the journalistic canons of the straight news story, attempting to select facts based on sound news judgment and the traditions of fair play and objectivity. When a journalist does make departures into opinions, he or she gives clear signals that he or she is doing so.  Some may claim that objectivity is a myth, but fairness and nonpartisan focus is still the standard objective in reporting the news. Fox News has abrogated that standard, and deliberately skews its “straight news” coverage from a right-wing perspective. The problem lies in Fox News’ dishonesty and failure to admit that they are an ideologically-driven partisan news outlet (see “Why the White House is 100 % right to Challenge Fox News, at http://www.theyoungturks.com/story/2009/10/19/13738/762/Diary/Why-the-White-House-is-100-Right-to-Challenge-Fox-News).

The danger in presenting news as “fair and balanced” when it is not is that those predisposed to this ideological viewpoint will believe it is straight news. Indeed, many devoted Fox News viewers believe what they are watching is hard factual information that cannot be disputed. And, as Michael Massing points in the Columbia Journalism Review, “it is true that Fox can break legitimate news stories, as it did with ACORN. Yet for every such story, it seems to push many that are not legitimate – that in fact seem lunatic…in contrast, MSNBC just doesn’t seem to feature the conspiratorial looniness or corrosive fear-mongering that pervades Fox.” (See http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/howard_kurtz_missing_in_action.php).

In fact, Fox News even makes up its own facts in its news programs to suit its political agenda, something no other television news network does (e.g., falsely claiming that the Obama budget was “four times bigger than Bush’s,” falsely claiming that “house Dems vote to protect pedophiles, but not veterans,” and falsely asserting that the hate crimes bill would gag ministers).  Spreading misinformation under the guise of “fair and balanced” journalism is not only disingenuous, but threatens a robust and informed democracy because it stokes the fears of the uninformed and cheapens political dialogue (in most cases, it renders political discourse impossible). As Hendrik Hertzberg writes in the September 21 issue of The New Yorker, the disaffected right-wingers “do not look to politicians for leadership. They look to niche media figures like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and their scores of clones behind local and national microphones. Because these figures have no responsibilities, they cannot disappoint. Their sneers may be false and hateful – they all routinely liken the President and the ‘Democrat Party’ to murderous totalitarians – but they are employed by large, nominally respectable corporations and supported by national advertisers, leading them a considerable measure of institutional prestige.”

U.S. News columnist Bonnie Erbe says that even Fox News viewers understand that it is “nothing more than a Republican/conservative cheat sheet,” ( see http://www.usnews.com/blogs/erbe/2009/10/19/), but there is scant evidence to support this viewpoint. Indeed, the opposite it true: most Fox viewers cannot distinguish between objective news and political opinion, and most regular viewers are least knowledgeable about national and international affairs than viewers of other news outlets.  A 2007 Pew Research Study showed that those who receive most of their news from Fox are more likely than average to have misperceptions about national and international affairs. It also showed that viewers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report have the highest knowledge of national and international affairs, while Fox News viewers ranked nearly dead last (see http://people-press.org/report/319/public-knowledge-of-current-affairs-little-changed-by-news-and-information-revolutions).

In a chain email sent out by Fox minions in early October, this confusion over what is news and what is opinion became very evident. The email touted an upcoming “important documentary about Barack  Obama…a report that will  go back to Obama’s earlier days, showing even then his  close ties to radical Marxist professors, friends, spiritual advisers, etc….  Democrat or Republican, this report will  open your eyes to how YOUR country is being sold down the road  to Totalitarian Socialism….these are the FACTS.”

The “facts” that the Fox cheerleader is talking about was a re-run of a Sean Hannity special (not a news documentary) called “Obama & Friends: History of Radicalism,” that offered a series of unproven allegations, half-truths, and innuendos about Obama’s supposed ties to Louis Farrakan, Muslim fundamentalism, black-power advocates, and Bill Ayers. The McCarthy-like programming was already discredited by reputable news organizations such as the Los Angeles Times, but don’t tell that to the fanatical Fox fans who confuse hearsay with fact.

          Regrettably, because Roger Ailes and his boss Rupert Murdoch have proven that a scurrilous partisan press is profitable, other news networks may follow suit with more biased news “commentators” on either side of the political spectrum (except the far left, which has never had real air time in the mainstream media). Surveys show that more and more news audiences are gravitating towards news that matches their ideological viewpoint of the world.

The rise of these political pundits may signal the beginning of the new partisan press era in American TV journalism. A new poll showed that the major metropolitan newspapers had lost as much as a quarter of their circulation over the past six months. New TV ratings showed that CNN, the cable news network that prides itself as being in the middle of the political spectrum, finished dead last in prime time against Fox News and MSNBC (see http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28822.html ). While newspapers are losing readers, partisan ideologues are gaining attention on television news, which is the main source of information for 70 percent of Americans. The evening network news executives who try to present the news fairly and objectivity may scrap the model of carefully scripted storytelling and make their shows more unscripted and opinionated, like cable interview programs, to recapture ratings.

Eric Alterman, a media columnist for the Nation, believes that cable news is moving away from nonpartisan news because it doesn’t sell.  “Politics without a slant, without a point of view, is interesting to very few people,” he said at a New York University conference on the subject “Good Riddance to the Mainstream Media.”

The dismal ratings also come at a time where the public holds a less favorable opinion of the news media. According to  Pew Research Center poll, only 29 percent believe that most news stories are accurate, and 60 percent believe most news coverage is biased, a dramatic increase from 24 years ago before the rise of cable news and Internet news operations. Ryan Blethen, the Seattle Times editorial page editor, wrote that “the new partisan journalism that has found a home on cable news and the Internet are here to stay. The trick for objective media is twofold. Figure out how its hallmarks such as investigative journalism and local reporting will be funded and then find a way to not get lost in the screaming vortex that is the 24-hour news cycle.”

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MICHAEL BURTON, a former print and broadcast journalist, is author of the book “John Henry Faulk: The Making of a Liberated Mind,” a biography of a blacklisted entertainer who was falsely labeled a Communist sympathizer during the McCarthy era.

October 6, 2009

Birther movement gains traction in mainstream media

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — mcburton @ 10:27 am

October 6, 2009

OBAMA BIRTHER MOVEMENT OUT OF FRINGE AND INTO MAINSTREAM MEDIA

One of the most fascinating and disturbing conspiracy theories circulated by opponents of President Barack Obama is the “birther” movement. One would think that the Internet rumors alleging that our president was born outside the United States would have died off after the White House produced proof in June that Obama was born in Hawaii to an American citizen, but instead they are kept very alive by popular media pundits.

If you think that only far right-wing nut cases believe these wild conspiracy theories, think again. Recent polls reveal some surprising results:

  • A September Public Policy poll indicated that only 59% of voters believe that President Obama was born in the United States, with 23% saying he was not, and 18% undecided. Among Republicans only, 64 percent were either not sure or disbelieved the president was born in this country.  An earlier poll in August on www.politico.com showed similar findings. In fact, when you took out minorities from that poll, 83 percent of southern whites said they doubted or were unsure about whether Obama was born in the U.S.
  • In mid-September, a Daily Kos poll in Arkansas asked the state’s residents if they believed Barack Obama was born in the U.S. Thirty-seven percent said “no” or were “unsure.”
  • In my own state, barely half of North Carolina voters believe that President Barack Obama was born in the U.S., according to an August poll by Public Policy Polling.  Twenty-six percent of those surveyed said they don’t believe Obama was born in the U.S. and 20 percent said they were not sure.

Also in August, at least 10 Republicans Congressmen, led by Rep. John Campbell of California and Rep. Bob Goodlaite of Virginia, sponsored a bill that would require possible candidates for president to release their birth certificates before running, but most didn’t want to talk about the current president’s birthplace when approached (see a funny video posted on http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/Danger_of_the_birthers.html)

Of course talk radio fueled the crazy paranoia that just won’t go away (do a Google search for Obama and ‘birth certificate’ will be one of the top three searches).  G. Gordon Liddy asserted on his nationally syndicated radio show that “our president was born in a slum in Kenya” (June 8)  and claimed that Obama’s released birth certificate was “a forged fake” (August 26).  Rush Limbaugh, the most popular talk show host in America with 13.5 million minimum weekly listeners, said the president “has yet to prove he is a citizen” and implied Obama visited his ailing grandmother late last year not to see her, but to tamper with his birth records. Limbaugh’s comments, like most of his most incendiary political remarks, received widespread coverage in the mainstream press.

These alarmist theories are spread not only by the far right wing, but by fundamentalist Christian organizations. LivePrayer.com has produced a half-hour infomercial questioning where the president was born. It has run on several networks, including one CBS affiliate in Lubbock, Texas.  Hal Lindsey, an evangelical commentator on cable television (TBN, Daystar, CPM Network, Inspiration, and various local stations) also pushed the birther conspiracy theory (in addition to implying that President Obama is the “anti-Christ” in the prelude to Armageddon).  Another birther movement evolved from the recently formed “Anabaptist Church of Africa” in Pennsylvania, which lists as one of its articles of faith to set right the “unbearable injustice, and trampling of the Constitution of the United States, in thinking to force the people to accept a foreigner as the President of this Republic, ignoring the single most important qualification for the highest office in our land, that such a one, not just gain such ‘power by the consent of the governed’, but that he be naturally born amongst us as one of us.” (I guess no one told this group that John McCain was not born in any of the United States or its terrorities, but in Panama.)

The mainstream media coverage’s of these paranoid political conspiracy theorists has carelessly given credence to an issue that has been debunked time and again (see http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html and http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/ for the evidence).  For example, when a caller to Lou Dobbs’ radio show asserted Obama would soon be “exposed as having been born in Kenya,” Dobbs replied that “Certainly your view cannot be discounted.”  On CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, Dobbs questioned the authenticity of the birth certificate provided by the State of Hawaii and at one point jokingly suggested that President Obama may be “undocumented.”  CNN continually hounded the Hawaii Department of Health about the issue even after the birth certificate was released again.

By interviewing the birthers on cable and broadcast television, journalists give them some semblance of credibility. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews disparaged G. Gordon Liddy on his “Hardball” in July, showing Liddy the birth certificate and the birth announcement from the Honolulu Advertiser in August 1961.  Yet Liddy caught Matthews by surprise when he brought up claims of a “sworn deposition from [Obama’s] grandmother who says she was ‘present and saw him born in Mombassa, Kenya.”

What Liddy was referring to is actually an affidavit filed by a far right-wing evangelical preacher named Ron McRae, who interviewed Sarah Obama, wife of Barack Obama’s grandfather, through a translator.  Sarah Obama’s words were misinterpreted in the translation, and she corrected him over and over again, but the itinerant preacher never accepted that (see http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/07/23/liddy/).

The danger in legitimizing the ‘birthers’ claims is that it subtlety encourages racism and violence, according to Southern Poverty Law Center’s Heidi Beirich. She points out that the political atmosphere before the Oklahoma City bombing eerily resembled today’s environment, with an upsurge in paranoid political rumors and fear-mongering.  We’ve already seen one murder from neo-Nazi assailant who killed the security guard at the Holocaust Museum in D.C. (it was discovered that James von Brunn, the accused murderer, helped spread the birthers’ claims on the Internet).

There are several theories about the birthers’ motives: wishing for a “magic bullet” that would invalidate Obama’s presidency; fear of foreign influence; fear of change.  Yet the chief reason is rarely talked about in the mainstream media: racism.  If one doubts that, then ask yourself the question: If our president’s father were born in Ireland, Scotland, or another European country, would anyone raise these questions? Or, if their true motive is to enforce the constitutionality of the “born in the USA” presidential requirement, then why didn’t they bring up that John McCain was born on a military installation in the Panama Canal?

The Internet has certainly made it easier for conspiracy theorists to espouse and share their views anonymously and without accountability.  Some bloggers who have thoroughly researched the issue, like Alex Koppelman on Salon.com, correctly point out that “almost all of the people who’ve been most prominent in pushing the story have a history of conspiracist thought.”  Yet the mainstream media, rather than conduct investigative reporting, generally report on the crazy lawsuits challenging the president’s birth and the reactionary groups who buy infomercials and downtown billboards without bothering to expose or discredit these fringe groups.

Of course, debunking the birthers with facts won’t change their minds, because facts can’t counter paranoia, but they can help the other conservative-minded folks who only listen to Fox News and talk radio for their news of the day.  Instead of giving credence to wacky lawsuits and right-wing commentators who try to stoke the flames of fear and hostility against a black president, the mainstream media could steer a different path of responsible journalism and open dialogue about issues and policies instead of spreading propaganda and distortion.

MICHAEL BURTON writes a blog called “Media Monitor” at http://mediachannel.org/mcburton.

September 17, 2009

Media avoid racism debate

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — mcburton @ 12:50 pm

The headlines on September 16, 2009 were predictable:

  • “Jimmy Carter says racism behind animosity to Obama.” (Washington Post)
  • “Racism behind anger toward Obama: Carter.” (AFP)
  • “Are Obama’s critics racist? Jimmy Carter thinks so.” (L.A. Times)
  • “Carter blames racism for anger against Obama” (NBC News)
  • “Carter’s ‘racism’ claim draws widespread criticism.” (FOX News)

Contentious  stuff – a former president claiming racism is behind the motives of those who disagree with the current president. There’s only one problem: He didn’t say that.

In an interview with a NBC reporter on September 15, Former President Jimmy Carter said this:

“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he is African-American,” Carter said. “Racism…still exists and I think it has bubbled up to the surface because of a belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It’s an abominable circumstance and grieves me and concerns me very deeply,” he said.

If you read that statement closely, the former president did not say that the majority of people who oppose the current Administration’s policies are racist.  He did not even say the people out in the picket lines and demonstrating against the president are racists. What he said was that the majority of the most extreme protests – the most “intensely demonstrated animosity,” have an underpinning of racism.  This is an important distinction the mainstream media missed, and I believe they intentionally missed it to create confusion and avoid dealing with the issue they’ve skirted around and marginalized since the presidential primaries.

Although MSNBC did not release the full interview with Carter, it set the tone for how the other mainstream news outlets handled the story.  The network news editors framed the story as that of a controversial politician who invoked racism to “discredit the critics” of the current president. NBC’s Matt Williams acted shocked and chagrined at Carter’s comments: “Why does race have to be made part of it (the public debate over healthcare)?” he asked.  NBC’s White House correspondent called the remarks “pretty striking” and reported it purely in terms of how the White House would respond.

Most other news outlets followed suit and framed the issue as a political one the White House had to address. Many, like Johanna Neuman in the LA Times, reported the comments even more out-of-context, leaving off the key words in Carter’s sentence (“the most intensely demonstrated animosity’) in lead paragraphs.

Because of the way it framed the issue, the media expanded the already fractured schism between political opponents and further eroded open dialogue that is needed in this country.  Janet Daily in the Daily Telegraph wrote that Carter “made an outrageous, unfounded, and potentially inflammatory remark about race.”  Bloggers were incensed, writing comments such as this: “If you don’t agree with blacks, you are a racist!? Thank you, Mister Carter, for downgrading the USA!”

Most Democrats quickly downplayed Carter’s remarks under a furor of criticism.  Then the media moved on to cover the controversy it created by its inaccurate reporting.  The cycle helps declining circulation and low network news ratings, while fueling partisan agitators on the Internet. This allows national reporters to keep failing to address the issue of racism that is still prevalent and is growing more open by the day.

Around the country, protest groups are marching with placards of President Obama in white face (as the Joker from the last Batman movie), signs saying he should ‘go back to Africa,’ and constant references about his “dubious” U.S. citizenship. At the recent “Tea Party” protest rally in Washington, protestors paraded the streets with signs that read “Obama is a Muslim,” “Obama is the AntiChrist,” “The zoo has an African (picture of a lion) and the White House has a lyin’African,” and “Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy.”  Another poster depicted Obama as a half-clothed African witch doctor with the term ‘ObamaCare” underneath.

Over the Internet, emails and web blogs compare the president or his wife to a monkey.  T-shirts are sold with Obama’s image that says “Somewhere in Kenya or Indonesia, a village is missing its idiot.”

Hate speech on talk radio has emboldened many of these bigots. Remember when Rush Limbaugh played a song called “Barack the Magic Negro” on his radio show during the primary campaign?  The song was the brainchild of Tennessee Republican Chip Saltsman, former national campaign manager for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who sent it to Republican National Committee members as a Christmas present.  He defended the tape as satire. Now Limbaugh is claiming Obama has made it permissable for black kids to beat up a white kids on a school bus, based on an incident that had nothing to do with race.

Since prejudice is no longer underground, it is easier for the extreme zealots to express their views overtly in the debate over healthcare reform. For example, Rep. David Scott of Georgia received emails and faxes from his constituents that were tinged with racial hatred.  One fax used the common image of Obama as the joker, this time with the hammer and sickle stamped across his forehead, with the message: “Death to Marxists! Foreign and Domestic!” Below that, it addressed the Congressman directly with a variation of the ‘n’ word before rattling off a lengthy diatribe which included this phrase: “The folks are not going to stand for socialized medicine even though most Negros (sic) refuse to stand on their own two feet.”

A friend of mine is an editor of a community newspaper in Louisiana. The main reason for the extreme vitriol against President Obama, he says, is due to racism.

“I grew up in Jim Crow times, and I know all the all code words, and I hear them here. It is so sad. This whole thing with his speech to school kids is not about socialism or indoctrination. A lot of these parents just don’t want a black person telling their kids what to do. It’s sad. I thought this country had gotten over all that. I may be talking through my hat here, but I can’t help but see it this way.”

Jimmy Carter is right. Much of the criticism of the president is beyond the bounds of acceptable political discourse, something no other president has encountered. Why was he excoriated for saying the obvious – that the radical fringe element of the Republican Party is influenced by deep-seated racial fears and animosity?  Those who accuse our president as being un-American, a terrorist, a Muslim, an Arab, or something less than a person are not attacking his policies, they are attacking something else, and we have a name for that behavior – racism.

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MICHAEL BURTON is the author of the book “John Henry Faulk: The Making of a Liberated Mind,” a biography of a blacklisted entertainer and First Amendment champion who was falsely labeled a Communist sympathizer during McCarthyism.

September 4, 2009

‘Socialized medicine’ nothing new

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — mcburton @ 8:31 pm

Media fan flames in distortions on healthcare reform debate

All presidents, Democrat and Republican, who have taken on the status quo and proposed changes to America’s healthcare system have been falsely labeled “socialist” or “communist.” What’s rare about this time in history is that the current president has taken a moderately centrist role in advocating healthcare reform as opposed to President Clinton or even President Truman.

What’s also rare is that local newspapers and broadcast news stations are giving credence to false claims that President Obama is “socialist” in his views.  On the front page of the Sept. 4 Charlotte Observer, for example, reporter Ann Doss Helms quotes an email from a woman who asserts that the president has appointed “czars with communist and socialist ties and speaking out against America and our founding fathers.”  Other news stories quote critics of Obama who compare him to Hitler and label him “fascist” for proposing reform.

Giving free publicity to lunatics who don’t know the difference between socialism and fascism (two opposite political ideologies) is something the media has done consistently during the healthcare reform debate. Journalists fan the flames of reactionary ignorance by failing to correct the false claims, and they also fail to give any context about healthcare reform in the history of our country.  Here’s what some opponents said about plans to provide healthcare and senior care to Americans when they were first introduced:

Franklin D. Roosevelt labeled a ‘communist’ for creating Social Security

In the 1930s, opponents of FDR used the same kind of rhetoric and false political labels when he proposed creating what is now the most popular government program: Social Security.  Critics called FDR “Red Roosevelt” and “a czar/dictator.”  The American Liberty League called him a fascist (of course Roosevelt would later lead the United States in a war against fascism).  In a strange similarity with another bellicose talk radio host of today, Father Charles Coughlin spouted invectives on the radio airwaves against Roosevelt. He called Roosevelt “a Communist in the chair once occupied by Washington” and said the New Deal was mired “in the Red mud of Soviet communism,”

Opponents of the new Social Security program used some of the same hyperbole we hear today. Some Republican congressmen said the proposal would “threaten the integrity of our institutions” and “lead to a fingerprint test” for millions of Americans.  The American Medical Association ridiculed the Roosevelt administration’s “attempt to evolve a plan of socialized medicine” and labeled supporters of the bill as “un-American.”

Unlike Obama, however, FDR deflected these critics by proactively controlling the debate through his famous “fireside chats.” During one of these radio broadcasts, he said:

“A few timid people, who fear progress, will try to give you new and strange names for what we are doing. Sometimes they will call it ‘fascism,’ sometimes ‘communism,’ sometimes ‘regimentation,’ sometimes ‘socialism.’ But, in so doing, they are trying to make very complex and theoretical something that is really very simple and practical…I believe that what we are doing today is a necessary fulfillment of what Americans have always been doing – a fulfillment of old and tested American ideals.”

Truman and national health insurance

Actually, the first president who proposed national health insurance was not considered a liberal.  On Nov. 19, 1945, just seven months into his presidency, Harry S. Truman proposed that Congress enact a sweeping national healthcare program. One of the chief purposes of Truman’s plan was to ensure that all communities, regardless of their size or income level, had access to doctors and hospitals. In his Nov. 19, 1945 address to Congress, Truman called for the creation of a national health insurance fund to be run by the federal government. The fund would be open to all U.S. citizens, but would be optional. Those choosing to participate would pay monthly fees into the plan, which would cover the cost of any and all medical expenses in time of need. The plan called for the government to pay for the cost of services rendered by any doctor who chose to join the program.

Again, critics invoked the scare of Communism in the public mind, and this time those fears were more easily stoked in the wake of World War II.  One senator claimed that the bill “came right out of the Soviet constitution.” The American Medical Association characterized the bill as “socialized medicine,” and, called members of the Truman administration “followers of the Moscow party line,” a phrase to be used frequently by Joe McCarthy during the Communist witch hunt a few years later.

“Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health,” Truman said. “Millions do not have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. The time has arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and that protection.”  Ultimately, Truman could not overcome the opposition from Congress on this proposal. For a full text of President Truman’s special message to Congress on Nov. 19, 1945, go to:  http://www.trumanlibrary.org/anniversaries/healthprogram.htm

LBJ and Medicare

After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson took up his proposal to form a safety net for America’s seniors – Medicare.  Of course opponents of the proposal could not easily define LBJ as a “socialist,” but some, like George H.W. Bush, did call the plan “socialized medicine.” Among one of the most notable opponents was Ronald Reagan, then a candidate for the governor of California.  In a taped advertorial for the American Medical Association, Reagan said in opposition to Medicare:

“One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project – most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it. Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a choice to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it.”

In another message, when the bill was very close to passage, Reagan pleaded for citizens to call their congressman, saying that if passed, the program “would invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country, until, one day, we awake to find that we have socialism.”

More than 43 million senior Americans use Medicare today, 44 years after the U.S. Congress passed the legislation.

Nixon’s proposal for healthcare reform

In the 1970s, Democrats tried to create a “Medicare for all” program of health insurance.  Facing re-election in 1974, Nixon offered an alternative to universal health insurance where everyone would be offered a minimum level of comprehensive benefits, regardless of how they were covered by their employer. Those who were not offered benefits by their employer would be eligible for a subsidized public plan with costs shared by the federal government. Basically it would be a Medicaid-type insurance plan that was subsidized, not free. Sound familiar?  The plan unraveled as the Watergate scandal developed, but Congress did create Health Maintenance Organizations during this period. For more on Nixon’s plan, in his own words, see:  http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/September/03/nixon-proposal.aspx.

‘HillaryCare’  defeated

Bill Clinton had campaigned heavily on universal healthcare in 1992. In 1993, The main element of his proposed plan was an enforced mandate for employers to provide health insurance coverage to all of their employees through competitive but closely-regulated HMOs. Although the plan did require mandates for employers to provide coverage, it was not socialized medicine and did not dismantle the employer-based health insurance system. Still, many opponents dubbed it “socialized medicine” and “centalized bureaucractic socialism.”

President Obama has not proposed a single payer, nationalized healthcare system. The government wouldn’t own any health clinics, employ doctors, or scrap our current employer-based insurance system under either the House or Senate proposals that critics unfairly call “Obama Care.”

Obviously, when any president wants to change the status quo where big companies make enormous profits at the expense of the masses, he has faced a vicious chorus of opponents who spread lies and stoke fears of “communism” or “socialism.” What’s happening today is nothing new, but what is surprising is the level of vindictiveness against a president whose plan more closely resembles Richard Nixon’s proposal for national health insurance than Bill Clinton’s.

MICHAEL BURTON is author of the book “John Henry Faulk: The Making of a Liberated Mind,” a biography of the blacklisted entertainer who was falsely labeled a communist sympathizer.

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August 27, 2009

Healthcare reform myths and the media

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — mcburton @ 1:15 pm

August 27, 2009

Two recent polls found that Americans believed most of the myths about the healthcare reform proposal before the U.S. Congress.

For example, in early August an NBC poll found:

• Fifty-five percent expect the healthcare reform package would give coverage to illegal immigrants.

• Forty-five percent said the bill would allow the government to decide when to stop care for the elderly.

• Fifty percent expect taxpayer dollars would be used to pay for abortions.

• Fifty-four percent said the overhaul would mean a government takeover of health care.

Of course all these myths had little basis in reality. The mainstream media dutifully reported the results of both national polls, but what reporters and editors did not do was to examine why most Americans were so woefully uninformed about healthcare reform.  The reason is simple: Most Americans believe these myths because they are not receiving the truth from the mainstream news sources.  Of course most of us don’t have time to read the 1,000+ page healthcare reform bill, but we do expect national journalists covering the issue to read it, and to tell us the truth about what it contains and what it does not.  Unfortunately, with some exceptions, most major media markets offered little analysis of the bill or summaries of what the reforms would require health insurance companies and employers to do.

One of the most egregious myths occurred because the media reported former vice presidential candidate Sara Palin’s assertion that the White House was creating “death panels” in the healthcare reform initiative.  When Palin made this charge, it was reported as fact in most media outlets. What she didn’t say, of course, was that the provision provided for Medicare reimbursement of medical practitioners who provide end-of-life counseling (also called “advance directives” or living wills). This is actually one of the greatest services doctors can provide for elderly patients who are facing terminal illness – to make their own choices about how and where they die.  When these issues go unaddressed, many terminally ill patients end up subjected to unnecessary and undignified tests and treatments.

President Obama acted naturally frustrated with this kind of reporting about healthcare reform in one of his town hall meetings. He was frustrated because most of the TV news images showed only angry protestors and confrontations.

“Part of the reason (these myths) spread is the way reporting is done today. If someone puts out misinformation like ‘Obama’s creating death panels, then the way the news report comes across is: ‘Today, such and such accused President Obama of putting forth death panels. The White House responded that this wasn’t true.’ Then they go on to the next story. What they don’t say is that in fact it isn’t true,” the president said.

There was scant coverage of Obama’s comments in the media.  Instead of an introspective analysis of the way these ‘news’ reports spread disinformation, many journalists took the president’s comments as an affront, some even hiding behind the First Amendment as a reason to report misinformation.  One journalist even compared Obama to Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew because he criticized the media.

“His words sounded whiny and petulant,” reported Baltimore Sun media “critic” David Zurawick. “The images Agnew and Nixon didn’t want us to see were part of the anti-war, women’s and gay and civil rights movement. I wonder what would have happened if TV had NOT shown them.” Zurawick also criticized Obama’s grassroots organizers for raising money and “trying to control the media on the healthcare debate” through its “spin operation.”

PLEASE.  President Obama’s criticism of the media cannot even remotely be compared to Nixon’s war against the press.  Nixon and Agnew attacked the press for their coverage over the Vietnam War protestors and were trying to shift the attention away from their immoral acts.  The difference between the mainstream media of the 1970s and the present is that most journalists in the 70s were interested in uncovering the truth, not reporting hearsay and innuendo. In our present culture, if Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh says something outrageously untrue, reporters present their comments without investigating their false claims.  Instead, they offer rebuttals by “the other side” and claim fairness in their storytelling.  Editors are complicit because outrageous controversy sells newspapers and boost ratings.

In the absence of presenting the facts, grassroots organizers are left to raise money for TV commercials and public awareness campaigns to squash the rumors journalists did not, which in turn creates revenue for the media.  This creates a vicious cycle of a uniformed electorate that tends to gravitate to those networks that present only their point of view, helping fuel delusional claims and angry protestors.

No, Mr. Zurawick, the “spin” is not coming from Obama supporters.  It’s in the best interests of the mainstream media not to report the facts, because to do so means more controversy and more profits for the media barons. Investigative reporting is on its deathbed. If today’s standard of journalism existed in the 1970s, Watergate would have likely gone unreported.

–Michael Burton

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August 20, 2009

Walter Cronkite on media conglomeration

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — mcburton @ 9:39 am

I wrote this news story in 1997 when Walter Cronkite appeared at a function at the University of Texas at Austin. It’s not surprising that CBS or any other network news station never broadcast his views about the erosion of national journalism.
______________________
The increasing concentration of media ownership under the auspices of mega-conglomerate companies is a dangerous trend that bodes ill for journalism, according to veteran newsman Walter Cronkite.
Cronkite, who spoke before a large crowd at the LBJ School at UT-Austin recently, talked about his memories as CBS news anchor and answered questions from the audience. Although most of the news stories about Cronkite’s appearance focused on his journalistic memoirs with the publication of his new book, Cronkite had much to say about vital issues concerning media ownership, the growth of consumer journalism, and journalistic writing.
One of the questions I asked Cronkite dealt with the increasing buyouts of media channels and newspapers by the mega-companies such as Disney and Time Warner. I asked Cronkite whether a renewed application of the nation’s anti-trust laws were now warranted to keep the media diverse.
Cronkite said he was not sure about using the anti-trust laws in this instance, because “it would be a hard one to make stick I think, since there is and will continue to be an increasing rivalry between the three networks. These organizations are not intertwined as yet, but can become become intertwined in some fashion when mutual ownership occurs with some parts of the ‘empire.’  Then some necessity for anti-trust action may be called for. In the meanwhile, however, the situation is very serious.”
The main problem with the super-conglomerates buying out radio, television, and newspaper outlets, Cronkite said, is that they are not bent journalistically, and have little knowledge of journalistic or news standards. “They are not aware, even at their highest management levels, of anything like journalistic ethics. I don’t think they appreciate them or would appreciate them if we tried to force them upon them. They are in this business for profit only.
Cronkite is concerned about this issue because he saw how the early pioneers of the networks — the Paleys, the Sarnoffs, and others who headed the networks, learned their ethics when the FCC was first assigning the licenses for the country’s airwaves.
“They were taught the responsibility that the government felt they had to the public, if they were going to share these airwaves that the public owned. As a consequence, they understood the responsibility they had in running these news departments.” These owners hired people who were professional journalists and did not compromise their principles — like Edward R. Murrow and Charles Collingwood and others.
The one distinguishing characteristic these people shared, Cronkite said, was independence from their owners. “The news departments were probably the freest form of journalism from advertiser or political pressure that we’ve ever had in this country in those first golden years of radio and early television.”
Yet that independence only lasted a couple of decades, “until this mega-ownership began creeping in” when the large companies discovered there was a hefty profit to be made from news. Before “60 Minutes,” very few news programs actually turned a profit, Cronkite said.
“Then they began to look at the bottom line a little more carefully, and started asking why so much money had to be spent gathering the news.” As the market share for television decreased, the pressure today is even more severe, Cronkite said.
“With the reduced pie, the slices each of them have for that pie is much smaller, and therefore the pressure is on from commercial management — upper management — to get their financial ducks in a row and get costs down.”
These mega-conglomerates have their fingers in every media outlet, too, Cronkite said –movies, television shows, books, magazines, theme parks, etc. So the pressure on news departments to conform to the bottom line is ever more intense, “in what the management believes is in the best interest of their profit line.” This can be seen in the owned and operated stations now, Cronkite said, with the so-called “news” and “infotainment” shows with a heavier emphasis on the entertainment part. Management urges their producers to interview “any passing celebrity about their lifestyles, which all seems the same to me,” Cronkite said. Another trend is for management to dictate that the interviews and features show only those that are only published and produced “by our company.”
“This is just the beginning; the surface indication of the problem,” Cronkite said. Journalists will also be pressured to stay away from issues the company has a major stake in — like safety in their theme parks, and other issues.
Still, network journalists are resisting this pressure, and show a determination to defend their journalistic craft. “But as long as they can, and hold a job. It hasn’t gotten to that yet, but let’s wait and see how it comes about. It’s not a comfortable situation.”

Media Monitor

Filed under: Uncategorized — mcburton @ 9:06 am

Welcome to MediaChannel 2.0. In the early 1990s, I edited an Austin, Texas-based publication called “Media Monitor.” The Utne Reader called the publication “one of the most substantial of the local publications” of media criticism.  This blog brings back the spirit of that publication with essays and comments about the way the mainstream media covers national issues.  I welcome all comments and suggestions about any topic of media criticism.

–MB

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