The Failed Fourth Estate
Iraq: Why the media failed
Afraid to challenge America's leaders or conventional wisdom about the Middle East, a toothless press collapsed.
By Gary Kamiya
We should note one more reason for the media's Iraq failure: the Bush administration. The mainstream media, especially in its current enfeebled form, is simply not equipped to deal with an regime as secretive, manipulative, vengeful and, not to put too fine a point on it, malignant as the present one. Watching the mainstream press try to contend with the Bush-Cheney gang is like watching the Polish cavalry galloping up in 1939 as the Wehrmacht tanks approach.So has the media learned its lesson? And what does the future hold? In many ways, the media has definitely improved. After the war turned south and the WMD failed to appear, most news organizations began to get much tougher on the Bush administration. The New York Times, in particular, has found its backbone, roasting the administration for its incompetence and duplicity and turning an increasingly skeptical eye on its claims of progress in Iraq. And from the beginning of the war, the media's reporting from the field in Iraq has been far better than its analysis.
The problem, of course, is that the press only really turned on Bush when his ratings began to fall -- another indication that the Fourth Estate has become more of a weathervane than a truth teller.
The final verdict is not yet in. The media has improved, without question, but it has a lot of making up to do. The structural problems -- psychological, institutional, ideological -- that played so big a role in its collapse have not gone away, and there is no reason to think they will. And then there's war, which reduced so much of the media to flag-waving courtiers. If the media has learned that a bugle blast can be sounded by a fool, that not every war the United States launches is wise or necessary, and that self-righteousness is not an argument, maybe something can be salvaged from this sorry chapter after all.
I have CNN on behind me most days and I can tell you that, with the exception of Olbermann, things really haven't improved that much on cable news. The area of news judgement, what constitutes a legitimate story, is still beholden to celebrity bullshit. This Imus story is a symptom. The asshole should just be ignored.
Comments
The usual pretense that the media and the elite are enemies. But the Cheney trial -- uh Libby trial sorry -- revealed that they work hand in glove. They are not enemies but partners.
Libby obviously felt that he could use the media as his alibi because they were partners in crime. Russert was noted to be especially "co-operative".
And why should anyone be surprised since we know that there's a long history (ie project Mockingbird) of the elites controlling the media?
This sort of article pretends to be a criticism of the media while it in fact shores up the propaganda image of the media as the enemy of elites.
Posted by: DavidByron | April 10, 2007 07:58 PM
Melanie - You say you "have CNN on behind me most days" - I wonder if you might not want to consider again what you really want, and whether having CNN going adds to or detracts from your goals, and if there might be a better choice you could make here.
I say this because I find that giving less attention to the corporate media has enriched my own life.
Posted by: Freddy el Desfibradddoro April 11, 2007 01:37 PM
Freddy,
I feel listening to CNN comes with the territory. They spout the CW and I need to hear what it is so I can go looking for the counter example.
Posted by: Melanie | April 11, 2007 01:51 PM