Something to Tide You Over

The following is a paper I wrote for my freshman English composition course. Although there are parts (mostly my transition from talking about the Propaganda Model to the poll) that I now wish were better-written, I liked it, overall. FWIW, the paper received an "A."

How the Media Led us to War: 9/11, Iraq, and Government Propaganda

As the primary source through which most people gain information about the world around them, mass media plays a major role in shaping how they think about it. In order to effectively disseminate its message, the media must present itself as objective and unbiased. Too often, the media does just the opposite. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, media coverage became more biased than ever. As the United States began preparing for its invasion of Iraq in 2003, a slew of justifications were offered, none of which have proven true in retrospect, but all of which were unquestioningly disseminated by the mass media. One key to understanding how the media allowed itself to be duped is the propaganda model developed by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. In “The Propaganda Model,” Herman formulates the structural critique of media institutions he and Chomsky first promulgated in Manufacturing Consent, arguing that the mass media perform a vital role in disseminating information that is helpful to elite – defined as corporate and government – interests. In this respect, they can be described as propaganda organs. Using a series of five filters to describe the selection decisions, Herman finds that the mass media are, by default, outlets of official propaganda due to the nature of the filters. However, in “Judith Miller, The New York Times, and the Propaganda Model,” Oliver Boyd-Barrett argues that the normal media practices upon which the propaganda model depend fail to fully explain why the media was such a willing participant in the official disinformation campaign leading up to the Iraq War. He traces this willingness to co-optation of journalists by the government. Judith Miller recently became well-known for her refusal to testify before the Special Prosecutor investingate the Plame CIA Leak scandal. Before this, however, Barrett demonstrates that she is part of a long tradition of journalists who were subverted by the CIA. He maintains that this use of journalists by the government is a factor for which Herman's model fails to account. Therefore, the misperceptions that the elite media spread and which the Program on International Policy Attitudes and Knowledge Networks (PIPA/KN) detail in their report Misperceptions, The Media, and the Iraq War are the result of a deliberate government misinformation campaign. The government was able to get support for the war through its media campaign, which effectively imparted the message that the reports that Miller was publishing, reinforced by TV news, was the truth. The propaganda model predicts that this is partially the result of ideological confluence between major media figures, ownership, and editorial boards with regards to the broad policy agendas of the incumbent government. Julie Charlip’s experiences, as discussed in “A Real Class Act: Searching for Identity in a Classless Society,” confirm this. Going to the right schools and getting the right kind of education translates into success, according to her observations. The correlation she observes between attendance at elite universities and success in the newsroom is very strong. So, too, is the correlation between the success of this class of person and the rise of unscrupulous agents within the media. Charlip observes that since these agents tend to be from more privileged backgrounds, they will attend the elite schools. The operation of these factors serves to create an institution that is incapable of exposing government lies for what they are. In order to do so, the media itself would have to admit that it is not fair, balanced, or objective. If the illusion of media objectivity were compromised, journalists and editors would soon be out of jobs and media holding companies would face financial ruin. It is for these reasons that the media allowed themselves to be accomplices in government propagandizing in the run-up to the Iraq War.

In order to explain how formally free news media in a market economy operating without external censorship become a set of propaganda outlets, Herman proposes a set of five filters that collectively strain media content that is unsupportive of what he terms elite agendas. Herman discusses the history of the working-class press in England, as a means of demonstrating how elite dominance of media ownership came about. One might question why government censorship is not practiced, as in China; apart from the fact that this would be unpalatable, it has proven to be counterproductive in the past. The British tried it in the nineteenth century “by using libel laws and prosecutions, by requiring an expensive security bond as a condition for publication, and by imposing various taxes to drive out radical media by raising their costs” (24). It was not until the repeal of these laws that the working-class press began to lose ground to the commercial press. Herman cites the increase in newspaper circulation and associated increase in capital requirements as the factor that led to its demise. Unable to keep up with the increased costs doing business due to a lack of advertising revenues, the alternative press was unable to compete (24). Papers that did attract advertisers, in contrast, could substantially lower the price of a copy of their publications. Lower per-copy costs meant greater circulation, and thus greater revenues (25). A positive feedback loop is therefore initialized, wherein media products that successfully draw advertisers are able to lower their copy prices, gaining more market-share and more advertisers. Thus, market forces prove themselves to be a more efficacious means of controlling media output than state censorship. Similarly, the media is dependent on large institutions for the raw information that becomes news. Herman identifies three main reasons why the media tends to treat these sources as authoritative: first, the media require a “steady, reliable flow” of newsworthy information, which they can obtain from these sources at low cost to themselves; second, the fact that these institutions have the status that they do in our society causes the media grant them credibility by default; and third, the fact that the media purports to be objective requires that they maintain this image both to maintain their own credibility and to protect them from the flak machine (26). As to the journalists themselves, Herman indicates that journalists accept the official ideology of the time. Although Herman focused mainly on anti-communism, Barrett suggests that one can understand this convergence in a broader context, namely “the benefits of neo-liberal global capitalism” (Barrett 436). Extending the propaganda model to apply to the media coverage of the events leading up to the US invasion of Iraq, Barrett finds that he requires a sixth filter, namely that of official subversion of journalists and media outlets. Examining media performance, he concludes that they went “well beyond, or rather against the call of duty,” in their reporting of the events due to the total lack of examination of the administration's arguments (437). In particular, he examines the performance of Judith Miller whom he claims was involved with various right-wing organizations including the American Enterprise Institute, and Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. What he observes in Miller's coverage is nothing short of disgraceful. Time and again, she prints reports that rely on little more than hearsay and innuendo, treated as authoritative because it's from an official source. Even more than this, however, she appears to have had the ear of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Undersecretary Douglas Feith, since she “threatened army personnel that she would report decisions about which she disagreed” to these figures (439). However, Barrett suggests a more complex reason than simple ideological convergence for this behavior. In fact, as New York Metro.com columnist Franklin Foer observes, the Pentagon Office of Special Plans was a major source for her reporting (440). Observing that “Miller had cultivated strong sources…among the neoconservatives” who consistently supplied her with stories and quotes, Barrett indicates that the editorial board of The New York Times deliberately compromised its position by giving Miller carte blanche to uncritically parrot the information these sources gave her (440). Just as advertisers reward media compliance with continued patronage and threaten disobedience with withdrawal of the same, then, official sources can reward compliant journalists with the opportunity for scoops that are guaranteed to make the front page. Normal journalistic practices alone, then, cannot wholly explain the behavior in question.

Because they explain behavior and performance, neither Herman’s not Barrett’s propaganda models predict effects. But they point out deficiencies in coverage whose effects can be measured, and they explain why the news we get is propaganda. Since the Iraq War was clearly supported by the government, it is an excellent case-study for these models. Having conducted numerous polls regarding beliefs and attitudes towards Iraq before and after the initial invasion, the PIPA/KN discovered that a majority of those polled “believed that Iraq played an important role” in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), one of the official justifications for the invasion, and that “a minority even expressed the belief that they had seen 'conclusive evidence' of such involvement,” despite the fact that the intelligence community expressly denied the existence of any such evidence, and even admitted that the link between Iraq and 9/11 was unsupported by evidence (1). Furthermore, even though a clear majority of public opinion throughout the world was against the invasion, PIPA/KN found that a minority of Americans were aware of this (1). What the polls found was that between June and September of 2003, 57% of Americans believed that Iraq had some connection with 9/11, in August 2003, 69% thought it was likely that Saddam Hussein was personally involved, and that an average of 48% of people between June and September of 2003 believed that the US had found evidence linking Iraq and al-Qaeda, a militant Islamic group blamed for organizing and executing the attacks (4). Unsurprisingly, PIPA/KN found that the highest incidences of persons holding these and other misperceptions (such as Iraqi possession of WMD) were among those who got their information primarily from major news outlets, and that these constituted a majority of those surveyed. Viewers of FOX news outlets (famous for its tagline of “fair and balanced reporting”) were the most likely to hold these misperceptions, according to the poll (14). The propaganda model appears to work here. The media spread information in a highly credulous manner, and appears to have done it so well that President Bush was re-elected on the strength of the reports. Since the government was the party most responsible for selling the war, the majority of press items obviously came from official (and unofficial) government sources. Instead of being “adversarial” as the media likes to portray itself, it was, in fact, a propaganda organ for the Bush administration and beat the war drum along with administration figures. Charlip grants an insider’s view on some reasons why journalists act in this manner. Notwithstanding the timeline conflict observed between her account and Herman’s analysis, she keenly observes the rise of the professional journalist, as initially “to [her] it felt like [she’d] learned a trade rather than received an education” at Rider College (88). A key admission, here: when she learned of the large journalism programs at Midwestern universities, and encountered people with college degrees, she was blown away. Her class background – and therefore educational background – was not conducive to assimilation into the system. Seeing a trend toward “better-educated reporters, self-educated professionals” who were inevitably children of the elite, Charlip notes that the “scrappy self-trained reporters could still go far” but they lacked access to choice assignments such as Washington or foreign affairs (89). Her later experiences reinforce Herman's assertions about the nature of the media, when she comments on “editors who were ambitious climbers and publishers just out to make money,” observing first-hand the confluence between editorial and financial decisions and the intense desire on the part of the publishers to maintain profitability (89). Time and again, Charlip returns to reference her class background as a major factor in why she becomes dissatisfied with journalism. Implicit in this is the fact that she self-identifies as working class, and regards herself as an outsider. Perhaps her rejection by higher-class schools, Bates and Colby Colleges, Wesleyan University, and Ithaca College, had something to do with this (87-88). She cites an incident in which she visited one of the aforementioned institutions with her mother who was regarded by the dean of students “with a sniff of disdain” (88). She was positive that this would not have occurred if her class background had been better. Charlip demonstrates clearly that journalists themselves think along lines that are more friendly to business, with their professional attitudes. Her experiences, in fact, confirm the propaganda model’s expectations about the confluence of interests between journalism and business.

What emerges is a picture in which journalistic norms play a role in selecting what news gets covered. Charlip’s experiences in journalism provide confirmation of the ideological confluence between journalists and elites. The “professional” attitude she describes, which expressly avoids and even implicitly condemns the labor struggles of the class of journalists to which she belongs, is precisely the attitude which survives today. Although the concepts and practices of journalistic professionalism actually predate the 1970’s, the fact remains that any attitude that regards itself as “professional” and above the fray is necessarily siding with institutional dominance because these attitudes regard direct struggle as unbecoming, and will respond well to co-optation by superiors within the institution. However, the adherence to the norms of the journalistic profession upon which the propaganda model as defined by Herman depends cannot alone predict all the biased coverage that emerges, as Barrett observes. Reporters often go above and beyond the call of duty, as it were, to present a biased viewpoint. Although journalistic norms will explain why other journalists follow, they do not explain why the behavior originates. Barrett’s co-optation filter, however, does fill this role. Institutions that subvert media institutions and journalists have a leg up on those that cannot. Because of their access to the resources necessary to do this, the elites will always be able to subvert journalism more often than those that oppose them. Since the mass media, as the PIPA/KN report indicates, influences popular opinion as the primary means of dissemination of the propaganda that elite institutions desire to propagate, the media bubble is very resistant to penetration by outside influences. If journalists and media institutions were to admit their role in disseminating government propaganda, their credibility would be forever compromised. Although, in their more candid moments, many of them admit that they aren’t as objective as they claim to be, even here they dissemble in an effort to avoid exposing the truth of their complicity. As the propaganda campaign surrounding Iraq War demonstrates, the elite media cannot be relied upon as critical opponents of the state. Greater attention must be paid to alternative sources of information if the American public wishes to avoid being duped by unscrupulous administrations because it is clear that the structural factors that create the environment in which the journalistic practices detailed herein flourish will not permit current institutions do this job. But no mistake should be made; those same factors will necessarily condition any successful movement in journalism.

Works Cited

Boyd-Barrett, Oliver. “Judith Miller, The New York Times, and the Propaganda Model.” Journalism Studies 5 (2004): 435-449. EBSCOHost. Franklin D. Schurz Library, South Bend, IN. 28 November 2005 http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&an=15306410

Charlip, Julie. “A Real Class Act: Searching for Identity in a Classless Society.” Making Sense: Essays on Art, Science, and Culture. Eds. Brittenham, Coleman, et. al. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006.

Herman, Edward S. “The Propaganda Model.” The Myth of the Liberal Media: An Edward Herman Reader. Ed. Edward Herman. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1999. 23-39.

Program on International Policy Attitudes / Knowledge Networks. Misperceptions, The Media, and the Iraq War. Washington: Program on International Policy Attitudes, 2003.

The substance of this paper should not come as a surprise to most. It's intended not as a "look what I figured out" piece so much as a reinforcement and refinement of readers' existing attitudes. I hope to have my next post on Ron Paul up before the week is out, and I'll expand the scope of my criticism. I'm also planning something on the Indian Casino initiatives, in an attempt to be reasonably topical.