Media Spin's Influence on Political Opinion
Terri
How can the public determine what is "real" from what is "spin" and
what is "newsworthy"? How do average citizens sort through conflicting
reports?
What happened to the days when journalists simply reported the news?
Today journalists themselves are actually THE NEWSMAKERS and they are
in the headlines themselves!
With it becoming increasingly difficult to sort out the editorial
"news" from the "real news"....how can voters determine what is
newsworthy and what their opinions are in the matter? With not only
"information overload" but also sorting through the
personalities/spin/delivery of news items how do viewers determine what
is true?
Terri
Media Advisory
Spinning the Libby Indictment
Pundits attack Wilson, downplay perjury
11/1/05
The indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the CIA leak
investigation was major news. Libby--who promptly resigned from his
position as Dick Cheney's chief of staff--is portrayed in the
indictment as repeatedly, and deceptively, claiming he learned about
Valerie Plame Wilson's classified status at the CIA from reporters.
This explains why special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was so adamant
about getting reporters to testify.
After Friday's announcement of the indictments(10/28/05), however, some
journalists seemed to think that the story was not so newsworthy. On
ABC's Nightline, Ted Koppel devoted only a few minutes to the
indictment before beginning a scheduled town hall meeting on disaster
preparedness. Koppel offered the following explanation:
"Scooter Libby's indictment today is indisputably a major story. It was
the lead on all the television network news programs earlier this
evening. It will be the object of banner headlines in all of your
morning newspapers tomorrow. As for its real impact on the lives of
most American, though, not much. Not really. That's the strange thing
about our business, the news business. Often, what seems so important
to us, reporters that is, is of little or no consequence to many of
you."
Why Libby's indictment is "of little consequence" is worth some
explanation. Valerie Wilson's job at the CIA was preventing the spread
of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction; if blowing her cover
jeopardized that work, then this story certainly does affect all
Americans.
Koppel's opinion echoed that of Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, who said
(10/28/05) that "this is a media-driven story.... If we go outside
right here after the show, stop people and go, 'Who's Scooter Libby?'
They'll go, 'He's one of The Little Rascals.' They don't know, all
right, and they don't care." The argument that an uninformed public is
an argument against informing the public is peculiar, to say the least.
Some reporters were diminishing the investigation before the
indictments were handed down. CNN's Lou Dobbs complained (10/26/05):
"We are spending inordinate amounts of time creating great public
distractions when this country is faced with some of the most profound
issues in its history right now. Every man, woman and child in this
country has far, far more important things for its chief officials to
be focused on, it seems to me." Surely one of the most profound issues
facing the country right now is the war in Iraq--a war that is
inextricably bound with the lies told by the Bush administration to
promote that war, an issue that is directly connected to the Fitzgerald
investigation.
Similarly, Washington Post reporter Jeff Birnbaum asserted on Fox News
Channel (7/13/05): "Really, doesn't this sound like an investigation
that's gone wildly wrong and is just wreaking havoc on anybody who got
anywhere close to it? And it may be over, essentially, nothing. In
fact, it likely is."
--Hostility Toward Fitzgerald
This kind of hostility toward Fitzgerald's investigation was widespread
in the press. CNN's Dobbs denounced Fitzgerald in a conversation with
Judith Miller (10/4/05): "Frankly, I will not forgive Fitzgerald for
what he did to you. I think it is an onerous, disgusting abuse of
government power." In the Washington Post, Jim Hoagland (10/20/05)
wrote that Fitzgerald "has wielded his prosecutorial discretion like a
bludgeon, with scant regard for the need for a balance of official
candor and journalistic responsibility that serves the public good."
Hoagland's Post colleague Richard Cohen wrote a week earlier
(10/13/05), "The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country
is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real
criminals. As it is, all he has done so far is send Judith Miller of
the New York Times to jail and repeatedly haul this or that
administration high official before a grand jury, investigating a crime
that probably wasn't one in the first place but that now, as is often
the case, might have metastasized into some sort of coverup -- but,
again, of nothing much. Go home, Pat."
MSNBC host Tucker Carlson observed (10/13/05) that Fitzgerald "looks
like he's about to do something very wrong, and that's charge people
with conspiracy, which is not the original crime. In other words--as
always happens in these scenarios--a prosecutor, unfettered by anyone
basically, gets in there, starts looking into stuff, ignores the
original crime and indicts for something else." Carlson added that
"conspiracy is almost always a crock."
--Libby's Memory Defense
As it turned out, Fitzgerald did not indict Libby for conspiracy, but
for allegedly obstructing justice, making false statements to FBI
investigators and committing perjury before the grand jury through his
insistence that he had first heard about Valerie Wilson's CIA
employment from journalists. Fitzgerald charged that numerous witnesses
within the government, as well as the journalists themselves, show that
these assertions are false.
Faced with detailed charges that Libby had put forward a story
contradicted by numerous witnesses, some pundits sympathized with Libby
as a purported victim of faulty memory. As Charles Krauthammer
explained on Fox News Channel (10/28/05): "I'm always astonished at
Senate hearings or any of these inquisitions, where somebody is asked
about a meeting they had three years ago. I don't know what country I
was in three years ago. I'm just astonished. I mean, can you not be
lying if you pretend that you remember?"
But Libby was asked about his talks with reporters just months after
they occurred--during which time the subject of how reporters had found
about Wilson and the CIA was an ongoing political firestorm.
Krauthammer is suggesting that during those months, Libby could have
forgotten about at least a half dozen conversations he had with other
members of the administration about Wilson's work--and then
misremembered having learned where she worked from a reporter who says
he never discussed Wilson at all with Libby. That would be a faulty
memory indeed.
Other cable pundits seemed to have a problem with the very notion of
perjury being prosecuted at all. As MSNBC's Tucker Carlson explained to
colleague Rachel Maddow (10/18/05):
"How is that different than if I go up to you and say, 'Hey, Rachel,
here take a hit of this joint.' And you say, 'I don't smoke pot.' And I
say, 'Rachel, come on. If you want to be cool, you want to be my
friend, take a hit of this joint.' You do, I arrest you. I've caused
you in some way to commit that crime. I am culpable in that crime. That
is a kind of entrapment.... I'm not saying entrapment, but it's like
entrapment. It's the investigation itself has caused the circumstances
that resulted in the crime."
Fox's Krauthammer took a similar line (10/7/05): "If you don't have a
crime underlying, as I believe there isn't, what you have is a system
that essentially creates a crime in the search of a nonexistent crime.
And that looks unjust to me." After the indictments were announced,
Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward made the same point on CNN
(10/27/05), saying that "some people kind of had convenient memories
before the grand jury. Technically they might be able to be charged
with perjury. But I don't see an underlying crime here and the absence
of the underlying crime may cause somebody who is a really thoughtful
prosecutor to say, you know, maybe this is not one to go to the court
with."
--The War on Wilson, Continued
Some commentators took the indictments as another chance to express
their dislike for Joseph Wilson, Valerie's husband, whose comments to
the media critical of White House WMD claims precipitated the leak and
subsequent investigation. Fox host Brit Hume-- after telling
African-American colleague Juan Williams that "somebody needs to hose
you down"-- was still insisting on October 30 that Wilson was the one
who wasn't telling the truth: "So the smear that you describe is a case
where this guy [Wilson] was lying about them and they were telling the
truth about him. That's not a smear."
Deriding Wilson was not just for the TV pundits. Prior to the
indictments, the Washington Post ran a piece (10/25/05) headlined
"Husband Is Conspicuous in Leak Case," which portrayed Wilson as hungry
for publicity, having a "flamboyant style and a love for the camera
lens." The Post claimed that "beyond dispute is the fact that the
little-known diplomat took maximum advantage of his 15 minutes of
fame," since "Wilson has been a fixture on the network and cable news
circuit for two years."
This description is, in fact, subject to dispute--a search for Nexis
transcripts where Joe Wilson is listed as a guest turns up exactly four
appearances in 2005--but the larger question is why the Post believes
such actions "have complicated his efforts to portray himself as a
whistle-blower and a husband angry about the treatment of his wife."
What is complicated about a "whistle-blower" seeking media coverage of
his case, when the very word implies making noise to attract attention?
--Gloating Democrats?
After Libby's indictment, some commentators were quick to denounce
Democratic gloating. Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (10/28/05),
during a segment ostensibly dedicated to how partisans on both sides
were reacting, predictably saved his anger for one side: "No American
should be happy that Lewis Libby's life is destroyed right now. Period.
These people are on the left. They're despicable."
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof warned (10/30/05) of the same
danger: "Democrats should wipe the smiles off their faces. This is a
humiliation for the entire country, and their glee is unseemly." No
specific Democrats were cited for exhibiting unseemly glee.
Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz conveyed a curious outlook on
the media's role in the Fitzgerald investigation, writing that
"journalists face a minefield of potentially explosive questions: Are
they enjoying a bit too much the spectacle of Libby, Vice President
Cheney's chief of staff, having to resign over the charges of perjury
and obstruction of justice? What happened to the normal journalistic
skepticism toward a single-minded special prosecutor, as was on display
when Ken Starr was pursuing Bill Clinton?"
The idea that media displayed "normal journalistic skepticism" toward
the Starr investigation is absurd; the media's reporting on Whitewater
was credulous in the extreme (Extra!, 11-12/96). When Starr exposed
Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, media eagerly embraced the
scandal (Extra!, 3-4/98)--in sharp contrast to the anxiety expressed
over Fitzgerald's probe.
Kurtz warned, "If the media pound Bush over the Fitzgerald probe for
months, they risk a public backlash." Given that Clinton's job approval
rating during the height of the Lewinsky scandal was nearly twice what
Bush's is now, it's an odd warning to make now rather than back in
1998.
Kurtz wrote that "the leak prosecution is shaping up as a test of media
fairness and responsibility in a polarizing age," pointing to liberal
critics like Arianna Huffington as evidence that "the wounds still
haven't healed" about the drive to war in Iraq. Given that the Iraq War
continues to inflict real wounds on thousands of people on both sides
of the conflict, it's unclear why one would expect any metaphorical
wounds to have healed.
Kurtz did provide an inadvertent lesson in mainstream media priorities,
however, when he wrote that the manipulation of intelligence on Iraq's
WMD "is arguably more important than the Clinton-era debates over
whether oral sex was sex." One would hope that reporters would by now
see the issue of lying the country into war is not "arguably" more
important than Clinton's sex life-- it is obviously and immeasurably
more important.