Ted Canova On Media

Dan Rather has the solution. “American journalism has lost its spine and we need a spine transplant.”  As a journalist who grew up to “The Camera Never Blinks,” I’ve always rooted for Rather, yet as his 77 years have slowed him a bit, he still presents bigger than life, polite as ever, even shaking hands with reporters before they turn that non-blinking camera on him.

 

Yet it was somewhat surprising when Rather refused to answer my question at the National Conference for Media Reform. Surprising since a lot of the discussion that preceded him centered on the media’s complicity and silence to the Bush Administration’s build up to the Iraq War.

 

Question: “Everyone knew that George Bush was AWOL from National Guard duty, yet you still pursued (the story) and your one decision basically put a freeze on the press being critical of the Bush Administration. Why did you continue to pursue a story that conventional wisdom already knew the answer to?”

 

Rather response: “You’re entitled to ask a question. I respect the question. I hope you respect I’m here to talk about free press, the quality of journalism, the integrity of journalism and some other time if you want to talk about the lawsuit I’m engaged, perhaps I can do it but right now, again, with great respect since you asked the question, this is not the time to answer that question.”

 

Surprising response since the movement for media reform has everything to do with transparency and to learn from the media mistakes of the past.

 

So what will it take for true media reform? Spending the first two days at the National Conference has left me hopeful but a bit mixed up. Inspired by Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake.com who says we should be somewhere between activism and journalism. Or Rather’s comments for a call for “patriotic journalism.” Or the line between “advocacy and purpose that takes us across political boundaries” as Jefferson Morley of the Center for Independent Media put it.

 

The public was left in the dark for the most important issue of our time. Mainstream media worked with the Pentagon and allowed its voices to infiltrate the airwaves, reciting 4500 times the pre-war lies on all the major networks and even NPR. CNN’s Eason Jordan asked the Pentagon for input on which retired military flacks to hire as commentators and “got a big thumbs up for all of them.”

 

I'm inspired by Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, who shows how mainstream is ignoring the huge story of the “new economy of wartime.” Homeland Security is a $200 billion global industry that needs to be examined on par with the dot com economy. And many of the corporate media owners have a stake in this new economy, as evidenced by General Electric logos on the side of airport screening machines.

 

And it’s not just the war where mainstream media has let go of its responsibility. Larry Lessing of Stanford Law points to global warming. In the 1990’s, when 0% of the people disagreed with the facts of global warming, 53% of media articles questioned the findings because of “junk science” funded by the energy lobby. “In all these 2+2=4 questions, the government gets them wrong.”

 

Lobbyists have doubled since 2000 as Bush’s chief lobbyist says “People in industry are willing to invest money because they see opportunities here.” Yet the media all but ignores this.

 

The mainstream is noticeably absent fro this conference on media reform. Is it because they are embarrassed by how they let down Americans and the world? Hardly. “Iraq has largely disappeared from mainstream media. We’re not seeing news coverage because of this projected disinterest by the public,” says Klein.

 

Sonali Kolhatkar, author of Bleeding Afghanistan even says NPR shortchanged the public when it canned an interview with an Afghani woman “because her accent was too thick.” Klein said it best:  “I just want to say we cannot single out one network. The leading newspapers and the leading networks of our time, they all failed us.” And with this, I'm off to listen to Dan Rather once again.                                                                            6/7/08

Day one winds down and Bill O’Reilly, whose ratings are tanking, gets the most mentions at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Is that a good thing at a conference that should focus on media reform? Even though the conference is sponsored by Free Press, a national, non-partisan group, Bill-O is the lightning rod. And he must love it. FOX has a crew on the scene, and Free Press put out its first e-mail alert of the day stating FOX cameras are here to ambush the conference. It’s this thinking that has the media turned upside down, letting a cable TV spectacle, who decimal points watch spew his hate, dictate the tone and talking points of the nation. He must have loved Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films starting his session by pointing out the FOX camera crew in attendance. "The liars, distorters, the people at FOX News, and a word to bully Bill O'Reilly who’s too (something) to come out and do his own dirty work..Hi Bill."

It’s crystal clear that those at the National Conference for Media Reform are partisan and looking for a change. They hope to ride Barack Obama’s message and coat tails for a clue on how to seize ts own lighning in a bottle.

The partisan FCC is here too, though it is the dissenting voices of the federal regulatory group present, with even less power in these halls than it has in Washington. One Commissioner telling me at a press availability, “The FCC has dropped the ball.” No-duh. When pressed that his regulatory agency is like many others in the Bush Administration, and enforces no regulations, Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein says it will take a partisan change in the White House to accomplish more. When he states the agency is "hoping" for the corporate media to improve on its own, I remind him that “hope is not a strategy, that local stations, where most Americans get their news, have little to no public affairs programming, that the FCC regulates the media with a fine after Janet Jackson exposes herself because about 13 people filed a complaint and orchestrated a letter writing campaign, yet does nothing to hold the media responsibile to the public. When Adelstein says they’re encouraging stations to go online and share how they program in the public’s best interest, I remind him that stations pay attention only during license-renewal time and even then it’s to make sure a local advocate has access to public files in a General Manager's secretary’s cubicle.

 

So we end day one a bit deflated from how the day started.  Josh Silver, Executive Director of Free Press, the conference organizer, pumped up the audience quickly. “We now know the media rolled over for Bush not just over the war but for every major issue facing the nation. We now know our leaders prey on our fears with a campaign to distract from Administration’s latest embarrassing or illegal acts. We now know corporate media, the source of news for 90% of Americans, was a willing mouthpiece and American people were left afraid. Left in the dark not just by government but by the media that was supposed to keep us informed.

 

And that’s what matters. The media’s role for society, for democracy. Let Bill-O fight it out with Keith Olbermann. Let them squawk, let them expose each other’s political leanings, let them read the overnight Nielsen ratings to their loyal audiences. But that won’t advance our common ground. That won’t lead to solving problems facing our country. And that won’t motivate the public to leave the past behind, and embrace a new way of thinking. With all the advances in technology, do we trust the established media to provide the roadmap to the future? Or do we take the grassroots movement, led by the Presidential campaign, and define a new standard of how we get our news? The answer is obvious. As the conference theme states: Media Reform Begins with Me.                                       6/6/08

 

People often ask me if I miss being in the media, especially during this heated Presidential election. My answer is pretty simple: No. Because over the years, the industry is quite different than the one I and many colleagues signed up for. How corporate owners I've sat across never discuss quality, but rather how we'll add product while cutting resources. How local management, for the most part, takes its daily orders from above, and how we watch the virtual extinction of hard news reporters and the vacuum of quality its left behind. For me, as you know, it was difficult and exhausting to keep holding up the dam while encouraging dedicated newsrooms to show its raging curiosity and risk being loners out in the field. 

If there's one thing this Presidential election has shown us, the public is starting to mobilize against the status quo. For obvious and passionate reasons, voters new and old are speaking out and shaping the quality of many candidates. While voters say they're "mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore, it's ironic that media consumers are less unified, given the real target of that quote.   

In "Network" Howard Beale was shouting that "things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!" Unfortunately the public is too busy, is too easily diverted and too exhausted to take on the quality of the media everyday. That hurts democracy. That hurts society.

In two days, the National Conference for Media Reform takes place in Minneapolis. And I'll be there blogging. It will be the next step in what I tell friends of something "stirring inside of me." Whether it was starting WagTheNews.com or separating the media critique of that blog in TedCanovaOnMedia.com, both web sites are the evolution of a personal commitment to return to that raging and curious journalist I started as in 1981.

The conference is hosted by Free Press, a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Dan Rather, Bill Moyers and thousands of concerned activists will be riding a wave of unprecedented activism and interest around media issues and come together.
 
Maybe it'll start with talk of a media renaissance, and perhaps it will end with lofty goals. But perhaps in some way, it will follow the lead of this unprecedented grassroots uprising we call an election. Perhaps it doesn't take Howard Beale opening up his window and shouting. But maybe it does. Point me to a rooftop and I'm ready to yell we can't take this anymore.     6/4/08

We get what we pay for.  Cheap cable news deadens the pulse of Americans. You see it in the Presidential election. The public is bored even though its the most interesting election since '68. And it's exactly what the Bush Administration had in mind. Bore us to death. If Abu Graib photos were released for the first time today, if domestic spying was revealed today, or if the Bush War Machine was exposed for planting information through the American media today, most Americans would care less.

In fact the planting of information was revealed just last week in the New York Times, forcing the Pentagon to stop letting military hawks, with nothing else to do in retirement, stop getting briefed by the all-too-encouraging War Department.

Look at your cable or satellite bill and do the math. $40/month gets you 50 to 500 channels. So for pennies a month, you the viewer gets to watch unregulated cable news. Watch it alot and you see why the Iraq War keeps going. They've super-saturated the content, diluting the real news coming from the front. They've blended together the real issues with the phoney ones further confusing the audience. They've bored us to death with Generals answering questions on Capitol Hill while soldiers on the front lines question the merits of wtching the horrors few of us ever hear. And no story or piece of video gets to American airwaves without first getting approved by the govrenment.

At its conception, cable news went where no one went before. They were on all the time, unheard of in the pre-historic age of the 60's and 70's. Want a story? No need to wait for the Evening News. In the early days, CNN relied on affiliates across the country more than its own original content. Back then, there was more than enough fluff to keep audiences entertained, even if just for a few minutes at a time. Today the field is more crowded but the competition has dumbed things down to new heights. Pundits rule. The more outrageous the better. 

Enter the military. The role of informational gatekeeper the media was supposed to uphold came unhinged. No media, from local radio and TV to newspapers and networks, ever identify pundits personal choices and they should. Everytime. we don't know their choice for President or where they stand on the War. From Sunday morning talk shows to Primary Night's continuing coverage, we're fed military lobbyists, Super delegates and campaign advisers but rarely, if ever, are told who they support. And it matters. It should anyway.

While fewer people watch cable than the traditional networks, the endless drone of their commentary define the issues of the day more than a one time examination of healthcare on World News Tonight. Those at ABC might high-five after a thoughtful story, but it's the bottom feeders of cable news that spend more time speculating than reporting, more time perpetuating a video clip of the day rather than going deep on it's merits of why it should not be repeated and repeated.

The revelation that the military has been planted across media platforms should come as little surprise. The only reason it seems like a new story is that NO ONE at those media outposts has cared to say NO to having these PR flacks donning medals on its air. FOX has a General, you bet CNN is scouring West Point and the first Gulf War for military strategists who only need to have a pulse and some hardware. What the media failed to do was stay on the story of manipulation. For the Fifth Estate to be hoodwinked in the first Gulf War and play role of Military Cheerleader (Star Studded Success of the Patriot Missile! NOT!!!) and then through this whole mess, NOT throw all he bumbs out of their newsrooms, just shows that given a semblance of reality, it chooses to turn the other cheek. Bliss is not a positive trait for any journalist.

We do get what we pay for. For just pennies a month, we allow the status quo of cable news into our homes. On a good day, we're lucky to have broad freedoms of the press. But on most days, we'd rather spend our government rebates to support meaningful journalism, reporters who can connect the dots and gatekeepers with some guts.                                                                                  4/26/08