I Read the News Today--Oh Boy

 

 

One of my routine activities is reading the news each morning. For many years, that activity involved a newspaper. In the past few decades I’ve been reading news sites online which is not quite the same as sitting down with a paper but it is convenient and gives me access to a wide variety of news sources. The weekday ritual was often sporadic during my work years but Sunday mornings with a big Washington Post or even the Sunday local paper kept the ritual alive. Now that I am retired, I engage daily. I am finding, however, that keeping informed is a less pleasant task these days. I skim headlines to get a sense of what’s happening but often skip going to storie for details. So many of those headlines tell me of events with which I am already familiar and, while the actual article might add something to my understanding, that information is relatively marginal and not worth the time it takes to read. Rather than the typical litany of daily events I much prefer analytical articles that provide context and background for those events.

 

Part of the problem is that many of the headlines and articles tell me about things I find appalling, distressing and lead me to fear for the future. As an adult I have strongly believed in justice and equality, that all people should have the opportunity to live free and secure lives. At the same time I have always been realistic about the extent to which we flawed human beings can achieve those lofty objectives but I found hope in the progress that had been made. Yet when I read the news these days, it seems not only the progress has been anything but equal and just but also that society is retrograding. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. I want to believe that to be true but it feels more like the arc is breaking rather than bending.

As a planet, we seem entirely unable to change how we live to avert the devastating effects of climate change. The world has had plenty of warning about the consequences of burning fossil fuels but the developed nations whose prosperous economies poured carbon into the atmosphere are unwilling to rein in their emissions. The world economy depends on continued extraction and at all costs and one of the costs that we seem willing to pay is a radical change in the environment that has supported life as we know it. My country, the United States of America, has become increasingly divided—economically, racially and politically—to the point that the news routinely reports dispossession, poverty and violence. The racial divide that has always plagued American society seems as gaping as ever despite the achievements of the Civil Rights movement. The federal government is increasingly dysfunctional with Congress unable to enact meaningful legislation, a packed Supreme Court and an Executive Branch that has seemingly unlimited power to wage war but can do little to promote economic and social justice here at home.

Maybe what I’m seeing when I read the new is the end of my expectations. Coming of age in the 1960s I had grown up with the legacy of the New Deal which had demonstrated the positive impact of government on the lives of every day Americans (think Social Security, the GI Bill and major infrastructure). I I had seen America moving toward racial justice and broader acceptance of non-traditional ideas. I had hopes of continued progress toward economic and social justice (or at least a reasonable approximation thereof) in my lifetime. 

 

Call it youthful idealism that was bound to be tempered by experience. But I didn’t expect to be worrying about growing authoritarianism in my country and the world. I didn’t look into the future and see a world with melting polar ice caps and triple digit temperatures in Siberia and British Columbia. I didn’t think that I may be part of the last generation to experience the natural environment that gave rise to and nurtured the world that I knew.

All that comes to mind when I read the news these days. I’m too much of a news junkie to quit but it’s getting to be a difficult pastime.

Je Suis Charlie, Indeed

If you don't understand, go here and here.

The Official New Line

From the BBC about Ukraine,

The website of the Russian state-run daily Izvestiya, which usually describes opposition activists in Ukraine as "armed extremists" and "militants", has now switched to calling them "people's patrols" and "self-defence groups".
[...]
The government's official Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily, normally supportive of Mr Yanukovych, now accuses him of "bringing Ukraine to bloodshed and division".

 Pretty quick accommodation to a changing environment.  A residual skill from Soviet times maybe.

Words for Our Time

From The Essays of E.B. White,

..[D]istortion is inherent in partisan journalism, the same as it is in political rallies. I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or nonpolitical, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way the writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many are born upright. The beauty of the American free press is that the slants and the twists and the distortions come from so many directions, and the special intereste are so numerous, the reader must sift and sort and check an counter-check in order to find out what the score is. This he does. It is only when a press gets its twist from a single source, as in the case of government-controlled press systems, that the reader is licked.

--Bedfellows, 1956

"No man is born perpendicular" caught my eye when I first read this essay. It seemed a particularly clever statement of an immutable fact. A more contemporary writer would likely omit the "born upright" phrase that follows. Writing in 1956, White could plausibly acknowledge integrity in many partisans regardless of their slant. That is a more difficult task in 2012.

Integrity is in short supply these days but slant is plentiful. That's where the rest of the paragraph offers a cautionary tale. White extols the free flow of information--slanted and straight, dubious and dead on--from many sources and the diligent reader who sorts through it all to know the score. White also warns about a single-source press that deprives the diligent reader of the information needed to know the score.

The warning anticipates 21st century America. Rather than government control of media, we have corporate corporate control of media. And that media is primarily electronic. White's diligent reader has been replaced by a mostly passive consumer of a very limited diet.

Alternative information is available. The diligent reader (or listener, some electronic media are credible and informative) can still look beyond the limited corporate fare to find the information that will tell the score but generations accustomed to having news served to them are unlikely to look beyond the handouts.

Are we licked yet?

Propaganda 101

David Sirota questions the relationship between the military and the entertainment industry in today's Washington Post. Nick Turse has been writing about this incestuous relationship for years but today is the first for the mainstream media I read. I hope it will not be the last.

History does not exactly repeat itself but human emotions and fears are pretty constant. That's why I can hope that if, as Sirota states, America was tired of and questioning war after years of war Vietnam and southeast Asia, then maybe something similar will happen as America enters a second decade of war in southwest Asia. Maybe Americans will re-think and question a national security policy that demands constant deployment and rotation of military personnel to combat zones for no good reason.

And just maybe if that happens, we will also dismantle the political-military-industrial economy that underpins endless war. We thought we'd slayed that Monster in 1975.

We just slowed it down.

All the more reason to keep fighting now.

Why You Should Not Rely on Mainstream Media

You won't get anything like MK Bhadrakumar's analysis of the Afghanistan-Pakistan regional dynamics and his assessment of possibilities for an Afghan-led peace process. The article is a detailed assessment of players and interests that leads Bhadrakumar to conclude,

[E]verything points toward a favorable backdrop for Kabul and Islamabad to kickstart a peace process, finally. Both capitals profess that Washington will be a participant in such a process - and neither is exaggerating the fact. Indeed, they will be downright unrealistic to visualize that there can be an Afghan settlement without the US's involvement and backing.

But neither is likely to seek or offer a "larger-than-life" role for the US in the peace process or hand over the steering wheel to it. Their trust deficit with the US runs far too deep, thanks to flawed US policies over recent years - bullying Karzai and humiliating him and even seeking his replacement on the one hand, while on the other hand sowing the seeds of doubt in the Pakistani mind about American intentions toward Pakistan.

Bhadrakumar's article is long and requires some effort. And it is not US-centric. Asking Americans to make some effort to think outside of our distinctly unique American perspective is not something mainstream media will do. Conventional wisdom--comfort food for the mind--is more their style.

That's why you can't rely on the mainstream media.

You will miss too much real information.

What Happened to Journalism

Reading a collection of Mark Twain's previously unpublished work, I found his essay, "The American Press". Now I know how we ended up with Faux News and all the chattering heads: the press lost its irreverence.

According to Twain,

Well, the charge is, that our press has but little of that old-world quality, reverence. Let us be candidly grateful that this is so. With its limited reverence it at least reveres the things which this nation reveres, as a rule, and that is sufficient: what other people revere is fairly and properly matter of light importance to us. Our press does not reverence kings, it does not reverence so-called nobilities, it does not reverence established ecclesiastical slaveries, it does not reverence laws which rob a younger son to fatten an elder one, it does not reverence any fraud or sham or infamy, howsoever old or rotten or holy, which sets one citizen above his neighbor by accident of birth; it does not reverence any law or custom, howsoever old or decayed or sacred, which shuts against the best man in the land the best place in the land and the divine right to prove property and go up and occupy it.
[...]
I believe it is our irreverent press which has laughed away, one by one, what remained of our inherited minor shams and delusions and serfages after the Revolution, and made us the only free people that has yet existed in the earth; and I believe we shall remain free, utterly free and unassailably free, until some alien critic with sugared speech shall persuade our journalism to forsake its scoffing ways and serve itself up on the innocuous European plan. Our press has done a worth work; is doing a worthy work; and so, though one should prove it to me...that its faults are abundant and overabundant, I should still say, no matter: so long as it still possesses that surpreme virtue in journalism, and active and discriminating, irreverence, it will be entitled to hold itself the most valuable press, the most wholesome press, and the most puissant force for the nurture and protection of human freedom that either hemishpere has yet produced since the printer's art set itself the tedious and disheartening task of righting the wrongs of men.

Imagine what an active and discriminating, irreverence could have done with the the "smoking gun mushroom cloud" in 2002. Or about Iran these days.

Hey, Buddy! Looking for a Sweet Deal on Some Weapons?

The Washington Post today carries an article about the rash of defense contractor advertising that has become common in the DC media. The mass of commuters who pass ads in Metro stations aren't exactly in the market for a new littoral combat ship or jet fighter. Nonetheless, defense contractors think it's worthwhile to make the effort.

Of course, the whole point is visibility with the expectation that the ads will provide some margin of favor for their sponsors. In reality, most of the people who are exposed to the ads have neither interest in nor influence over the contracts to be awarded. But that's okay as far as the contractors are concerned. They have plenty of money. Ads for combat systems in subway stations make combat part of everyday life.

But even if you don't sit on a House or Senate subcommittee, the ads may still be working on you in subtle ways. Repeated exposure to an advertising message has a cumulative effect, slowly shaping attitudes over time, says Angela Lee, a professor of marketing at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. "The more you're exposed to it in your environment, the more you're internalizing the message," she says. "You start to take it for granted that this is normal."

In other words, heroic images of the latest firepower may contribute to a generally positive climate for military contractors and Pentagon spending in Washington -- a point that isn't lost on antiwar activists. "This absolutely isn't a fair fight," says Dennis Lane, executive director of Veterans for Peace, an organization that promotes alternatives to militarism. "The defense industry has the money to shout louder than anyone, and it just keeps pushing for more. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. It just keeps going and going."

Ah yes, the business of war, without which the United States would have little else to export. We no longer manufacture much of anything and our economy is in shambles. But America does seem to have plenty of money when it comes to weapons. Just look at the numbers discussed in the article and then look to see if anyone is complaining about deficits when it comes to weaponry. You won't hear much beyond the objections of groups like Veterans For Peace. Frankly, I'm surprised that an establishment organ like the Post even included the quote from VFP. Usually such voices are roundly ignored in those circles.

The article actually describes the real purpose of these weapons: killing. The ads, on the other hand, are more discrete.

Defense ads also are striking in the way they resort to euphemism when discussing the principal attribute of most kinds of military equipment -- their efficiency in killing people. Code words like "dominance," "powerful" and "strength" crop up frequently, which makes them sound like copy for a sports drink. Moreover, it's never clear who's supposed to be on the receiving end of these impressive instruments of warfare. Some ads speak darkly of "emerging threats," but the enemies are never named.

Back in political science school, I learned about the Iron Triangle of special interests, Congressional committees and bureaucracy. These ads tell me that nothing has change in the past half century.

War. It's good for business.

Re-Write

The Jakarta Post re-wrote the story about Rose Johnson's death. The story now says Rose died after drinking adulterated alcohol. That's a good turn but all the news sources picked up the "alcohol poisoning" line and I doubt if they will carry a follow up.

The TimesOnline did a much better job of reporting the facts. And a wonderful photo of Rose in her element.

IOKIFYAAR

It's okay if you are a Republican.

Some evangelicals said today that they were not put off by the news, in light of the fact that Bristol Palin plans to carry the baby to term and marry the father. Cathie Adams, president of the Eagle Forum's Texas chapter, said she was pleased Palin's daughter was nearly done with high school and that she was going ahead with the pregnancy.

"This is a family that keeps dealing with challenges and they keep doing the right thing," Adams said, adding that humans are "fallen beings."

Only an evil liberal would judge this good family in this private matter.

War, Sacrifice and Photography

An op-ed piece in the WP intersected all of my hot wires: war, sacrifice and photography. The photographer who took an iconic photo of an American soldier rushing an injured Iraqi child to care wrote to speculate on his contribution to that soldier’s death five years later. Iconic images often have difficult histories. Ira Hayes never recovered from being among the flag raisers at Iwo Jima. The “Marlboro Man Marine” from the Battle of Falluja has suffered the lingering effects of PTSD, just like Joseph Dwyer, the soldier carrying the child. Dwyer died from an overdose of drugs on 29 June after never fully returning from Iraq.

Warren Zinn took the photo as an embedded reporter for Army Times. From his side of the lens, it was part of the day’s events. Zinn says that the circumstances suggested something important but mostly he was a man with a camera at that place and time. The significance of the event reveals itself later, when the public reacts to the drama and heroism depicted. And typically, a soldier who is singled out is uneasy about the adulation when he was just doing his job, no different from anyone else that day.

How much Zinn’s photo contributed to Dwyer’s post war difficulties is pure speculation. About all I can say is that the photo was part of an overall experience of disappointment and disillusion experienced by soldiers in an indefinite, uncertain mission. When the photo was taken, America could still feel good about the Iraq invasion; we were the good guys bringing freedom, democracy and medical care to a benighted nation. Five years on, American forces are foreign occupier seeking control, influence and economic advantage in a volatile region of the world at the cost of many hundred of thousands dead, massive disruption of population and public service. Not much hope in that.

War and sacrifice. The two go together, hand in glove. Unless the soldier can look back on his or her sacrifice with pride and accomplishment, the experience will curdle the psyche. More so in some than others, but no one returns unaffected. In the end, I don’t think that Zinn’s photo killed Dwyer. The war killed Dwyer. Without the war, the photo would not have existed. Absent the photo, Dwyer was still in Iraq, accumulating an experience he would be unable to live with afterwards. He did seem to understand the randomness and truth of the photo, that it was a just one of many acts of sacrifice by American forces; aside from some embarrassment at being singled out, Dwyer lived with the image. It was everything else killed him.

But a photographer will always wonder when it comes to individuals. Several award-winning photographers have expressed regret at the consequences to the individuals shown in their work. As a photographer, I have long considered how I affect the subjects I photograph. That’s why you see almost no people in my images. In my world, people are represented by their activities, structures and machines. If you see people in my photographs, they are part of a mass, not individuals. If my camera affects them in any way, it makes no difference because they are not the focus.

But I have the luxury to choose my images. A photojournalist does not. A photojournalist’s purpose is to record images of an event. The photographer or editor can decide which images make a story. And in the context of events, some images will stand out. Zinn’s photo of Dwyer is nearly identical to the Oklahoma City firefighter rescuing an infant that captivated the nation after the 1995 bombing there. These images give us some sign of hope amid the chaos and rubble and we grab on to them. But a single image is only part, and often a very small part, of any story. That is the great lie of photography, that a photograph has meaning or even evidentiary value.

A photograph is merely a moment in time. A well-crafted photo essay or systematic photo documentation is only as current as the images presented. Photography is a skill, much like writing or speaking. Most human beings can speak and learn to write but using those skills well requires a certain level of proficiency that comes with practice, experience and understanding. In photography, that proficiency can help the photographer decide what to record and how to present the results. Our heritage and culture are richer from the vast photographic record developed in the almost two centuries since images were created on light sensitive emulsions. In the end, though, that record is only one of many sources for understanding; we must still look at those images, interpret them, compare them and analyze them. We should always ask what the photographer ignored.

The power and emotion of a single photograph is undeniable. Its truth and meaning is always suspect.

In the Newspaper

I came across these hwadlines reading the dead tree version of The Olympian today:

Suspicious speaker spurs evacuation. It started out as a suspicious unattended package that turned into stereo speakers. But my original thought could easily describe America these days. We will prevent suspicious speakers from polluting tender minds by evacuating all within hearing range of said suspicious speakers.

N.C. employee retires, refuses to lower flags for Helms. The linked story is much more colorful than the three inch squib in the dead tree version but both identify Jesse Helms as a man of "hate and prejudice". Who says the media never get anything right?

Can You Get Any More Cynical?

John McCain, quoted in a NYT article about the way candidates avoid their own histories:

Others have been haunted by their legislative history. Mr. McCain has been attacked over the McCain-Feingold law by a host of Republicans, including Mr. Romney, during both candidates’ debates.

In an interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News last month, Mr. McCain characterized campaign finance as a Beltway issue.

“Outside of Washington, I never have anybody stand up and talk about McCain-Feingold,” he said. “There’s nobody who ever does.” Himself included.

postscript

John McCain is no longer St. John McCain in Unsolicited Opinion. He is no longer the annointed media candidate, the man of straigtht talk and candor. McCain has become instead a slavish panderer. Those of us who have known him throughout his career in Arizona are not surprised. That's the John we've always seen. What surprised us was his media dieification in 2000. The years since have seen McCain returning to his familiar ways. Now he's an also-ran.

From a Bygone Era

I recently read The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff. It tells the story of the print and electronic press as the civil rights movement developed in after World War II. The story begins with the near complete absence of news about black Americans in the mainstream media. In the early postwar era, only black owned newspapers covered the happenings of their community. Roberts and Kilbanoff highlight the pioneering contributions of the black journalists and publishers of that era.

As the civil rights movement grew, however, black journalists were largely excluded from the story, except for isolated instances like the Emmett Till murder trial (where they were greeted with “Good morning, niggers” by the local sheriff). All too often, black journalists were singled out by white mobs and could not get close enough to the events to report.

In their absence, the white mainstream media began paying attention, coverage was limited and spotty at first, led by a few courageous southern editorialists and publishers but as the story developed, other media soon joined in. The Race Beat profiles many of the reporters such at Claude Sitton of the New York Times, Hank Fleming of Newsweek, Jack Nelson of the Atlanta Constitution and later the LA Times and John Chancellor of NBC who made civil rights their beat.

The story is gripping and detailed but moves along well. Having grown up in the south and experienced some of the events first hand, The Race Beat offers an interesting view of that experience. Even more, it shows how television came into its own as a news medium. The civil rights era was a time when television news was just emerging and reporters were not only covering the story but becoming part of it, either by telling the world what was going on and occasionally coming under attack by those who did not want them reporting on the story. It was also an era of dramatic photography splashed across front pages of newspapers and in Life magazine feature stories.

What impressed me most about the narrative was the correspondents’ dedication to, first, understanding the events they were covering and, second, to making sure that story went out over the air and into print. The black press and its reporters, who were often barred from the scene still managed to provide important information, reporting on what they could see and where they could get. Often, their reports provided background and detail from a community where white reporters had limited access and one with which most Americans were wholly uninformed.

Reading this book, I am struck by the contrast between the “race beat” reporters and today’s correspondents. Forty years ago, the press was far more aggressive in its work, it seems to me. Yeah, it took a while for the civil rights story to emerge but once it did, the press was diligent in getting the story out. Contrast that with today’s media which operate more as megaphones or stenographers for the corporate-industrial government that more than ever seeks to manipulate and conceal information. The media still show occasional signs of life–Dana Priest’s stories in the Washington Post about secret prisons and the neglect of veterans at Walter Reed come to mind–but those few instances only highlight the contrast between then and now.