NPR’s coverage of the Syrian civil war uses revealing words to describe events.  For example, “regime” is used to describe the Syrian government and “liberate” is used to describe the result of rebels taking a town.

However, the facts (even as reported by NPR) seem to tell a different, or at least much more murky, story.  Why are these words then used?  John Walsh provides some answers in his post National Pentagon Radio (NPR) Watch [dissidentvoice.org].

I came across this gem of a quote from Henry David Thoreau today:

…probably no country was ever ruled by so mean a class of tyrants as, with a few noble exceptions, are the editors of the periodical press in this country.  And as they live and rule only by their servility, and appealing to the worse, and not the better, nature of man, the people who read them are in the condition of the dog that returns to his vomit.

– Henry David Thoreau, from “Slavery in Massachusetts,” an address delivered at the Anti-Slavery Convention at Framingham, Mass, July 4, 1854.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Neither the advent of radio, television, cable, nor the Internet could improve our nation’s press.  What an apt way of thinking of ourselves when we read the NY Times, Washington Post, etc., or watch Fox, CNN, MS NBC, et. al. — “the dog that returns to his vomit.”

Apparently, the kind that prefers criminals who are quiet enough not to disturb its slumber.  Being thrown the occasional reward for good behavior (i.e. ignoring bad behavior) is appreciated too.

Glenn Greenwald explains our media’s love affair with being kept in the dark:

the paradoxical mind and function of the standard establishment journalist: they proudly venerate and defend extreme government secrecy at the same time they parade around as Adversarial Watchdogs and Light-Shiners on the political class.

It’s a strange, strange world. More from Glenn here:

The Secrecy-Loving Mind of the U.S. Journalist

P.S. Remember, newspapers are struggling because of the Internet, not because they are tools of the establishment and actually celebrate abdicating their responsibility to readers.

Today, NPR ran a piece by Alex Blumberg on its Planet Money segment entitled The National Debt: What The Left And Right Agree On.  Mr. Blumberg employed the tried & true formula for NPR reporting:

2 parts stupid + 1 part smug

Let’s start with the 2 parts stupid:

We learn from Mr. Blumberg’s piece that the left and right “largely agree” when it comes to America’s debt problems.  Mr. Blumberg quotes Alison Fraser from the “right-leaning Heritage Foundation” blaming entitlement programs. He then quotes Bob Greenstein of the “left-leaning” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities as saying the debt is “unsustainable” and due to “the aging of the population” and the “increase in healthcare costs” (i.e. blame Social Security and Medicare).

But what about a Brown University report, released in June, pegging the cost of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan at $3 – $4 trillion? Could military spending be a major factor in the debt crisis?  Mr. Blumberg’s report doesn’t mention the word “military” once. Then again, perhaps Brown University is neither “left-leaning” nor “right-leaning,” but “reality-leaning” and that just won’t do on NPR.

One can’t help but wonder if there are points of view that NPR doesn’t want its listeners to hear. For example:

America’s Not Broke: How to pay for the crisis while making the country more equitable, green, and secure (Institute of Policy Studies)

First Steps in Reforming the U.S. Financial and Tax System (Michael Hudson, research professor of economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City)

Budget Baloney (1): Why Social Security Isn’t a Problem for 26 Years, and the Best Way to Fix It Permanently (Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, current professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley).

Onto smug:

The so called “Liberal Media” is getting its hee-haws in this week over a new “study” showing Fox News Viewers Know Less Than People Who Don’t Watch Any News. The “study” surveyed 612 people who agreed to take the time to participate in a phone survey. Only 64 of them got their news from Fox. Some study.

My point here isn’t to defend Fox News, but to ask the same question about NPR. How much do its listeners know? Not much thanks to Alex Blumberg and Planet Money.

On today’s Talk of the Nation, NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving made the following assertion:

There are only marginal cuts in either the president’s budget or in the Ryan budget for defense. And I think the simplest way to answer that question is to say we are in two wars and a no-fly zone enforcement action. We have a lot of people engaged overseas. And the general perception of the public is: we can’t cut defense in a moment when we are, in some sense or another, at war.

Now, this isn’t World War II. It’s not the Vietnam War. But we do have a lot of commitments overseas, including a couple of hot wars. And the polls all show that people think that we should support our troops. And when you get right down into all of the problematic detail on how many weapon systems we’re buying that don’t have anything to do with those wars, surely, you could find savings. But the politicians that make these decisions are driven largely by the public’s perception of what is necessary and what is not. And we have not yet reached a consensus that we can have a peace dividend, when we have no peace.

The bolding used above is my emphasis and I want to address each bolded segment.

“And the general perception of the public is: we can’t cut defense in a moment when we are, in some sense or another, at war.”

Quite contrary to Elving’s claim, the general perception is that we shouldn’t be in these wars at all.  According the a Pew Research Center poll conducted March 30 – April 3, 2011, 50% of Americans want to “remove troops ASAP” from Afghanistan with only 44% disagreeing.

According to the most recent Washington Post / ABC poll (from early March) “nearly two-thirds of Americans say Afghan war isn’t worth fighting.”

Of course, those polls were taken in reality, and clearly NPR reports from somewhere else.  If it were “Science Friday,” perhaps we’d guess they were reporting from an alternate universe.

Alas, today is Monday so the reporting came from the everyday un-reality in which NPR lives.  In this un-reality, Americans always say “no cuts to defense” (no matter what Americans actually say).

Let’s pause to assume NPR is aware of the major polls (cited above).  That would mean (according to NPR) Americans want to end the war in Afghanistan, but keep spending money on it.   Forgive me if I have a hard time reconstructing the logic of un-reality, as I haven’t visited.

“And the polls all show that people think that we should support our troops.”

Yes, but clearly not by funding the war and putting their lives at risk.  Americans always will and always should support our troops.  That point is entirely independent of American support of a particular war policy or strategy.  It’s possible to support our troops in many ways, including ways that don’t spend billions on new weapon systems, private contractors, and largesse that benefits the defense industry, but not the troops.

“But the politicians that make these decisions are driven largely by the public’s perception of what is necessary and what is not.”

Note to readers: this wasn’t a Jon Stewart-esque satirical remark made with deadpan and punctuated with a smirk.  Apparently Ron Elving – who I repeat is NPR’s SENIOR WASHINGTON EDITOR – actually believes this. Shudder.

If there is anything that can bring together, in harmonious agreement, the vast spectrum of American political opinion, it is likely refutation of Elving’s absurd claim. Therefore, I won’t waste space here with an elaborated rebuttal on behalf of the people of reality.  I’ve listened to my fair share of NPR fairy tales.  If they want to know why Elving’s statement is ridiculous, it’s their turn to make the trip and visit us in the real world.

Is NBC’s suspension of Keith Olbermann for making political donations a farce?  This is where reliance on Wikipedia breaks down, providing two competing definitions.

The first definition, which I link to below, and which for reasons apparent I refer to as capital ‘F’ farce says:

In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include sexual innuendo and word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases, culminating in an ending which often involves an elaborate chase scene.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farce

The second definition (little farce) says:

A style of humor marked by broad improbabilities with little regard to regularity or method; compare sarcasm.

See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/farce

So we riddle that and ponder- is NBC farce, Farce, neither or both?

At stage left right NBC actor and MSNBC President Phil Griffin enters:

“I became aware of Keith’s political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay.”

NBC News has standards? Roll the tape:

“Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest,” the guidelines read. “Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions.”

Capital ‘F’ farce is a little wordy for my tastes, so we’ll hone in on “improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity.” So then…Was it an improbable situation or disguise that caused NBC to mistake the identity of other violators like Larry Kudlow, Joe Scarborough, and Pat Buchanan?

Powerful stuff for capital ‘F’ farce’s case, but a tad more infuriating than “entertaining” and a decided lack of “sexual innuendo.”

Thank goodness for little farce who calls upon us to “compare sarcasm” as in: you call that conflict of interest? While rubes ponder donations of a few thousand by the Olbermanns or even the Kudlows, Scarboroughs and Bucahnans, AlterNet reveals:

• GE (the ahem owner of NBC) made over $2 million in political contributions in the 2010 election cycle.
• GE also spent $32 million on lobbying this year.
• Comcast, which wants to merge with NBC, has dramatically increased its political giving, much of it to lawmakers who support the proposed merger.

Little farce wins, but I’d say NBC is a capital ‘F’ farce all the way.

Today in John Stewart’s closing speech for the Rally to Restore Sanity, he focused on the failings of the media.

The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker…and perhaps eczema.

Rob Beschizza over a BoingBoing observes that the NY Times continues its refusal to use the word torture:

Reading the NYT’s stories about the Iraq War logs, I was struck by how it could get through such gruesome descriptions — fingers chopped off, chemicals splashed on prisoners — without using the word ‘torture.’

So Rob developed the perfect tool for NY Times staff — a euphemism generator. Check it out here:

The New York Times Torture Euphemism Generator!

There has been a stark contrast between how US and world media are covering the recent publication by WikiLeaks of the Iraq War Logs. Mainstream US media outlets are more focused on the character and ethics of WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.  US media also seems to be downplaying the US’s role in the torture revealed by the leaked documents.

Glenn Greenwald has another excellent post examining how this compares to more substantive WikiLeaks coverage in the world media.  I decided to take a look at the coverage in Sweden, which is one of the countries Glenn hasn’t discussed yet in this context.

I was curious about Swedish coverage because of the arrest warrant Swedish  authorities issued for Julian Assange in August and later dropped.  The charges followed on the heals of WikiLeak’s summer release of 75,000 classified documents from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and it’s unclear if they were part of a dirty tricks campaign against the WikiLeaks organization.  As a couple of the source below discuss, it appears the investigation was reopened after being dropped, although there doesn’t appear to be an active arrest warrant.

Sweden is also the home to WikiLeak’s central servers.  This is another reason I thought it would be interesting to examine recent Swedish coverage of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.  I’m fortunate to have Swedish colleague who could translate the Swedish sites for me.  I don’t speak Swedish and the summaries below are based on her translations and assessments.

vD (Svenska Dagbladet = “Swedish Times”)

DN (Dagens Nyheter = “Daily News”)

Aftonbladet = “Evening News”

Given 400,000 leaked documents about the Iraq war, on Saturday (October 23, 2010) the NY Times decided to lead with a hit piece against Julian Assange, Wiki Leaks founder:

NY Times Homepage, Saturday October 23, 2010

As the nature of this blog suggest, I’m a skeptic when it comes to the media and their motives, but I admit even I was surprised at how low the Times stooped here.

Recommend Reading

I was glad to see Glenn Greenwald address the same observation, in his Sunday post, with his usual depth and insight.  Glenn compares the NY Times actions to those of Nixon’s “plumbers” (Egil Krogh and David Young) who worked to smear and discredit Daniel Ellsberg because Ellsberg had leaked the Pentagon Papers.  I recommend Glenn’s post, which you can find here:

The Nixonian henchmen of today: at the NYT