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Mainstream media dissent Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.msnbc.com/news/860481.asphttp://www.msnbc.com/news/860481.asp
Where’s the Dissent?
Antiwar protests are happening all over the country and the world, but the mainstream media are hardly paying attention
By Jennifer Barrett
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Jan. 16 — Last Saturday, at least 5,000 antiwar protesters gathered in Los Angeles to hear actor Martin Sheen of “The West Wing” and other activists speak out against war on Iraq.
ON THE same day, more than 2,000 braved the freezing cold for a similar rally in Minneapolis. And since November, a group of about 200 in San Francisco have been trying to draw attention to the cause by stripping off their clothes and arranging themselves to spell out messages of peace in various public places.
An estimated 100,000 protesters from around the country converged in the nation’s capital last October in what was called the largest antiwar demonstration in Washington since the Vietnam War era, and at least as many protesters are expected to return this weekend for more rallies. On Saturday, a mass march and rally organized by International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) and other groups will begin at 11 a.m. on the Mall and an ANSWER-led youth and student rally is planned for Sunday at the same time outside the U.S. Department of Justice. But whether members of the media will be there too is less clear. Though the antiwar movement is gathering steam as the possibility of war draws near, it has not garnered much mainstream press coverage yet. A NEWSWEEK Lexis/Nexis news search found that in October 2002 there were more than 1,500 stories about U.S. troops and Iraq but only a third as many stories with the word “antiwar.” In the past week, about 100 stories have been written about antiwar protesters while about eight times as many stories have covered troop deployments and movement in the Persian Gulf. NEWSWEEK’s Jennifer Barrett spoke to Lance Bennett, founder and director of the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement at the University of Washington in Seattle, about the media’s role in the debate over war with Iraq. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: You coauthored a book called “Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War” (University of Chicago Press) in 1994. How would you compare media coverage leading up to the Persian Gulf War to the media’s coverage of the growing conflict with Iraq now?
Lance Bennett: There has been much less public debate about the prudence of this war and there has been less coverage of social protest and a general command from the White House of media content.
Why do you think that is?
The administration has used this issue to effectively support the president’s popularity and the Democrats are in an extremely weak position at the moment and they are unwilling to challenge that popularity even if they don’t feel the war is a good idea. If there is no official challenge to this policy, the media tend not to open the news gates to social voices that would challenge the policy.
The antiwar rally in Washington last fall was the largest antiwar demonstration in the nation’s capital since the 1970s protest against the Vietnam War. Why has the media itself been so reluctant to question the policy when many regular Americans seem willing to do so?
The pattern of media coverage is really reflected in the levels of disagreement among policy elites. A protest movement can get itself into the news by staging demonstrations, but those demonstrations often focus on conflict, violence and police behavior and are not clear channels for getting protest messages to the public. It depends on how government opposition emerges. Clearly the media became very critical of Vietnam, but there was dissent not just between Congress and the White House but within the Defense Department and within the State Department. When that level of fractiousness occurs, you get much wider coverage of social viewpoints. I wouldn’t characterize the media as being overwhelmingly not representative of public viewpoints. If you look at taxes and abortion or school prayer or social issues like affirmative action where many policy channels in government are contested and conflicted, then you tend to find a much more open media picture of social viewpoints.
Do you think Americans are getting an accurate picture from the mainstream media of the antiwar movement here?
No. The movement is extremely deep, consisting of lots and lots of community groups involved in globalization issues and peace and global civil-society concerns and those who are simply worried about U.S. foreign intervention in a dubious conflict.
What would they have to do to get more media coverage?
There needs to be some voice of dissent coming out of Congress. It’s the way the media works in these matters. Protesters are taken more seriously when there are public officials who speak for them, and the media tend to go from that development in a story to find more grass-roots opinion to include in a story.
Do you think the media should take more proactive role in questioning whether war with Iraq is a good idea?
Yes, if we agree that governmental deliberation has been unnaturally restricted by the Republicans’ command of the government at the moment and the Democrats’ unwillingness to challenge that coming into a presidential-election season and that the media might recognize that and begin to raise questions. The media will raise questions if the war appears to be going badly or goes on for too long or takes too many lives—those become big story lines. But it would be nice to raise the questions before those unpleasant ones come up. The media are also in a ratings battle; look at the cable wars. The direction that competition between those news organizations takes generally revolves around more patriotism and better theme songs and more dramatic coverage of the military side of things.
Don’t the cable news channels risk alienating viewers who think that having theme songs and catchy titles about the conflict with Iraq trivializes the issue of war?
I think it is just part of the infotainment trend in the entire industry, the movement toward soft news and dramatizations and simplifications and the production of news that begins to look like entertainment television—anything to grab an audience and hold it until the commercial break.
But CNN made its name as a serious and authoritative source for news during the Persian Gulf War. Why mess with a successful strategy?
I think CNN is involved in an internal struggle over whether it should emulate Fox more or establish its position in the market by staying with serious news. It has shifted from the old policy of news being the star to hiring more expensive talent to deliver the news and to put more human interest and soft-news features into its main newscasts. But I don’t think it will go all the way in the direction of Fox in part because Fox is winning that competition. With Walter Isaacson leaving CNN, that leaves an opening for redefinition, but I suspect CNN still clings enough to its tradition of being a more serious news voice. We’ll see a difference between Fox and CNN, but CNN will have theme songs and dramatizations and cover “smart bombs.”
What effect has the media’s coverage of Iraq had so far on public opinion?
I don’t know if I’d say there has been a sea change between the gulf war coverage and today. It’s just a trend that is continuing because of a lack of political opposition in policy circles. The media are simply not likely to raise serious questions going in but will wait until something goes wrong and then raise questions about the wisdom of this policy. There is plenty of time for the media to get critical, but the question is in the timing of that criticism and whether it is helpful to form a dialogue between the public and policymakers that would prevent unpleasant disasters.
Do you think that will happen?
No. The administration has participated in a very effective news management campaign since the days after the September 11 attacks ... People who raised their voice even a small bit were immediately brought under fire either by members of the network of conservative voices or by the White House itself. That has had a serious chilling tone on journalistic criticism.
© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.
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