(Editor’s Note: This is part of a series of news analysis pieces that will look at the Grand Rapids Press coverage of the US occupation/war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This new GRIID study began on May 26 and will continue through the end of August. This article begins with analysis of the GR Press story and then includes the article at the bottom. Note that the text that is bold is the portion of the original story that was omitted in the GR Press version.)
This Associated Press story focuses on two aspects of the US/NATO military campaign in Afghanistan. First, the focus is on the number of US & NATO soldier deaths that have occurred. The article claims that July of 2009 has resulted in more US & NATO soldier deaths than any month since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. No sources are provided to substantiate those numbers, but the iCasualties.org site does verify those numbers. In fact, at this rate 2009 will likely be the biggest in US & NATO troop deaths of any year since the 2001 invasion. 2008 so far, is the year with the most soldier deaths in Afghanistan at a total of 294.
Following troop death toll figures the story then states, “U.S. commanders had predicted a bloody summer after President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan in a bid to turn the tide against a resurgent Taliban and shift the focus on the global war against Islamic extremism from Iraq.” However, following this statement are comments from the outgoing NATO Secretary General who believes that the US/NATO campaign must go forward or “Al-Qaida would have a free run again, and their terrorist ambitions are global.”
There are no other sources used in the story to balance those of the NATO spokesperson, especially since he claims that the fight in Afghanistan is about Al-Qaida, despite the fact the in the rest of the story it states that the US/NATO military campaign is targeted at the Taliban.
The Grand Rapids Press version of the AP story ends with a comment about the increase in roadside car bombings, but again offers no source for this data nor any analysis or commentary as to why this increase. Robert Pape, author of “Dying to Win: The Strategies Logic to Suicide Terrorism” offers some insight into the increase of roadside car bombings in part four of Robert Greenwald’s documentary, Rethinking Afghanistan.
As you can see by looking at the AP article below a substantial amount of the original version was omitted from the Press version. Also omitted from the story is any mention of Afghan civilian deaths. In fact, since we began this study in late May, there has been no mention of Afghan civilian deaths. According to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan there have been 800 Afghan civilian deaths between January and May of 2009 alone.
July 21 AP
July deadliest month for US in Afghanistan
A roadside bomb killed four American troops in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, driving the July death toll for U.S. forces to the highest monthly level of the war.
The latest deaths brought to at least 30 the number of American service members who have died in Afghanistan this month — two more than the figure for all of June 2008, which had been the deadliest month for the U.S. since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion drove the Taliban from power.
July’s death toll for the entire U.S.-led coalition, which includes American, British, Canadian and other forces, stands at 55 — well over the previous record of 46 deaths suffered in June and August of 2008.
U.S. commanders had predicted a bloody summer after President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan in a bid to turn the tide against a resurgent Taliban and shift the focus on the global war against Islamic extremism from Iraq.
NATO’s outgoing Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Monday that terrorism would spread through the world if NATO forces fail in Afghanistan.
“Al-Qaida would have a free run again, and their terrorist ambitions are global,” he said in a speech at London’s Chatham House think tank. “Those who argue otherwise — who say we can defend against terrorism from home — are simply burying their heads in the sand.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned that U.S.-led forces must demonstrate progress in Afghanistan by next summer or face a public perception that the conflict cannot be won. Heavy losses this month have already triggered a public debate in Britain that the war in Afghanistan may not be worth the price.
With more troops in the country, American and British forces have been striking deeper into Taliban strongholds in the south, hoping to establish enough security for Afghans to choose a president next month and cut insurgent supply lines into Pakistan.
British military authorities said Monday that bombing attacks in southern Afghanistan soared nearly 43 percent for the first five months of this year over the same period last year.
U.S. troops have also stepped up efforts in eastern Afghanistan to curb the movement of militants to and from safe havens in Pakistan’s lawless tribal region.
A NATO statement said the four soldiers were killed by an improvised explosive device in the east of the country but gave no further details. A U.S. spokesman, Lt. Robert Carr, confirmed all four were Americans.
It was unclear whether the blast occurred near the area of eastern Afghanistan where Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, was taken captive June 30. Bergdahl appeared on a Taliban video posted on the Internet over the weekend — a move denounced by the U.S. command as a violation of international law.
Also Monday, the British Ministry of Defense announced that a British soldier was killed the day before by a roadside bomb during a foot patrol in Helmand province.
Roadside bombs now account for more than two-thirds of all casualties among the international force as the Taliban demonstrate greater skill in manufacturing and planting the explosives. Bombings rose by 25 percent in the first four months of 2009 over the same period last year, and the U.S. command expects them to increase 50 percent this year to 5,700 — up from 3,800 last year.
The increased threat from roadside bombs and Afghanistan’s formidable terrain of high mountains and deserts have forced the international military force to rely heavily on aircraft to transport personnel and supplies around the country. The increased tempo of the conflict has strained air assets and may have been behind a series of aircraft accidents in recent weeks.
In the latest mishap, a British Tornado GR4 fighter jet crashed Monday on takeoff inside the Kandahar Airfield, but the two crewmen managed to eject safely, according to a NATO spokesman Capt. Ruben Hoornveld. British officials said the crash was not a result of hostile fire but the cause was still under investigation.
The crash occurred one day after a Russian-owned civilian Mi-8 helicopter slammed into the tarmac at the same base shortly after takeoff, killing 16 people on board. Two Americans died Saturday when their U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet crashed in central Afghanistan.
A U.S. helicopter made a “hard landing” the same day, injuring several soldiers. U.S. officials said neither incident was due to hostile fire.
Taliban militants shot down a Moldovan-owned Mi-6 transport helicopter last week in southern Afghanistan, killing six Ukrainian civilians on board and an Afghan child on the ground.
Earlier in July, two Canadian soldiers and one British trooper were killed in a helicopter crash in Zabul province. Officials said the crash did not appear to be caused by Taliban fire.
Also Monday, officials reported that at least a dozen Afghan civilians had been killed in violent incidents.
In the northern province of Kunduz on Sunday, German soldiers fired on a pickup truck approaching at high speed and suspected of carrying Taliban fighters. Provincial Gov. Mohammad Omar said three civilians were killed, but German authorities said one died.
Defense Ministry spokesman Christian Dienst said in Berlin that the driver ignored warning shots before troops fired at the vehicle’s engine to disable it. Three Afghans were injured and a fourth fled, Dienst said.
Prosecutors in Potsdam, where the German military’s mission command center is headquartered, said they were examining evidence to determine whether to open a criminal investigation.
In the western province of Farah, a van full of civilians struck a roadside bomb Sunday, killing 11 people on board, including a child and his mother, said Mohammad Younis Rasouli, the deputy governor. The bomb was probably intended for Afghan or international troops.
Millionaires who die and the millions who are uninsured
The king of pop is dead. Michael Jackson was pronounced dead on June 25. He was only 50 years old. But you knew all this. Hell, you could probably tell me the name of the Doctor who was the only person present when Jackson died. Right you are, it was Dr. Murray.
You might even have been one of the millions who included your name in the public drawing to see who could get tickets to his funeral ceremony in LA. You might even have been listening to some of his music recently and reminiscing about what you were doing when ABC, Billy Jean, Thriller or Beat It were big hits.
Even if you didn’t want to be thinking about Michael Jackson and his recent death, you were hard pressed not to know. Every major media outlet in the US and around the world were giving us up to the minute details of his death and the speculation as to the cause are still headlines as I write this piece in mid-July.
So, why all the attention? Why has Jackson’s death become such a media spectacle? The origin of the word spectacle comes to us from the Latin spectalulum, which means “a sight,” and from the root word specere, which means “to look.” It seems that the infotainment media want us “to look” at or pay attention to the ongoing details of the pop star’s death. But why? Do they think this is what we want? All Michael, all the time? Are they driven by ratings or the thirst to sell more papers? I suspect that all of these reasons play into their decision to bombard us with this latest media spectacle, but at what cost?
While many Americans could provide some information about the life and death of Michael Jackson, how many could explain the current proposals put forth by the federal government and grassroots organization to change the health care system in this country? The Obama administration is using the power of its group Change for America, which is proposing a some mild reforms, but offers no challenge to the current corporate managed health care system. Some organizations are promoting themselves as in favor of health care reform, but these entities are just front groups for the health care industry.
One thing that has been interesting to watch is the near blackout in the mainstream media the proposal supported by millions of Americans – Single Payer Health Care. Russell Mokhiber of Corporate Crime Reporter had a recent story listing the national groups that arrayed against Single Payer even being part of the discussion.
There are at least 47 million Americans who have no health insurance and another 100 million who are under-insured, yet the future of health care pales in comparison to the type of media spectacle that Michael Jackson’s death provides.
This just all seems so counter-intuitive to the notion that without good health, not much else matters. Yet, the news media does not give us up to the minute reports on health care reform and it is not front-page news every other day.
What do you think would happen if it were reported on with the same frequency as the latest celebrity scandal or death? What would it mean to most Americans if they got daily reports on how the health industry, the HMOs, the pharmaceutical and insurance industries were spending millions of dollars lobbying the federal government to maintain some form of a privately managed health care system? Would information about how the public is being overcharged for medical care and medicine really sell newspapers? Would people be glued to the TV and radio if there was a daily story about which health care company was lobbying which member of Congress?
The answer to all of these questions might not ever be known, but here is an idea that just might increase coverage of the millions of people who are uninsured or under-insured in the US. I think that those dying from HIV/AIDS, military vets, the homeless, the millions of children with poor health, and the millions of working Americans who have had their health care benefits reduced or eliminated and senior citizens who can’t afford medicine just wore a white glove and did the moonwalk the news media might find them worthy of up to the minute and front page news.
Media Bites – US Air Force Ad
In this week’s Media Bites we take a look at a recent US Air Force recruiting commercial that features the use of the unmanned drones. We analyze this ad in the context of how the US military uses popular media for targeting youth. We also address how this ad sanitizes the use of Predator Drones that are currently being used in the US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan & Pakistan.
(Editor’s Note: This is the second is a series of news analysis pieces that will look at the Grand Rapids Press coverage of the US occupation/war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This new GRIID study began on May 26 and will continue through the end of August. This article begins with analysis of the GR Press story and then includes the article at the bottom. Note that the text that is bold is the portion of the original story that was omitted in the GR Press version.)
On Sunday, July 12 the Grand Rapids Press ran a story from the Washington Post on the latest US military activity in Afghanistan. The story is framed from the perspective of the US State Department and seeks to put some of the blame in the US inability to accomplish its goals because of historical conflicts between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“Senior U.S. and Pakistani officials have stepped up efforts in recent months to tame the chaotic border area, used by the Taliban as a base from which to fire rockets at U.S. positions in Afghanistan and smuggle fighters and weapons. But high-level talks have not led to cooperation on the ground, where U.S. troops are struggling to overcome decades of enmity between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
The reporter provides no context from the “decades of enmity” nor any understanding of the larger border issues.It is common knowledge amongst Afghani or Pakistani scholars that part of the enmity that exists between some Afghani and Pakistanis is the historical role that Pakistan has played in recent the ongoing violence in Afghanistan.
When the US backed the Mujahideen insurgents in the 1980s, the Pakistani military, particularly the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) was a major conduit for weapons and training. Afghanis understand that the glut of small weapons in their country is in part due to Pakistan’s role.
Another major aspect of this history is whom the Pakistan ISI was training. Many of the Mujahideen were and are members of the Northern Alliance, a brutal political faction in Afghanistan and terrorizes the population with violence, corruption and drug production. More importantly, the Pakistan ISI was largely responsible for the creation of the Taliban. Important pieces of history that might have some bearing on the current “enmity.”
Instead of providing readers with some context and sources that might shed light on the current conflict the article only sources four US military personnel and one Pakistani soldier. The US military personnel in the story express frustration over the limited cooperation from either Pakistani or Afghani military personnel which not only makes the problem seem like it is between these two countries, but it also conveniently ignores the role that the US military presence and decades of US policy have played in fostering conflict between these two Central Asian countries.
July 12 Washington Post
“Friend or foe? Afghan war breeds awkward alliances”
Lt. Gabe Lamois’s mission sounded simple: Hike down the hill to the Pakistani Frontier Corps’ border post, inform the commander there that U.S. and Afghan troops were going to be moving through the area at 3 a.m., and hike back up the hill.
Before Lamois had even finished speaking, the Pakistani officer was shaking his head. “We have a lot of enemies here,” Lt. Ghulam Habib explained. His jittery troops might mistake the Americans for the Taliban and shoot them.
“How about 4 a.m.?” Lamois asked.
“Impossible; 7 a.m.,” Habib countered.
The haggling turned to pleading before they settled on 5:30 a.m. Lamois walked off, and the Pakistani commander, eager to demonstrate that he was in charge of the area, trained his machine guns and mortar tubes on the U.S. campsite, about 500 yards away.
“It’s a strange relationship, considering we’re supposed to be allies,” Lamois groused.
Senior U.S. and Pakistani officials have stepped up efforts in recent months to tame the chaotic border area, used by the Taliban as a base from which to fire rockets at U.S. positions in Afghanistan and smuggle fighters and weapons. But high-level talks have not led to cooperation on the ground, where U.S. troops are struggling to overcome decades of enmity between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“I am not sure why the [Pakistanis] are even here, except to stick a thumb in the eye of the Afghans,” said Maj. Jason Dempsey, the No. 3 officer in the U.S. battalion on the border.
When 800 troops from the Army’s 10th Mountain Division moved into the area in February, it marked the first large-scale U.S. presence on the border in Konar province since the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. The Americans had been in place only a few weeks when the local Pakistani commander summoned them and the senior Afghan commander in the area for an emergency meeting to discuss his fears that Afghan forces, backed by U.S. air power, were planning to attack Pakistani posts.
U.S. officials said the Pakistanis were angry that the Afghans were building a fort on the ridgeline between the two countries. Pakistan has long suspected that Afghanistan wants to grab Pashtun tribal lands on its side of the border. The meeting quickly became “very ugly and emotional,” said Lt. Col. Mark O’Donnell, the senior U.S. officer in the area.
The Afghan commander said he needed the new border fort to hold off Taliban fighters who had fired on his troops from Pakistani army positions a few months earlier, killing four Afghan soldiers and wounding a U.S. adviser. The Pakistani colonel denied the firefight had happened, prompting the Afghan to pull out his cellphone, on which he said he had saved a video of the battle. Before he could play it, O’Donnell interceded.
To break through the suspicion, the 10th Mountain troops planned to hold a series of meetings with their Pakistani counterparts. But they quickly realized that the rugged terrain, poor Afghan roads and a shortage of U.S. helicopters made frequent visits impossible. “On the map, the border looks like it’s only three or four kilometers away,” Dempsey said. “The reality is that it is a major operation for us just to get to there.”
For the Taliban, it is much easier. Its fighters drive on paved Pakistani roads to the border, where they regularly launch rockets toward the U.S. bases from sites within just a few hundred yards of the Pakistani positions. The Americans respond with a barrage of artillery. In the middle of one recent U.S. counterattack, Dempsey’s Nokia cellphone chirped with a text message from his Pakistani counterpart: “Sir, rounds are falling 200-300 meters short of our post. Plz adjust your fire. Thanx.”
When they arrived in the area, the Americans assumed that the Pakistani troops were cooperating with their former Taliban allies. But after visiting the border posts, they realized that the terrified Frontier Corps soldiers were essentially prisoners in their posts. At the Karir Pass, the site of most of the Taliban rocket launches, the Pakistani troops are flown via helicopter to their border forts, each a cluster of small buildings made out of rocks, with no running water. Their food is also airlifted in every few weeks.
Although there is a paved road leading from their border post to a nearby Pakistani village, the Frontier Corps troops get their water from a natural spring in Afghanistan.
“We asked them why they didn’t get their water from the Pakistani village,” recalled Command Sgt. Maj. James Carabello. “They told us that if they went into the village that the Taliban would cut their heads off.”
Every few weeks, a team of U.S. and Afghan soldiers flies up to the border area to kick over the Taliban rocket-launch sites and blow up Taliban safe houses, used to store weapons and food. In April, U.S. and Afghan troops destroyed 10 Taliban launch sites during a three-day operation. The enemy salvos slowed, only to start up again in early June. Although the Taliban fire is often inaccurate, military officials said, one well-placed shot at the main U.S. base in the valley could cause major casualties.
“We’ve got to figure out how to get some presence up there on the border,” O’Donnell, the U.S. commander in the area, told his officers in mid-June. “We’ve been really lucky so far.” A few days later, about 60 U.S. and Afghan soldiers climbed into two CH-47 Chinook helicopters that ferried them up to the mountains near the Karir Pass.
After seven minutes in the air — a journey that would have taken a full day on foot — the troops scrambled out of the back of the helicopters, taking cover behind crumbling fighting positions from an earlier war. Snow covered the nearby peaks. Narrow donkey trails and the dry ravines known as wadis, used by the Taliban forces to hide from U.S. surveillance aircraft, snaked through the rocky soil.
A team of U.S. and Afghan scouts marched off to search for Taliban bunkers and rocket-launch sites. Dempsey and Capt. Michael Harrison, who leads a 140-member infantry company in the area, headed off in the opposite direction to meet with Pakistani troops.
In late April, Dempsey and Harrison had shared a pot of tea with the Pakistani soldiers in their dark stone fort. This time, Habib, who had replaced the previous commander three weeks earlier, intercepted them on the mountainside and told them they were not permitted inside his base. He sent one of his privates to fetch a thermos of sweet green tea and wedged himself between two boulders and a scraggly tree.
“Do you know Captain Shahab at the Nawa Pass border fort?” Harrison asked brightly. “He’s a good friend of mine. He gave me his cricket bat.”
Habib, who wore a simple, tan army tunic and carried a rusted British rifle, nodded. In his new posting, he commanded about 30 soldiers. The Americans, trying to make conversation, asked him about his military career, his troops and his family. He replied that he had been a soldier for 17 years and had six young children back in Karachi.
“Now I know why you are at the border instead of back home,” Dempsey joked, pulling out a snapshot of his children playing in the snow. One of Habib’s privates studied the picture intently. “California?” he asked.
“No. It’s New York,” Dempsey said.
After a few minutes of awkward small talk, Habib asked the Americans why they had come to his border post, perched on a rocky cliff at a place that suggested the end of the world. “Someone has been shooting rockets at us from over on that ridge,” Dempsey said, pointing to a stone outcropping about 250 yards away. “We wondered if you had seen anything.”
“The Taliban are the enemy of Pakistan and the U.S. Army,” Habib said.
“Do you ever see people firing rockets?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Habib replied.
Later, the Americans trudged back up to their campsite and spent the rest of the day searching the surrounding mountains for the donkey trails the Taliban was using to move across the border. They kicked over a crudely built stone wall with black scorch marks at its base, a telltale sign that it was used for rocket launches, and they took pictures of a four-room building being built on an isolated ridge about 50 yards from the border. They also stumbled across simple graves dating to Afghanistan’s war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
U.S. commanders have been able to slow the flow of Taliban fighters across the 90-mile stretch of border by winning over Afghans who live in the Konar River valley, which the insurgents must traverse as they move deeper into Afghanistan. But to stop the influx entirely, U.S. officials said, they must have the support of deeply suspicious Pakistani forces. One idea is to open a border coordination center on the Afghan side where commanders from all three countries could plan operations.
“Our goal is to get everyone focused on the common enemy,” Dempsey said, referring to the Taliban insurgents.
As night fell on the border, explosions from the Pakistani military’s ongoing fight with the Taliban in the tribal areas boomed in the distance. Taliban radio traffic, which the fighters know the Americans intercept, chattered with threats. “Shoot the infidels,” a voice said in Pashto. “Hold your position. I will be there soon,” another said. But the attack never came.
Next morning, as the sun began to crest the Hindu Kush mountains, the U.S. and Afghan troops hiked down to Habib’s border fort, ignoring the Pakistani officer’s warning to wait until 5:30 a.m. to pass. Testily, Habib told them to detour around his outpost, prompting one of the Afghan soldiers to chamber a round in his rifle.
A U.S. adviser to the Afghan army quickly interceded. “Cut that stupid [expletive] out and keep walking,” the Marine sergeant barked.
Media Bites – Coors
This week’s addition of Media Bites takes a look at a recent Coors Light commercial that is basically promoting male fantasy and male privilege. We also provide a brief history of the Coors family support of right-wing policies over the past several decades. There have been numerous organized boycotts of Coors beer as well with the most recent being organized because Coors has funded anti-affirmative action campaigns throughout the country.
Van Andel Research Institute Only Source Cited in GR Press Story on New Obama Nomination
On Thursday, the Grand Rapids Press reported that President Barack Obama has nominated Francis Collins as the new director of the National Institutes of Health. The Press article cites at length, Jeffrey Trent, the current president of the Van Andel Research Institute but no other sources even though Collins is somewhat of a controversial figure.
Collins is the former head of the Human Genome Project and is the founder and President of the BioLogos Foundation an organization that believes there is a harmony between science and faith, specifically Christianity. The Press story does not explore this aspect of the new Obama nominee, it only mentions that Collins spoke at Calvin College in 1999 and is the author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.
According the journalist Liliana Segura, Collins belief in Science and Christianity was revealed in 2000 when Collins was standing next to President Clinton when he announced that the Human Genome Project had unlocked the human DNA code. While some elements of the Religious Right do not agree with Collins’ wedding of Christianity and Science, it is clear that he is not a secular scientist. Here is a short excerpt from his 2006 book:
“As believers, you are right to hold fast to the concept of God as Creator; you are right to hold fast to the truths of the Bible; you are right to hold fast to the conclusion that science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence; and you are right to hold fast to the certainty that the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted.”
Collins was also one of the subjects in Bill Maher’s recent documentary Religulous where he makes some interesting comments about the “historical evidence” to support the existence of Jesus.
It seems that since Collins has some pretty strong religious beliefs that he has made part of his scientific work that would be cause enough for the Grand Rapids Press to at least present readers with some sources that expressed some concerns about this new federal nomination. If the nominee was publicly an atheist or an agnostic would the Press not seek out a religious point of view in order the provide some balance in their news coverage?
The Press Obituary of McNamara
On Monday, July 6, former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara died. The Grand Rapids Press ran an obituary from the New York Times with the heading, “Vietnam War architect.” It is interesting to note that the Times used the heading, “Architect of Futile War,” a sharp contrast to what the Press editors decided to use.
In addition to a different heading the Press version gutted most of the New York Times obituary, leaving out information about McNamara’s role in the US firebombing of Japanese cities during WWII.
The Press version mentions McNamara’s role in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, but exclusively about Vietnam. There is no mention of McNamara’s role in the US interventions in Laos, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Iraq and Indonesia, just to name a few.
The obituary article did mention McNamara’s regret over the loss of US soldiers during the Vietnam, but he never apologized for the more than a million Vietnamese deaths as a result of his role in the war, a fact the article never mentions.
The Press version of the obituary also excludes any mention of McNamara as head of the World Bank and what kind of development policies he presided over in that capacity. There are several good independent articles that are worth reading if you want to read a perspective different than that of the mainstream Press. Alexander Cockburn has an excellent piece on Counterpunch and a great discussion on Democracy Now with Marilyn Young, Jonathan Schell and radical historian Howard Zinn.
Local TV Stations to “Share” video footage
On Tuesday, July 7 the Grand Rapids Press ran a story on page 7 with the headline “Competing stations to share some resources.” The story announced that the local CBS, ABC and NBC affiliates will begin sharing resources, mostly in the form of video footage from local events.
The article cites all three of the TV station managers who spoke favorably about the decision. The WOOD-TV8 station manager was quoted as saying, “With the Web site, we’re doubling our content in a way. We’re all looking for ways to be more efficient.”
Fortunately, the story also cites someone from the Poynter Institute who was critical of the idea that stations would be sharing video footage. “What you see is what you get through the lens. That’s not great journalism, that’s stenography.”
This observation from the Poynter Institute is similar to what we have documented over the past 10 years with local TV news coverage, where not only does the coverage fail to report on issues with any substance, but already tend to cover the same kinds of stories. Sharing video footage amongst the three stations will no doubt result in increasingly homogenous newscasts for the West Michigan community.
Media Bites – AXE
In this week’s Media Bites we look at an AXE commercial that is part of a series called the “Hair Crisis Relief Team.” This commercial uses a bachelor party setting to promote their product and since it is a typical bachelor party there is sexual exploitation. The women don’t end up doing what the men expect, but the commercial still normalizes the use of women’s bodies to sell the product. Some good resources of sexual exploitation in media are Media Watch and About Face.
Independent Media Now More Than Ever
Ok, so we are almost half way through the first year of the Obama administration and I think enough time has passed to be able to make some observations about what has happened so far just by looking at how the mainstream news media has reported on “Change We Can Believe.”
For the first 100 days of the new administration I was tracking the coverage in the Grand Rapids Press and I could see no fundamental differences in how the reporting was done from both the local and national reporters. Politics was still viewed through a bi-partisan lens with limited perspectives and almost no verification of the claims made by those in office.
One example is how the news reported on the recent health care proposal from the Obama administration. The coverage has presented the new Obama plan as a radical reform of the existing health care policy, when in fact it is only a mild adjustment of a system that is still dictated by HMOs, insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry. For great information and analysis on this issue go to the website of the Physicians for a National Health Program.
In mid-June Democratic lawmakers overwhelming voted for the $106 billion war-funding bill that passed in the House. In fact, on just about every major issue that people care about the new administration has demonstrated that it differs little from the Bush administration. For some excellent non-partisan analysis of the policy positions that the new administration has taken read Paul Street’s columns on ZNet and while you are at it, check out his excellent book that was published just months before the election entitled, “Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics.”
It is true that there are mild policy reforms with the new administration, but the only major difference is the style and rhetoric of the Obama administration. Of course, it is more pleasant to the ears to hear the President give speeches, but if we are serious about real change we cannot be content with having a president who just speaks in complete sentences.
One tool that we so desperately need if we are to avoid being seduced by the promises of “Change,” is a vibrant, investigative and independent news media. We need a news media that serves the public interest and holds power accountable and you will rarely find that in mainstream news. We have to stop believing that CNN and MSNBC are independent news entities just because they don’t sound as ridiculous as FOX News. The reality is that when it comes to investigating power and government policies the there is little difference. We need to seek out sources that are outside of the framework of “official news.”
So, here are some recommendations for news sources that I think would be useful to look at along side of the mainstream sources. Democracy Now! offers some of the best weekday news analysis within the US. There is also GRITtv with Laura Flanders if you are looking for a daily news show that is in a TV format. Other daily sources of online news and analysis are CounterPunch, ZNet, Dissident Voice, PR Watch, Open Secrets, Rebel Reports, Common Dreams, Black Commentator, Black Agenda Report and the Center for Public Integrity.
I also try to provide regular news analysis on this site but also look at commercial media in our weekly Media Bite segments. In addition, we need more people to make their own media, not only to provide more perspectives, but to provide a counter-narrative to the dominant messages that are so pervasive in the corporate media.
If you want to make media or participate in media analysis contact Jeff Smith at jsmith@griid.org.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 