The general absence of comprehensive, thorough reporting is
particularly regrettable with Washington under the control of an
administration that has taken public relations into the realm of
"perception management."

Its corporate-trained communications specialists have perfected a
24-hour spin machine while coordinating every official utterance.

They've coined and tested repeatable catch-phrases to mobilize
opinion.

They want to ensure that we regurgitate their simplified phrases, and
salute their patriotic stands.




From The Salt Lake Tribune, 7/6/03:
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Jul/07062003/commenta/72646.asp

News media abandon historic role -- and public suffers

By Danny Schechter
Special to Newsday

Millions of Americans accept what they are told and think they
understand what they see.

And what they are told and what they see is most often news as a
manipulated commodity.

But the facts that really count rarely reach a significant number of
the public's ears or eyes.

Also, most reporters know governments lie, mislead and deceive.

They also know that the press is ostensibly there to keep an eye on
governments, to dissect errors and omissions by offering more truthful
counter-narratives.

That was the role an adversarial media played during Watergate, during
the Vietnam War, and even, if distastefully, during the Clinton
administration.

Today, our media has abandoned this historic role.

That part of the public that remembers the great journalists of the
past knows it.

Even journalistic greats admit it.

Just before his death June 11, newscaster David Brinkley said of the
medium that was his life:

"Television news has become so trivial and devoid of content as to be
little different from entertainment programming."

But many in the public don't even expect the media to be honest in its
reporting.

The Jason Blair affair at The New York Times was the tip of an
iceberg.

Major newspapers such as The Boston Globe and The Washington Post
have, in the past, been humiliated by revelations that reporters
falsified stories.

Beyond simple credibility, today's media system has fused news biz and
show biz.

News understanding (and misunderstanding) is driven more by
impressions and images than information.

One recent Gallup Poll survey reported that 40 percent of the people
believed weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.

An early poll found a similar percentage saying there was an Iraqi
hijacker on 9-11.

In contrast, 44 percent of the public in England, where the media is
more critical of the government, told the Daily Telegraph's Yougov
Poll that they believe their government and the Bush administration
misled them about the threat from Iraq.

At the same time, a CNN/USA Today Poll found that 56 percent of
Americans said the war was justified if weapons of mass destruction
are never found.

The general absence of comprehensive, thorough reporting is
particularly regrettable with Washington under the control of an
administration that has taken public relations into the realm of
"perception management."

Its corporate-trained communications specialists have perfected a
24-hour spin machine while coordinating every official utterance.

They've coined and tested repeatable catch-phrases to mobilize
opinion.

They want to ensure that we regurgitate their simplified phrases, and
salute their patriotic stands.

In their world, propaganda is passed off as marketing.

Granted, because of cable television and the Internet, the number of
information sources available to the public has exploded.

But "in-depth" television reporting is brief and ephemeral and rarely
is retained in the minds of the audience.

Cable outlets serve niche audiences.

More diverse Web sites often have limited constituencies.

Weekly and monthly opinion magazines such as The Nation, the Atlantic
Monthly, The New Yorker or Harper's might report in genuine depth on
issues of consequence but mostly have relatively small circulations.

Many appeal to an elite segment of the population that thinks it's
influential and numerous, but is neither.

When it comes to newspapers, probably a couple of million people a day
read the nation's best known daily -- The New York Times.

They think they are an influential, important group and they believe
they have all the facts about everything that's going on in the world.

Indeed, for many of them, The Times is the world.

But The Times makes hundreds of errors annually and its reporting is
often influenced by its own agendas.

More importantly, New York Times readers are just a tiny segment of
America.

All of the above represents a problem for our democracy.

The most important day in America isn't Christmas.

It's the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

There are more than 163 million voters nationwide.

Only a tiny percentage of them could honestly be described as truly
well informed and, therefore, they don't amount to as much as many
media mavens delude themselves into thinking.

It is context, background and interpretation that give information
meaning.

When that is missing, as it often is, so is understanding.

_______________________________________________________

A sad commentary indeed. But the Bush administration would have it
that way. A poorly informed public is an easily deluded public.

Harry