Media Matters Flying blind with a lazy press

Gene Lyons Sunday, October 7, 2001

If the London newspaper The Observer is correct, the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division and 101st Air Assault Division will join British commandos in a strike deep inside Taliban territory in Afghanistan within days. Since the present crisis began, the British press has been far ahead of its American counterparts in reporting military developments. The Guardian reported special forces teams inside Afghanistan six days before USA Today broke the story in the United States, explaining that Pakistani newspapers had already revealed it.

British reporters clearly have an advantage in reporting from what was a part of the British Empire until just after World War II. But as USA Today's implicit apology shows, there's more to it than that. Amid the patriotic stampede, American journalists appear reluctant to seek information not handed to them by "Pentagon sources" or "high officials" in the Bush White House.

Nothing in the British reports told Osama bin Laden and the Taliban anything they didn't already know. Only American citizens were left out of the loop. Unless you think democracies make better decisions when they're flying blind, that's a potentially dangerous development.

No doubt the press must exercise restraint in a time of crisis. But John R. MacArthur's fine book about press censorship during the 1990 Persian Gulf War - - "Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War" -- vividly illustrates what can go wrong. It took the Pentagon years to admit that many of its expensive "wonder weapons" never worked as advertised. As Swift argued 300 years ago, a propagandist's first victim is often himself. Surrounded by flatterers and yes-men, generals and presidents alike have trouble learning anything new in an echo chamber.

So far the most blatant self-censorship, however, has involved not military secrets but political ones. A press consortium including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and CNN has postponed indefinitely publishing the results of its long-awaited Florida election recount. Its analysis of some 200,000 disputed ballots from the presidential election was due out Sept. 17, but New York Times reporter Richard Berke explained that the "move might have stoked . . . partisan tensions" and "now seems utterly irrelevant." Translation: No point questioning George W. Bush's status at a time Americans want him to stand tall.

If "irrelevant," of course, the report could hardly stoke partisan tensions.

It's been clear for months that more Floridians intended to vote for Gore. Exactly how many would be useful to know. The decision probably had less to do with protecting Bush than insulating the media consortium itself from criticism. The paradox is that by postponing it, they've set themselves a trap.

Whether Bush rises or sinks in public esteem, the timing of its eventual appearance can't help but be seen as politically motivated.

Bush's most serious problem with the media, however, resides in his own White House press office. The same team that arrived in Washington spreading since-discredited tales about Clinton staffers trashing Air Force One and vandalizing the White House can't seem to quit fictionalizing the news.

Stung by criticism of the president's initial Sept. 11 peregrination to Nebraska, press spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters of a telephone threat to Air Force One. Karl Rove repeated the narrative to New York Times columnist William Safire, who promptly imagined an enemy "mole" inside the White House and called for a spy hunt. Last week the Associated Press reported that the story was false: "Administration officials said they now doubt whether there was actually a call made threatening the president's plane, Air Force One." It was all a big misunderstanding, the press office alibied.

Next Fleischer appeared to threaten a late night TV comic who had made a lame attempt at iconoclastic humor. "Politically Incorrect's" Bill Maher described previous American bomb and cruise missile attacks as "cowardly" -- easier said from a TV studio than a jet cockpit or the deck of a destroyer. "Americans . . . need to watch what they say, watch what they do," Fleischer warned, "and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is."

Here in the United States, he should be reminded, citizens have a constitutional right to make fools of themselves. When Fleischer's threat failed to appear in the White House transcript of his statement, the press office blamed a transcription error. Next, there were reports that White House aides had phoned NBC News to complain about a Tom Brokaw interview with Bill Clinton -- who had been urging Americans to unite behind President Bush.

If the president's people want him to look big, it'd definitely help if they quit acting so small.

-- Anonymous, October 07, 2001