News Intelligence Analysis
Language and Media Manipulation
My Thoughts on Your Thoughts
By Dennis Crews
March 11, 2005
When told of Dean's remarks, Derrick Sontag -- executive director of the Kansas Republican Party -- said he was shocked. "My immediate reaction to that whole dialogue is, it's full of hatred," Sontag said. "The Democratic Party has elected a leader that's full of hatred."
Mr. Sontag, I won't waste your time citing from the voluminous
and easily accessible record of intolerant, prejudicial language
and policies advanced by the GOP in recent months. Suffice it
to say for any Republican leader to call Howard Dean "hateful"
is no less hypocritical than the pot calling the kettle black.
I'm reminded of Jesus' words instructing the Pharisees to remove
the beam from their own eyes before trying to remove the speck
from their brother's eye (Matthew 7:3-5, Luke 6:41, 42).
I'm sure that when Jesus called them "hypocrites" the
Pharisees wasted no time accusing him of hateful speech. It's
much like the current phenomenon of being accused of "anti-semitism"
if one dares criticize the policies of Israel (never mind that
most Israelis today aren't even Semites, but of Ashkenazi origin.
Indigenous and Semitic Jews are treated almost as badly in Israel
as Palestinians are - so much for objectivity in politics.) The
truth often stings - yet sometimes the most loving thing a person
can do is tell it like it is.
I've long observed the phenomenon of controlling and manipulative
personalities turning all criticism back onto others. Ever since
the Gingrich revolution, but most dramatically during the Bush
administration (my conjecture is that Rove is a genius at this)
the Republicans seem to have adopted and refined this tactic
to an art form. They have succeeded in demonizing a whole panoply
of people and issues to suit their strategic goals, with no regard
for the actual veracity of their accusations, no accountability
to those they mislead and no regard for the personal or professional
damage inflicted by character assassination or more subtle means
of discrediting or silencing people who tell inconvenient truths.
The case of General Eric Shinseki comes to mind, as does Sibel
Edmonds. And of course there was Richard Foster, Medicare's chief
actuary for nearly a decade, who was threatened with firing if
he disclosed that the Bush plan would cost many billions more
than the administration wanted the public to believe. The list
is endless, of course.
The Medicare vote itself, occuring as it did at 5:55 a.m. on
a weekend, after a long night of browbeating and bullying, demonstrates
fairly graphically how the GOP works these days. Under cover
of darkness, using strongarm methods more suited to former Soviet
satellite governments, silencing opposition by any available
means, controlling the flow of information either by stonewalling
(as with Cheney's energy task force, and more recently in regard
to answering questions about the repugnant practice of "extraordinary
rendition" of terror suspects to nations where torture is
used to extract false confessions), or paying and thus corrupting
the ethics of working journalists (Armstrong Williams et al),
or fronting fake journalists (as in pushing Medicare) or using
taxpayer money to promote partisan political agendas (the Social
Security Administration was most recently asked by the Bush administration
to compromise itself this way) - is it any wonder that in Slovakia,
Vladimir Putin believed George Bush had arranged the firing of
CBS staffers?
All this makes a bit of a joke of Bush's lame response that America
has a "transparent" government. We do not, although
we once did.
Of course it is to your advantage to paint Howard Dean and the
Democrats as "hateful." The shock value of the accusation
directs scrutiny away from the GOP's tactics and fundamental
lack of honesty. I don't promote any partisan agenda; I voted
for the Libertarian candidate in the 2004 presidential election.
I find fault with plenty in the Democratic party. But hatefulness
is not really one of their trademarks, whereas the accusation
can be made to stick much more to the GOP, the closer one examines
their record. Not to mention the toxic spewing of their bloggers
and surrogates such as Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh
ad nauseum.
None of this even touches the way the GOP has coopted (and corrupted)
the evangelical right in their attempt to claim Christianity
as their own sacred domain. Of course anyone with a knowledge
of Christian fundamentals should not be fooled by this, but the
public's knowledge of Christian fundamentals has pretty much
gone the way of their appreciation of civil rights and responsibilities.
Ultimately it is every person's responsibility to be informed,
and to the extent that you, and people like you, can manipulate
them, they will suffer the fools' penalty of being led astray.
But in the end everyone, even politicians, will accountable to
God for their own personal integrity. For every idle word we
will be required to give account. Jesus also said: "For
by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt
be condemned" (Matthew 12:36, 37).
It's something to think about, isn't it?
Dennis Crews
And this from http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/opinion/10964305.htm:
....Last year, a young cable news producer attended one of our twice-yearly Ethics Institutes at Washington and Lee University, in which students and journalists gather to discuss newsroom wrongdoing. He brought two clips.The first was the familiar pool footage of Dean in Iowa. The candidate filled the screen, no supporters were visible. Crowd noise was silenced by the microphone he held, which deadened ambient sounds. You saw only him and heard only his inexplicable screaming.
The second clip was the same speech taped by a supporter on the floor of the hall. The difference was stunning. The place was packed. The noise was deafening. Dean was on the podium, but you couldn't hear him. The roar from his supporters was drowning him out.
Dean was no longer scary, unhinged, volcanic, over the top. He was like the coach of a would-be championship NCAA football team at a pre-game rally, trying to be heard over a gym full of determined, wildly enthusiastic fans. I saw energy, not lunacy.
The difference was context. As psychiatrist R.D. Laing once wrote: We see a woman on her knees, eyes closed, muttering to someone who isn't there. Of course, she's praying. But if we deny her that context, we naturally conclude she's insane.
The Dean Scream footage that was repeatedly aired rests on a similar falsehood. It takes a man who in context was acting reasonably, and by stripping away that context transforms him into a lunatic.
But that clip was aired an estimated 700 times on various cable and broadcast channels in the week after the Iowa caucus. The people who showed that clip are far more technically sophisticated than I and had to understand how tight visual framing and noise-suppression hardware can distort reality.
True, some network news executives commented afterward that perhaps the footage was overplayed and offered the bureaucrat's favorite bromide, that hindsight is 20/20. But the media establishment has never acknowledged this as a burning matter of ethical harm.
That's because the Dean Scream incriminates the entire professional mission of television news, which is built around the primacy of the picture. TV producers don't profess to offer meaning and context; they get you the visuals, unless they're gory or obscene. The notion that great footage would be not shown just because it's profoundly misleading - that's a possibility few TV news executives would entertain.
That's why they're not eager to see the Dean Scream enter the canon of journalistic sin. And if that leaves Howard Dean's political future hobbled by a lie, so be it.
Edward Wasserman is Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University. He wrote this column for The Miami Herald. Contact him at edward-wasserman@hotmail.com.
story: 'Dean Scream' clip was media fraud
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/opinion/10964305.htm
[Dennis Crews: "me here - of course this isn't entirely the GOP's fault - but they have manipulated a compliant media and public opinion to the point where such journalistics "sins" have become increasingly advantageous to their causes (i.e the Iraq war) and are quickly forgotten - while the damage they do lives on and on.
No wonder the Bush administration encouraged the consolidation of media ownership into fewer hands - if they can control those few hands, how easy it is to mold public opinion. This is NOT how America's founders visualized a free press, by any stretch of the imagination...]
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