"Democracy Now!" looks at "War Made Easy," by Norman Solomon

Our group here in Athens wants the local public radio station, WOUB, to include Democracy Now! in its weekly programming. We think that there is a need here for broadened news coverage that reflects another perspective, that offers a different interpretation of the news, and that covers stories that are not covered by public radio.

With this in mind, I watched Democracy Now! today (though I had the option of listening to it), and, after the headlines, the program focused on Norman Solomon's new DVD, War Made Easy. It's based on his book by the same name. There is not much on public radio and television in the DVD - or the book - but what there is doesn't make me confident that they can always be counted on to capture the real or full picture.

Well into Solomon's video, there is a short segment from an interview with Jim Lehrer in which Lehrer admits that his program, The Lehrer News Hour, never thought to question the administration's rationale for invading and occupying Iraq. They just went with the media flow, along with Fox, CNN, and MSNBC.

This implies, I think, that, for example, they uncritically accepted the fallacious testimony that Colin Powell gave at the U.N. in February of 2003. In his book, Solomon writes that "Powell's star turn at the United Nations elicited an outpouring of media adulation. In the process of deference to Powell, many liberals were among the swooners (p. 45). As Solomon's video establishes, Lehrer admitted to being one of the swooners. Democracy Now! remained critical, though few people had the opportunity to watch or listen to its criticisms. We all would have benefited from the information and critical perspective that Democracy Now! brought to its coverage of the pre-invasion news on Iraq.

In the book, Solomon also gives some examples of how NPR was also among the swooners, as it covered the early months of the war in a way that did little to help listeners to understand and become informed citizens on events in Iraq. Here's two examples:

"News stories about [Jessica] Lynch swiftly approached flood stage. On Wednesday, the Baltimore Sun devoted more than a thousand words to Lynch in a page-one article datelined from her hometown of Palestine. The next morning, National Public Radio did its bit by interviewing Lynch's kindergarten teacher, and correspondent Wade Goodwyn closed his report by declaring: 'For the family and friends of those who are held prisoner or who are missing in action, the advance of the American Army toward Baghdad cannot go fast enough" (206)

"A year after the invasion, Marine Corps spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Rick Long told a University of California symposium: 'The reason we embedded so many journalists is that we wanted to dominate the information environment." (Solomon that describes how reporters from an NPR affiliate was embedded and did nothing to raise questions about the validity of the U.S. occupation.) Solomon continues:

"...the National NPR program All Things Considered aired an on-the-scene description from Eric Niiler, a reporter with member station KPBS who was accompanying the 1st Marine Division as it fought to gain control of Fallujah. The report was more stenographic than journalistic. His first words were: "What I understand from the commanders here...." And his account of events seemed to be largly based on statements by those he later referred as 'Marine commanders here.' To the casual listener, it might have sounded like Niiler was actually a Marine himself, as when he began his response to a question from the NPR anchor by saying, 'Well, what's happened is that in the areas where we patrolled today, it's really very quiet.'"

On the basis of these few examples, public radio and television offered little counter-spin to the administration's early celebration of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. How many more examples are there of NPR just reporting the official line at critically important junctures in hugely important news events? We need Democracy Now! to provide critical balance - and independence - in our media news coverage.

Bob Sheak