{"id":1033,"date":"2010-01-05T21:07:18","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T02:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/?p=1033"},"modified":"2010-01-05T21:21:06","modified_gmt":"2010-01-06T02:21:06","slug":"of-howard-kurtz-media-narratives-and-historical-myths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/2010\/01\/05\/history\/of-howard-kurtz-media-narratives-and-historical-myths\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Howard Kurtz, Media Narratives, and Historical Myths"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent column<\/a>, Wapo media guru Howard Kurtz commemorated the high- and lowlights of news reporting in the first decade\u00a0the 21st century.\u00a0 It contained some commonplace observations about the development of the Internet, the obligatory journalistic self-adulation, and ended on a sour note about the decline of the legacy media and their rather dim prospects in the decade to come.\u00a0 There were some entertaining bits, however, not the least of which was a paragraph citing what Kurtz called “the two biggest disasters of early-21st-century coverage” which\u00a0“remain a permanent stain on journalism.”\u00a0 The first of these was unexceptional:<\/p>\n

…the media did far too little to spotlight a shadow banking system built on preposterously exotic risks and federal regulators who blithely looked the other way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, the second one brought a smile to my face:<\/p>\n

The failure to challenge the Bush administration’s case for invading Iraq — and an accompanying tendency to dismiss antiwar voices — is now regretted by the news organizations themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a remarkable example of a “sharashka” as defined by Solzhenitsyn in “The First Circle:” A lie so big that, in the end, even those who invented it believe it. This yarn about how the U.S. media were too “pro-war” has always been absurd on the face of it to anyone not suffering from the flavor of cognitive dissonance peculiar to journalists.\u00a0 Since the days it was first invented it has passed from being a useful lie to a constituent element of the legacy media’s ideological narrative to its current status of historical myth, believed by the journalistic faithful\u00a0as what Stalin referred to as “a well known fact,” something like the “well known fact” that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery taught in southern schools in the 1920’s.\u00a0 One might call it the Jingoistic Media Myth (JMM).<\/p>\n

I’m not quite sure when the JMM made its first appearance.\u00a0 It was, of course, necessary to allow a decent interval to elapse so memories could dull before legacy journalists could “repent” for having “dismissed anti-war voices” with a straight face without drawing peels of laughter from their listeners.\u00a0 Eventually, however, it became possible to recite it to the proper audiences without the least embarrassment, shedding crocodile tears about the “shame” of it in the process.\u00a0 Among other things, it fit\u00a0right in with the fairy tales the European media\u00a0were peddling to their clientele about the evil American’s\u00a0“yellow press” at the time.\u00a0 Of course, as anyone who didn’t fall off the pumpkin wagon yesterday is aware, the legacy media was never,\u00a0in any way, shape, or form “pro-war” in the case of Iraq.\u00a0 Why, then, invent the JMM?\u00a0\u00a0Among other things, it provided\u00a0ideological camouflage.\u00a0 Assuming one swallowed the myth, it became the “duty” of the legacy media to “atone for their sin.”\u00a0 One did this by\u00a0giving prominent coverage to any expression of anti-war sentiment and to any story that could be given an anti-war spin.\u00a0\u00a0In other words, one did it by\u00a0making the news\u00a0fit neatly in the ideological box the legacy media has occupied since at least the time of the\u00a0War in Vietnam.\u00a0 Any mutterings about “defeatist propaganda” could be faced down with a fine show of virtuous indignation, and pious remarks about the need to re-establish “balanced reporting” after the shameful, jingoistic lapses\u00a0following the first days of the invasion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the upshot,\u00a0this “balanced reporting”\u00a0was turned on full blast.\u00a0 The upper right hand column on the Wapo’s front page became the preferred venue for any story that could be given an anti-war spin or reinforced the assumption that defeat in Iraq was inevitable.\u00a0 When it became obvious, even to the Wapo’s editors, that defeat wasn’t imminent after all, and Iraq might not actually be another Vietnam in spite of all previous mutual assurances to the contrary, they tired of the game.\u00a0 The upper right hand column was devoted to promoting\u00a0more plausible yarns, and the Wapo became all but silent about the war.<\/p>\n

I don’t mean to pick on Kurtz. He’s an “honest man” in the context of modern journalism, and I suspect he firmly believes the JMM mantra he recited in his recent article.\u00a0 I can only suggest that he take advantage of Google and, perhaps take a look through the Wapo’s archives.\u00a0 If he does, he may stumble across a few facts that don’t quite conform to the JMM.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I don’t have convenient access to the archives, so I will have to rely mainly on second hand accounts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Take, for example, an article<\/a> attributed to the Washington Post on the website of CommonDreams.org.\u00a0 Published on March 3, 2003, the article describes the “stunning success” of worldwide anti-war protests on the previous February 15 in glowing terms.\u00a0 Journalists typically use the last sentence of ideologically loaded articles as a “zinger” to make sure their readers don’t fail to see the “moral of the story.\u00a0 In this case it is:<\/p>\n

“This was caused by social forces, and it’s not something that organizations produced,” said Andrew Burgin, a member of the coalition’s British steering committee. “They’re not in our control. . . . You don’t lead a movement like this, the movement leads you.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not exactly the stuff of jingoistic saber rattling, is it?\u00a0 What about the anti-war left’s own assessment of Wapo’s coverage at the time?\u00a0 If the JMM is true, one would expect to find them fairly frothing at the mouth.\u00a0 However, based on contemporary comments<\/a> posted on the website of Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), their actual reaction was somewhat more positive in response to the Wapo’s coverage of anti-war demonstrations:<\/p>\n

The Washington Post (1\/28\/07) distinguished itself by assigning six staff writers and a researcher to the (anti-war)\u00a0protest. Its page-one story conveyed the upbeat mood of the crowd and its diversity. It gave prominence to protesters with relatives in Iraq, let us hear a mother explaining the protest to her son as an exercise in free speech, and reported the crowd chanting for impeachment of George W. Bush.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the paper went beyond human interest, explaining the protesters\u2019 political goal of prodding Congress into action. By naming 10 of the organizations that have come together under the umbrella of United for Peace & Justice, which coordinated the event, it showed the political blending of the agendas of feminists, religious organizations, farmers, active and retired military members and others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Post\u2019s coverage also included two sidebars, one about college student protesters and the other a collection of pictures and quotes from a variety of protesters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is this the “dismissal of antiwar voices” Kurtz was referring to.\u00a0 Here’s another puff piece<\/a> on antiwar demonstrations that appeared on January 20, 2003.\u00a0 Zinger at the end of the article:\u00a0 “‘War is not the answer,’ said Mary Appelhof, 66, of Kalamazoo, Mich.”\u00a0 I could go on and on.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it would jar Kurtz memory if he went back and looked at the stuff he was writing himself in the first days of the war. In an article<\/a> published on March 24, 2003 containing a series of question and answer responses he replies to one “Howard” of New York, who is griping about what he considers an implication in news coverage that anti-war demonstrators don’t “support the troops:<\/p>\n

… I do think it’s a canard to say that those who oppose this war don’t support the troops. At the same time, there has understandably been more focus on the antiwar demonstrations because there have been far more of them, drawing bigger numbers, than the pro-war rallies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is this the sort of “dismissal of antiwar voices” he’s talking about?\u00a0<\/p>\n

No matter, the JMM will live on, in spite of the facts.\u00a0 Historical myths eventually take on a life of their own.\u00a0 The truth is always elusive, and historical truth is the most elusive kind.\u00a0 Those who seek it will need a skeptical attitude and lots of source material.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tTweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent column, Wapo media guru Howard Kurtz commemorated the high- and lowlights of news reporting in the first decade\u00a0the 21st century.\u00a0 It contained some commonplace observations about the development of the Internet, the obligatory journalistic self-adulation, and ended on a sour note about the decline of the legacy media and their rather dim … Continue reading “Of Howard Kurtz, Media Narratives, and Historical Myths”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,44,53,21,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-military","category-politics","category-the-media","category-us-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwEq0-gF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1035,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions\/1035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}