Liberating the Fourth Estate--and the Counterculture

by

Thomas Fredric Jones

Preface

After nearly a decade, especially in the United States, alternative media have been only marginally successful in correcting the general public’s misconceptions regarding Israel's illegal colonization of Palestine and the resulting wars in the Middle East. These misconceptions persist among a majority of Americans and Britons largely because of flagrant bias in mainstream news coverage and commentary on both sides of the Atlantic. Therefore, it would seem that exposing the underlying source of that bias, with a special focus on the reasoning behind the editorial decisions of real people with real names (as opposed to amorphous "corporate media" interests), would be a useful first step in countering the unfortunate effects of what has amounted to pro-war/pro-Israel propaganda from the mainstream media, coupled with the censoring of information and the voices of dissent.

My exploratory essay below touches on three highly sensitive and relatively unexplored areas of inquiry in media studies today:

1. Coercive media ownership: An examination of potentially coercive elements in the dynamic between mass media ownership and editorial control--both in theory and in fact.

2. Ultimate editorial control: An analysis of the backgrounds, motivations, and prejudices of specific individuals in key positions of executive editorial control in the mass media system today (CEO, editor, and otherwise).

3. Information suppression and the arts: Understanding how the suppression of information and opinion leads to cultural stagnation--particularly in the arts (e.g., mainstream theater, film, and music).

I suspect that until now digging into the backgrounds of those who control the mainstream media has been viewed as a taboo subject. However, the current state of affairs in the Middle East, coupled with the current lack of fairness in the mass media coverage, requires a drastic change in tactics. (Indeed, Al Sharpton’s response to the New York Post’s offensive chimp cartoon--picketing, targeting individual Post executives, threatening a boycott, and even suggesting that the FCC should investigate owner Rupert Murdoch’s legal status--might be viewed as a shining example.)

On March 9, 2009, two extremely noteworthy events occurred in Gaza: First, there was CODEPINK's Medea Benjamin, the writer Alice Walker, and the parents of Rachel Corrie crossing into Gaza at Rafah (Egypt), along with 60 other women activists; the second was English parliamentarian George Galloway's Gaza humanitarian aid "Palestina" convoy successfully pushing through at the same crossing with 110 trucks and 250 relief workers.

These spectacular crossings were obviously tailor-made to help inspire a groundswell of public opinion against Israel's blockade. But any chance of such a groundswell occurring was immediately quashed by the mainstream media's reluctance even to mention the humanitarian efforts at all.

Obviously the mainstream media, especially in America, is no longer a friend of democracy, much less the Palestinian cause. The only recourse left to us is to it challenge the so-called corporate media in a much more direct, up-front, and personal way--as described in my essay below.

1. "Media is the heart of our culture's identity"^[1]

Many independent journalists have complained in recent years that America's mainstream press and broadcast information networks have shown a consistent bias in favor of our preemptive wars in the Middle East and, collaterally, Israel's brutal occupation and colonization of Palestine. On both of these fronts, suppression of opposing viewpoints has been rampant, not only in the Fourth Estate but, by extension, in closely affiliated mainstream cultural, artistic, and entertainment media as well. And although a number of writers have examined the "how," "when," and "where" of this lapse in balanced journalism (whether in the New York Times, Fox News, PBS, or even the BBC), few have dared to ask the most provocative, yet potentially most instructive, question of all: Why does this bias exist in the first place? Specifically, who or what is behind it?

Those who cavalierly blame the "corporate media," as if that facile and evasive catch phrase adroitly defines or encapsulates the problem, may think this question self-explanatory, if not redundant. However, others wishing to probe deeper into the "why" question will soon discover that only a handful of corporate media executives actually call the shots. Who are these people? What are their motives? And what are the wellsprings of their beliefs? These are the questions we should now be asking.

Analyzing Rupert Murdoch, owner and director of News Corp.'s vast news and entertainment empire, would be an excellent beginning: Why has he so vigorously supported the neocon agenda in the Middle East? Why has he so steadfastly defended Israel's incursions in the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon? Are Murdoch's editorial imperatives (or dictates) informed by a particular worldview or philosophy, corporate loyalties, advertising interests, political concerns or designs, religious expectations, ethnic affinities, or some admixture of these and other factors? Considering his vast holdings (ranging from Fox Entertainment Group and the Wall Street Journal to the Times of London and Sky Broadcasting [UK]), salvaging our democracy demands that we understand exactly where this man is coming from. For it is hardly overreaching to suggest that this recently naturalized émigré from Australia is the single most important arbiter of public opinion in the United States today.

The mind-set underlying News Corp.'s editorial agenda may be comparatively easy to decipher. It will be somewhat more difficult to ferret out the motives of the remaining 50 or so top media executives^[2] in positions of strategic editorial control who, like Murdoch, have served to undermine (nay, pulverize) the very foundations of our democracy by propagandizing and lying to our chronically ill-informed citizenry and electorate. Nevertheless, if we are truly serious about redeeming our free press (and, ultimately, our very culture itself), naming names and determining motives is a necessary first step. Ironically, the second step is to convey our findings, along with their implications, to the general public.

And there's the rub. How do we break into the mass media system and achieve an equal hearing? The situation is rigged. Cyberspace has been invaluable for information gathering and networking (at least for the already initiated few), but it still remains peripheral to the mainstream media milieu in which the vast bulk of American opinion is formed and the public discourse takes place. The Internet may be on the cutting edge of technology, but in subtle ways it is a throwback to the proverbial "underground." Operating as if in a parallel universe, the Web routinely fails to create enough context in the mainstream public arena for an adequate appreciation of antiestablishment viewpoints-primarily because much of the Internet's factual material, so critical to creating a foundation of understanding and debate, has been willfully ignored or suppressed (hence, not validated or "normalized") by the mainstream media outlets.

2. "I know that the time when music could change the world is past. I really doubt that a single song can make a difference. It is a reality." --Neil Young, 2008

As already intimated, perhaps the most discouraging outgrowth of mainstream news media repression has been its deadening effect upon the arts and culture--especially mainstream music. For without a common public awareness of the facts, without a basic foundation and context for mutual understanding and debate in the public arena, the possibility of a resurgence of a counterculture--like that experienced in the 60s anti-Vietnam War era, for instance--is highly unlikely. This cynical negation of the human spirit is exacerbated by the fact that many of the same executives who control our mainstream news outlets also control (or have like-minded associates who control) our most important mainstream cultural venues--along with the requisite publicity, distribution, and advertising. It is no accident that whether from television, the radio, the cinema, the theater, and major music venues, nary a peep has been heard against the Iraq War or Israel's genocidal behavior in Palestine. Clear Channel's reported suppression of 150 protest songs at the startup of the Iraq invasion may be just the tip of the iceberg; indeed, we might suspect that the clamp-down on our artistic culture has reached the profoundest levels since 2003.

At any rate, before we can reinvigorate our culture, we must first liberate the Fourth Estate, which, for better or worse, lays the groundwork and sets the parameters for public discourse, consensus, and artistic interpretation. Regrettably, nearly all Internet writers who have challenged America's, and particularly Israel's, Middle East policies have been purged (effectively blacklisted) from the mass media system of today. Therefore, it is difficult to foresee how this intolerable negation of democratic freedom can be reversed without a majority of underground journalists (socialist, liberal, conservative, libertarian, and so on) crying foul and uniting to confront the mainstream owners. United Artists (UA) was created in 1919 to counter the restrictive "studio system"; perhaps a new Union of Independent Journalists (UIJ) is in order. Whatever the approach--running ads, staging events, unionizing, picketing newspapers, holding sit-ins, lobbying advertisers, boycotting media outlets, petitioning Congress, suing the networks, challenging FCC licensing policies, resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine, purchasing control of a broadcasting network, or even creating a new national newspaper--the common rallying cry should be: In our American democracy, mass media ownership should be viewed as a trust, not as a license to control and subvert the public discourse. [Coming next: Reforming Media Studies--from grade schools to the universities--a new curriculum, a new understanding]

_________________________________________________________

Notes:

[1] Unattributed quote from an interview on Democracy Now (2008)

[2] Top 20 U.S. Media Owners (from Mondo Times, 2008)

1. Time Warner Inc.

2. Walt Disney Company

3. Viacom Inc.

March 2009