The Reader Extra_ Keeping the Media Safe for Big Corp

8/8/2019 The Reader Extra_ Keeping the Media Safe for Big Corp

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W R I T I N G W O R T H R E A D I N G l I S S U E 3 1 l N O v E m E R 2 0 0 8

ext r a / 2

ESSAyS byDAvID CROmWEll

& DAvID EDWARDS

JONATHAN COOk

Keeping the mediasafe

for bigbusiness


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the authors

David Cromwell & David Edwards are co-editors of the London mediawatchdog, Media Lens. Their book, Guardians of Power,was released in2006, Their web site is http://www.medialens.org

Jonathan Cook is a British journalist living in Nazareth, Israel. His new book,published this month, is Disappearing Palestine: Israels Experiments inHuman Despair (Zed Books). His website is http://www.jkcook.net

ColdTypeWriting Worth reading From around the World

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http://www.medialens.org/http://www.jkcook.net/http://www.coldtype.net/http://www.coldtype.net/http://www.jkcook.net/http://www.medialens.org/


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In 1996, Noam Chomsky attempted to

explain to an equally bemused Andrew

Marr (then o theIndependent):

Marr: This is what I dont get, because

it suggests I mean, Im a journalist peo-

ple like me are sel-censoring...

Chomsky: No not sel-censoring.Theres a ltering system that starts in kin-

dergarten and goes all the way through and

it doesnt work a hundred percent, but

its pretty eective it selects or obedience

and subordination, and especially...

Marr: So, stroppy people wont make it

to positions o inuence...

Chomsky: Therell be behaviour prob-

lems or... i you read applications to a

graduate school, you see that people will

tell you he doesnt get along too well with

his colleagues you know how to inter-

pret those things.

Chomskys key point: Im sure you be-

lieve everything youre saying. But what

Im saying is, i you believed something di-

erent you wouldnt be sitting where youre

sitting.

So what happens when a proessional

journalist does express something dier-

Martin Tierney is one o a tiny

number o mainstream jour-

nalists willing to review our

book, Guardians o Power. In

June 2006, he published an accurate out-

line o our argument in the Scottish daily,

the Herald, commenting: It stands up toscrutiny.

He added that we do not see conscious

conspiracy but a lter system maintained

by ree market orces. Ater all it wouldnt

be appropriate to show the limbs o third

world children during Thanksgiving as it

would only remind consumers who was re-

ally being stued.

Exactly so. But i no conspiracy is in-

volved, how on earth does the market

manage to lter dissident views with such

consistency? As baed Channel 4 news

reader, Jon Snow, told us:

Well, Im sorry to say, it either happens

or it doesnt happen. I it does happen, its

a conspiracy; i it doesnt happen, its not

a conspiracy. (Interview with David Ed-

wards, January 9, 2001; http://www.me-

dialens.org/articles/interviews/jon_snow.

php)


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David Cromwell & David Edwards


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tual property whom employers can trust to

experiment, theorise, innovate and create

saely within the connes o an assigned

ideology. The political and intellectual ti-

midity o todays most highly educatedemployees is no accident. (Schmidt, Dis-

ciplined Minds, Rowman & Littleeld Pub-

lishers, 2000, p.16)

The question o trust is crucial em-

ployers must be able to rely on their human

property to play by the rules. This is why

Tierney was red.

The employers reerence to Tierneys

extreme comment was ironic indeed given

the extreme nature o the horrors exposed

in Ehrenreichs book titled, ater all, Go-

ing To Extremes and outlined in Tierneysreview.

Tierney tells us the review was published

with the unamusing mention o the US

supermarket, and all reerences to it, re-

moved on August 16. (Email rom Tierney

to Media Lens September 30, 2008)

I youve ever wondered why the press

nds it so hard to nd space or the mul-

titude o excellent, radical analyses, this

incident gives an idea o the true reasons.

The unwritten corporate media rule is that

you can say what you like about the pow-erless they can be treated with contempt,

smeared and slandered without limit. But

when the powerless attempt to challenge

the powerul, a dierent rule applies.

By contrast, in May, the mighty Eamonn

Butler, Director o the Adam Smith Insti-

tute, had no problems attacking the BBC in

a Times article titled, Watch out, the Ge-

stapo are about.

Butler was not merely reporting an ac-

cusation o Gestapo tactics, as Tierney

did; he was himsel protesting a BBC ad-

vert that sought to scare viewers into pay-

ing their licence ees. Butler commented:

Nor are these Gestapo tactics new.

Years ago, similar advertisements showed

a amily laughing at some comedy pro-

gramme on TV. Comes the voice-over: I

you have a TV licence, youre laughing. In

the dimly-lit street, a van draws up. Black

ent? Is their ofce seat just yanked away

rom them and rolled under a more reliable

rear end?

Consider the case o our reviewer, Mar-

tin Tierney, who wrote or the SaturdayHerald or seven years. In August, Tierney

reviewed Barbara Ehrenreichs book Go-

ing To Extremes (Granta, 2008). With his

usual uncompromising vim, he wrote: It

is essentially a tirade against every meth-

od used against US citizens to ensure that

their wealth is systematically transerred to

government and corporate elites.

This is done, she claims, via abuse o

the tax system, scapegoating immigrants;

denial o unions and Gestapo tactics used

by the likes o... [a large US supermarket] toensure this and a perennial Warare State

where taxpayers money merely is used

to enrich arms dealers while bludgeoning

them into a unnecessary paranoia.

Notice that Tierney merely reported

claims made by Ehrenreich in her book

regarding the use o Gestapo tactics. It

seems the Heralds initial response to the

review was positive the piece was excel-

lent, he was told. (Email to Media Lens,

September 25, 2008)

But someone else on the Heralds edito-rial sta inormed Tierney that the reer-

ence to the supermarkets Gestapo tac-

tics had caused great upset and anger in

the ofce. One senior editor in particular

was deeply unamused. This last reaction

appears to have been decisive. Indeed, as

a result, Tierney was told, he was being

asked to relinquish his column. The rea-

soning? His editor elt she could not eel

condent that he would not make similarly

extreme comments in uture comments

that might slip undetected into the paper.

(Email rom Tierney to Media Lens, Octo-

ber 1, 2008)

The reerence to a lack o condence

immediately recalls the work o journalist

and physicist Je Schmidt who has stud-

ied the ltering o career proessionals in

some depth. The proessional, Schmidt ex-

plains, is an obedient thinker, an intellec-


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keeping The media Sae For ig usiness


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Views, to the Guardians Comment is Free

(CiF) website. Philo wrote:

News is a procession o the powerul.

Watch it on TV, listen to the Today pro-

gramme and marvel at the orthodoxy oviews and the lack o critical voices. When

the credit crunch hit, we were given a suc-

cession o bankers, stockbrokers and even

hedge-und managers to explain and say

what should be done. But these were the

people who had caused the problem, think-

ing nothing o taking 20 billion a year in

city bonuses. The solution these ree mar-

ket wizards agreed to, was that tax payers

should stump up 50 billion (and rising) to

ll up the black holes in the banking sys-

tem. Where were the critical voices to say itwould be a better idea to take the bonuses

back?

Mainstream news has sometimes a

social-democratic edge. There are com-

plaints aired about uel poverty and the

state o inner cities. But there are precious

ew voices making the point that the rea-

son why there are so many poor people

is because the rich have taken the bulk o

the disposable wealth. The notion that the

people should own the nations resources is

close to derided on orthodox news. [Readthe ull article in the November issue o the

ColdType Reader at www.coldtype.net]

He added: At the start o the Iraq war

we had the normal parade o generals and

military experts, but in act, a consistent

body o opinion then and since has been

completely opposed to it. We asked our

sample [o TV viewers] whether people

such as Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Nao-

mi Klein and Michael Moore should be

eatured routinely on the news as part o

a normal range o opinion. Seventy three

per cent opted or this rather than wanting

them on just occasionally, as at present.

Matt Seaton, the CiF editor, rejected the

article on the grounds that it would be

read as a piece o old lety whingeing about

bias. (Email rom Greg Philo, September

30, 2008)

This rom the same website that has

leather boots crunch up the path, the am-

ily still oblivious. The voice continues: I

not... A gloved hand presses the bell. Sud-

denly, the amily stops laughing, their aces

gripped by sheer dread.You can bet there was no great upset in

the Times ofces.

In July 2007, Ned Temko and Nicholas

Watt o the Observer reported that the wie

o Downing Streets ormer chie o sta,

Jonathan Powell, had lited the lid on the

private ury elt by Tony Blairs inner circle

over the cash-or-peerages inquiry, accus-

ing the police o Gestapo tactics. Imag-

ine the shock i Temko and Watt had been

sacked or reporting the accusation.

In September 2006, Dominic Lawsonwrote an article titled, Gestapo tactics in

reedoms name. Protesting the US-UK

use o torture in ghting the war on ter-

ror, Lawson wrote: America is inevitably

tainted and Britain by association with

the unanswerable charge that it has used

the tactics o the Gestapo in the name o

reedom.

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All around us, unseen, our media are beingcontinuously cleansed, pore-deep, o im-

portant rational comments or the simple,

crude reason that they threaten prots.

Last month, Nick Clayton, a columnist

at the Scotsman or 12 years and ormerly

its technology editor, reported that adver-

tisers were leaving the paper in avour o

online media. He wrote: Whether youre

looking or work or a home, the webs the

place to go.

Clayton was red or writing this. He

commented on his sacking: I really dont

understand why Ive been red... I was

merely reporting what estate agents had

said to me about advertising in newspa-

pers.

Freelancers arent red, just waved away.

Last month, Greg Philo o the prestigious

Glasgow University Media Group sub-

mitted a powerul article, More News Less


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David Cromwell & David Edwards

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Study Shows Truth Biased against Israel,

By CYN SORSHEEP.

In response, CanWest hit the media

collective with a SLAPP (strategic law-

suit against public participation) claiminga violation o trademark law. Because the

writers were initially anonymous, Can-

West sued the printer and another activist,

Mordecai Briemberg, who had passed out

copies. Robert Jensen, proessor o journal-

ism at the University o Texas, takes up the

story: Such a suit is legitimate only when

the plainti can show theres a reasonable

likelihood that people will conuse the ake

with the real and that some harm will re-

sult. In this case, there clearly is no conu-

sion and no harm, and hence no seriousclaim. But CanWest presses on.

Calling the [Palestine Media] Collec-

tives paper a countereit version that

amounts to identity thet, CanWest seems

to want to rame this as a kind o intellec-

tual-property terrorism: This piece was

not satirical. It was not a clever spoo. It

was a deliberate act to mislead and mis-

inorm thousands o people by using the

actual Vancouver Sun masthead, logo and

layout, reads a company statement on the

case. (Jensen, (http://www.zcommunica-tions.org/znet/viewArticle/18899)

Briemberg initially sought coverage o

his plight rom the Canadian press without

success. He then approached the interna-

tional press, including the Guardian, with

an opinion piece. The Guardian directed

him to their Comment is Free website,

which has ignored him.

The Index on Censorship has run

an edited version o his op-ed here:

www.indexoncensorship.org/?p=560

A Seriously Free Speech Committee has

also been ormed to help with honorary

members such as Naomi Klein, John Pilg-

er, Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman, and

many others:

www.seriouslyreespeech.wordpress.com/

There has so ar been no mention o this

story in any UK newspaper.

just published Anne Perkinss analysis o

the merits o dierent leaders wives. Sarah

Brown, wie o prime minister Gordon, and

Samantha Cameron, wie o Tory leader

David, are doing so much better than thatawul Cherie Blair, it seems:

Brown is unashy and sincere. Cameron

is cool and elegant. The joke is they could

be sisters, with pretty but unacademic Sa-

mantha and the older, not quite as pretty

but dead brainy Sarah.

Samantha keeps her mouth shut and

looks cool and stylish, although there have

been gaes: no one mentions those packs

o Smythsons Christmas cards (5.70 each,

57 or 10). And so on . . .

We ound this within seconds o visitingthe site there are limitless comparable

examples. At time o writing, Perkinss ar-

ticle has garnered 15 uninspired comments,

including: It is a very silly Daily Mail sort

o article as others say, but this is the way

the Guardian is going, alas.

As we ourselves know, where dissidents

cant be sacked, patronised or ignored, legal

action is always an option.

CanWest, one o Canadas largest me-

dia companies, is the owner o newspa-

pers, radio and television stations, andonline properties. CanWest ounder, Israel

(Izzy) Asper, a strong supporter o Israels

right-wing Likud party, reportedly told the

Jerusalem Post: In all our newspapers, in-

cluding the National Post, we have a very

pro-Israel position... we are the strongest

supporter o Israel in Canada.

The Guardian noted that Asper was

highly critical o any perceived anti-Israeli

position in the media, particularly the Ca-

nadian Broadcasting Corporations cover-

age o the Middle East, which he suggested

had anti-Semitic overtones.

Responding to this consistent pro-Is-

raeli stance, the Palestine Media Collective

produced a satirised version o CanWests

Vancouver Sun newspaper on the theme o

the 40th anniversary o the Israeli Occupa-

tion in 2007. This included stories such as:


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In many ways, my introduction to jour-

nalism was ar rom typical. In the mid-

1980s, ater university, I was casting

around or a career and decided to try

journalism. I called the local ree newspa-

per in the city in which I had graduated,

Southampton, and oered my services.

Free newspapers were a new and rap-

idly growing orm o print media. Cheap

production had been made possible by the

new technologies about to revolutionise

the working practices o all papers, includ-

ing those in Fleet Street. I was using a small

Macintosh computer, writing stories and

designing the pages, at a time when the na-

tionals were still laboriously typesetting. At

the Southampton Advertiser, we produced a

weekly newspaper with just our editorial

sta: an editor, two reporters and a pho-

tographer. The advertising sta was morethan twice that size.

By denition, ree newspapers are ad-

vertising platorms since they have no

other way o raising revenue. But when

they rst emerged, some o the indepen-

dently owned ones were not as dire as they

uniormly are today or reasons we will

come to. The Southampton Advertiser was

one o a small chain o ree newspapers on

the south coast owned by a local business-

man. He made no eort to conceal the act

that he saw his newspapers simply as ve-

hicles or making money.

Most ambitious journalists start out on

a daily local newspaper (I would soon end

up on one), owned by one o a handul o

large media groups. There, as I would learn,

one quickly eels all sorts o institutional

constraints on ones reporting. As a young

journalist, i you know no better, you sim-

In response to the previous essay, ormer Guardian and Observer journalist, Jonathan Cook, whois now based in Nazareth, Israel, reporting on Israel-Palestine issues, emailed us: I woke upater our hours sleep, my head buzzing with recollections o my early years in journalism. Ivebeen sitting and writing ever since, trying to make sense o it all. Its quite therapeutic and morerevealing about how the media work than I had appreciated beore. Your essay really has set oprocesses in my head. He also wrote this 6,500-word piece which had the eect o reraming mycareer in a way that fnally makes sense to me


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Jonathan Cook

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come to a ull explanation soon, but here I

will highlight a major part o the answer.

An important concern o theAdvertisers

owner was getting his paper better read

than the evening paper so that he could at-tract advertising away rom it and charge

more per page to the advertisers. It was a

orm o genuine and short-lived compe-

tition between local newspapers. Indepen-

dently owned ree sheets like the Adver-

tiser created a real battle or readers with

the paid-or evenings, a situation that had

been unknown or many decades in almost

all Britains cities.

It also meant that ree sheets like the

Advertiser that were not part o a media

corporation had a real motivation to writestories that were popular with readers and

dispense with the usty, deerential report-

ing that had typied the monopolistic eve-

ning papers or decades. TheAdvertiser pre-

erred to risk upsetting ofcials i it meant

gaining readers.

To this end, the Advertisers owner had

recruited an award-winning ormer investi-

gative reporter rom the Daily Mirror. Our

paper was ull o hard-hitting news reports

and investigations. I remember being sent

out to take on shotgun-wielding cowboyclampers, conmen who at that time had

the reedom to clamp cars and then de-

mand money with menaces; we exposed

council corruption; and I was put in charge

o running a campaign to bully the city into

beginning recycling projects.

Soon council ofcials were reusing to

speak to me. It elt like we were in a low-

budget remake o All the Presidents Men.

Our eorts were amply rewarded too. That

year we won the Free Newspaper o the

Year Award.

Incredibly, this was the most exciting

time I would ever experience in newspa-

pers. Most o the time it elt like we were

ree to write anything. On the rare occa-

sions we did make a mistake, however, it

was clear that it was because we had up-

set an advertiser rather than the readers. It

was a lesson not lost on me.

ply come to accept that journalism is done

in a certain kind o way, that certain sto-

ries are suitable and others unsuitable, that

arbitrary rules have to be ollowed. These

seem like laws o nature, unquestionableand sel-evident to your more experienced

colleagues. Being a better journalist re-

quires that these work practices become

second nature.

The Advertiser, however, oered a ar

more enlightening and ree-wheeling en-

vironment or a young journalist. Larger

newspapers structure their ofces in such

a way as to ensure that editorial and ad-

vertising sta keep an ostentatious dis-

tance rom each other, usually on separate

oors as i underscoring to everyone thateditorial judgments are ree o commercial

concerns. At the Advertiser we dispensed

with such niceties. The advertising sta

were next door and we reely mingled and

socialised.

Nonetheless, on the Advertiser the of-

cial motto was that we were there to satisy

the readers. I remember in my rst week

being given a slide show by the advertising

manager, whose various independently au-

dited surveys revealed that the Advertiser

was better liked and more read in the citythan the paid-or local evening newspaper

including, he added proudly, by the ABs,

proessionals with money to spend on con-

sumer goods.

I doubt he was lying. Invariably when I

went out on a story, local people welcomed

me into their homes telling me how much

they admired the paper and oten asking

why the evening paper could not be more

like ours. People seemed genuinely excited

at the prospect o being included in our

coverage.

It seems almost paradoxical to me now.

How could a newspaper entirely depen-

dent on advertising outperorm a newspa-

per part o whose revenues came rom a

reading public who had to pay or it? Surely

the evening newspaper had ar more incen-

tive to come up with reports that appealed

to its readers than the ree sheet? We will


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Its All About The money

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soon emerged that we were to be stymied

every time we tried to write the kind o sto-

ries we covered or theAdvertiser.

Here is a typical experience I had early

on with the Echo. I had been approachedby a group o residents concerned that the

Church o Scientology was intending to use

a local health clinic to promote their work.

The residents elt this was a misuse o pub-

lic space and that the clinics reputation

might coner some legitimacy on the Sci-

entologists claims. When I told the news

editor about the story, he looked mortied.

We never run stories about the Scientolo-

gists, he said. Why, I asked. Because they

have money and sue every time we men-

tion them in the paper.I am not even sure whether his excuse

was genuine. Had I written the story or

theAdvertiser, I doubt we would have been

sued. But, looking back, I think his com-

ment concealed some bigger truths about

the dierence between the Echo and the

Advertiser.

Unlike most media owners, theAdvertis-

ers original proprietor was not a corporate

player; he was a local businessman who

had spotted an opening in the media mar-

ket created by new technology. This createda conict o interest or him that or a time

avoured the readers o his newspapers.

Against the might o the evening paper,

theAdvertiser was a minnow. Because it de-

pended entirely on advertising revenues, it

had to steal readers rom the Echo i it was

to push up its rates. But to make the paper

interesting to readers we needed to upset

the local centres o power like the council,

even though that could in the longer term

potentially harm the owners business in-

terests.

It may also be that this was a short-term

strategy by the proprietor. He knew that i

he could take away readers rom the Echo,

the evening paper would be orced to buy

him out. Interestingly, the Echo set up a ri-

val ree sheet to try to kill the Advertiser

but it never made a dent in its rivals popu-

larity.

Today, ree newspapers are derided. And

there is good reason. TheAdvertisers rapid

ate has been shared by all the other ree

sheets that tried to compete with a local

established daily paper.TheAdvertiser became a genuine threat

to the commercial interests o the local

Evening Echo (as it was then known). Even

with a tiny sta, theAdvertiser had ar more

interesting stories than the evening paper.

Humiliatingly, the Echo was orced to run

ollow-ups o our stories when our exclusive

reports raised questions in the city coun-

cil chamber. Readers started abandoning

the evening paper: why pay or your news

when you can get it better written and de-

livered through your door or ree?Shortly ater I had been poached by the

Echo, theAdvertiser was bought out by the

evening papers owners. The sta o the ree

sheet were relocated to the Echos building

and my ormer paper was eviscerated.

Within a short time a new editor was

appointed and the papers hard-hitting re-

ports were ditched. Lie-style eatures and

syndicated material dominated instead.

One o my ormer colleagues would conde

in the pub that his job was now to rewrite

press releases. The Advertiser stopped be-ing a rival to the Echo; it became simply an

advertising supplement to it.

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It is, o course, no surprise that a large news-

paper would want to devour a threatening

smaller one. That is the nature o the ree

market. But, given journalists assumptions

about the workings o a ree press, should

the Echo not have had every interest, ater

destroying the Advertiser, in learning rom

the latters success? Even given the restora-

tion o its monopoly, would it not have a

commercial interest in seeking to win back

or itsel the loyalty o local readers?

At rst it looked as i that was going to

happen: both I and the Advertisers ormer

editor were taken on by the Echo. But it


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Jonathan Cook

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Echo

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to liven up advertisers press releases; and

the crime correspondent, who spent all day

hanging out with policemen.

In other words, success at the newspaper

was gauged in terms o obedience to gureso authority, and the ability not to alien-

ate powerul groups within the community.

Ambitious journalists learnt to whom they

must turn or a comment or a quote, and

where suitable stories could be ound.

It was a skill that presumably stayed with

them or the rest o their careers.

Those who struggled to cope with these

strictures were soon ound out. They either

ailed their probationary periods and were

orced to move on, or stayed on in the low-

liest positions where they could do littleharm.

I ollowed the proessional guidelines as

laid down by my bosses but ound mysel

deeply dissatised with the Echo and its

institutional constraints. My overwhelm-

ing impression was o the Echos ailure as

a newspaper though at that time I attrib-

uted it simplistically to cowardice on the

part o the papers editors.

Possibly my eyes were more open to this

ailure than some o my colleagues because

I had enjoyed relative reedom to reportat the Advertiser. At the Echo, unlike the

ree sheet, reporters were rarely allowed

to write reports based on readers who

phoned in with their stories tip-os that

had been the bread and butter o my earlier

work. Investigations too were out. Sources

or stories were always ofcial sources.

It is interesting that investigative jour-

nalism, always a rare orm o the reporters

crat, has all but died out and is nowa-

days largely restricted to the internet.

Most young journalists, mysel included,

were raised on the idea that we had joined

a proession that aspired to Woodward and

Bernstein-type exposes. We understood,

and our proessions own mythologising

encouraged such an understanding, that

investigative reporting was the purest orm

o the journalists crat. In many ways it

was the ideal.

Also, the Advertisers ability to cause

harm to powerul interests in the city was

limited. We published maybe hal a dozen

high-prole news stories each week in the

paper. We easily ound enough material ocommunity interest to ll our weekly news-

paper. We concentrated on corrupt council

ofcials, bad planning decisions, conmen,

and shopliting local celebrities.

The Echo was a very dierent kind o op-

eration. It published a hundred or so sto-

ries each day on all aspects o local lie. I it

had allowed its journalists the reedom to

use their critical aculties about stories that

were o no concern to the citys powerul

elites, how would it have been able to stop

them using the same skills when handlingstories that did concern such elites?

And just as importantly, how would the

newspaper have been able to maintain the

pretence o demanding balanced and

objective reporting rom its journalists

i it so conspicuously applied double stan-

dards, depending on whether a story con-

cerned powerul interest groups or not? It

would have been clear to even the most

blinkered editorial sta member that the

papers proessional standards the ree-

dom to write without intererence hadbeen compromised.

So instead the Echos reporters learnt to

write in a bland and deadening style that

made most stories seem either o little or

no importance or let the reader terminally

conused with a ping-pong o he said-she

said. Ofcial sources o inormation and

conrmation were always preerred because

they were more reliable and trustwor-

thy. Council ofcials were always ready

and glad to speak to an Echo journalist.

To many o the Echos sta, this had all

become second nature. Promotion meant

moving on rom the lowly beat reporter,

covering community issues, to other posts:

the city or county council correspondent,

who depended on council ofcials and

councillors or inormation; the court re-

porter, who loyally regurgitated court

proceedings; the business sta, who tried


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described above.

I travelled a slightly dierent route. A-

ter working at theAdvertiser, I went o to

get mysel trained and won a scholarship

to Cardi Universitys journalism post-graduate course, one o only two such

programmes in the country then. O the

50 or so idealistic trainees alongside me,

all hoped to leaprog the local papers and

TV and arrive in a plum job in the national

media.

The course spent a lot o time reminding

us that we were ollowing in the ootsteps

o the countrys leading journalists, many

o whom had attended Cardi. Instead o

two years o probation on a local newspa-

per, we had an intensive year-long periodo study to groom us or our probable rapid

ascent through the ranks o the media.

Cardi thereore spent a great deal o

time persuading us that we were proes-

sionals: that is, members o a proession

with rules and ethics just like our counter-

parts in the law and medicine.

That is actually a departure rom the

historic view o journalists, which was that

they belonged to a trade and that they

learnt their crat on the job through what

were eectively apprenticeships. Journalistsin the nineteenth century understood that

they were little dierent rom cabinet-mak-

ers: you learnt the rules o the crat rom

your elders and then applied them.

I that sounds difcult to believe today,

my experience living in Nazareth the larg-

est Arab city inside Israel may be helpul.

Here journalists are essentially party politi-

cal unctionaries, working or newspapers

established by and closely allied to those

parties. Most journalists write little more

than press releases or their party and then

publish this propaganda as news reports in

the partys newspaper. Unsurprisingly, jour-

nalists are generally held in low esteem.

Until the twentieth century that was

pretty much the situation in Britain and

the United States. A journalist worked or

a proprietor with a clear political agenda

and produced copy in keeping with that

It is thereore instructive to consider how

newspapers treated investigative reporting

in its heyday.

O note is the act that such investiga-

tions, when they occurred, were carriedout almost exclusively by a national me-

dia desperate or accolades; investigative

teams were numerically tiny in comparison

with the main editorial sta; the investiga-

tive reporters were restricted to their own

discrete teams with almost no contact with

other editorial departments; and their

choice o subjects was closely supervised

by senior editorial sta.

In other words, the investigative reporter

is the exception in journalism rather than

the model. He or she is the loose cannonwhose reports can bring the paper great ac-

claim but only i the reporter is kept on a

tight leash. The honour they bring the pa-

per can equally turn disastrous i the wrong

subjects are pursued or the story leads in

unpredictable directions that threaten

powerul interests. This is why investiga-

tive reporters have always been a small and

threatened breed and have always been

closely scrutinised.

3: P

Most journalists learn their trade by work-

ing on local media with periods o study

spent at one o dozens o journalism colleg-

es around the country. Typically, the young

journalist is taken on by a newspaper or

up to two years on probation (indentures)

at very low pay, and the study periods are

paid or by the newspaper.

During this period, when they are both

nancially and proessionally vulnerable,

journalists are taught the main skills: how

to structure and write news stories, master

shorthand, navigate through the system o

local government, and abide by the laws o

libel. The newcomer is oered proper em-

ployment i he or she passes the exams,

shows competency and is considered to

have absorbed satisactorily the constraints


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Jonathan Cook

countrys media, the propagandistic na-

ture o their papers journalism would be

even more evident. Ater all, the public

understood only too well that newspapers

were there to serve the interests o theirproprietors. This impression needed to be

changed i the public was to be successul-

ly pacied in the ace o the corporations

agenda.

And so dawned the era o the proes-

sional media. Journalists were no longer

to be seen as tradesmen; they were proes-

sionals. Their Hippocratic oath was balance,

objectivity, neutrality. Unlike their prede-

cessors, they would be trained in academic

institutions and could then be trusted to

oer only acts in news reports. Opinionwould be restricted to the comment pages

to give a newspaper character. That con-

veniently explained why there was so little

dierentiation in the various papers cover-

age or in their selection o news stories.

Be sure: the product was the same as

it had always been. But now the media

became much better at packaging itsel.

While reporters on the red tops continued

to be characterised as hacks, journalists

on quality papers started to be trusted as

reliable and impartial conduits o inorma-tion.

The campaign o proessionalising the

media was so successul that, ater their

training, even the journalists believed they

were disinterested parties in reporting the

news. The selection o certain stories as

newsworthy and the urther selection o

certain acts as relevant to the story had

once been understood to be dependent on

the biases o the organisation a journalist

worked or. Now reporters were made to

believe that these arbitrary criteria were

inherent in a category o inormation called

news. And that only through their train-

ing could journalists recognise these crite-

ria.

The success o this campaign can be

seen in the huge rise in the popularity o

journalism as a career among middle-class

children. The rate at which this proes-

agenda. Such journalists were sometimes

derogatively reerred to as hacks. Ac-

cording to Wikipedia, hack in this con-

text derives rom hackney, a horse that

was easy to ride and available or hire. Theproprietor was, o course, the rider.

The press earned its reputation as the

Fourth Estate largely because the interests

o these newspapers, representing dierent

elite groups, sometimes clashed. In such

circumstances a journalist was briey able

to shine a light on corruption or intrigues

in the corridors o power. (Much the same

could be said o the judiciary, yet ew would

suggest that nineteenth-century judges

represented interests any more varied than

those o the ruling classes rom which theywere drawn).

A change in the medias view o its role

began in the early stages o the twentieth

century, provoked by several parallel de-

velopments, among them: universal su-

rage, the emergence o large corporations,

the establishment o psychology as a eld

o study, and the consolidation o the PR

industry.

Media Lens have described the process

o the proessionalising o journalism in

detail in a previous essay (www.medialens.org/alerts/04/040728_Bias_Balanced_

Journalism.HTM) so I will not dwell on it

again. But several points should be high-

lighted.

The most urgent battleground or the

press barons, and the nancial interests

that lay behind them, was the winning o

a popular mandate or the corporations to

accrete even greater power. The chie tool

or sanctioning this agenda would be the

media. As part o this concentration o

power, the proprietors waged a relentless

war against the radical and socialist press-

es, gradually starving them o advertising

until their demise was inevitable. (The ree

sheets o the 1980s would pose a similar

threat and be dealt with in much the same

way by the established local newspapers.)

But there was a catch: once only a ew

rich individuals exclusively owned the


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Jonathan Cook

oering material rom abroad are little

better. The best they can usually aspire to

is being taken on as a stringer, retained by

the paper or an agreed period.

Hollywood lms may perpetuate theidea o reporters, even junior ones, regu-

larly initiating new stories or their papers,

but actually it is relatively rare. In truth, re-

porters are more usually directed by senior

editors on which stories to cover and how

to cover them. Unless they are senior writ-

ers, usually specialist correspondents, they

have little input into the way they cover

events.

I they are to survive long, writers must

quickly learn what the news desk expects

o them. Newcomers are given a smallamount o leeway to adopt angles that are

not suitable. But they are also expected

to learn quickly why such articles are un-

suitable and not to propose similar reports

again.

The advantage o this system is that

high-prole sackings are a great rarity. Edi-

tors hardly ever need to bare their teeth

against an established journalist because

ew make it to senior positions unless they

have already learnt how to toe the line.

The medias lengthy ltering systemmeans that it is many years beore the

great majority o journalists get the chance

to write with any degree o reedom or a

national newspaper, and they must rst

have proved their good judgment many

times over to a variety o senior editors.

Most have been let go long beore they

would ever be in a position to inuence the

papers coverage.

Journalists, o course, see this lengthy

process o recruitment as necessary to lter

or quality rather than to remove those

who ail to conorm or whose reporting

threatens powerul elites. The media are

supposedly applying proessional standards

to nd those deserving enough to reach the

highest ranks o journalism.

But, o course, these goals nding the

best, and weeding out the non-team play-

ers are not contradictory. The system

This preerence or untested Oxbridge

graduates can probably be explained by

the ltering process too. The selected grad-

uates always came rom the same predict-

able backgrounds, and were the product olengthy ltering processes endured in the

countrys education system. The Guardian

appeared to be more condent that such

types could be relied on without the kind

o quality control needed with other ap-

plicants.

For a journalist like mysel who was well

trained and had spent several years in the

local media, getting a oot in the door o

the nationals was relatively easy. Keeping

my eet under the desk was ar harder. Few

recruits are given a job or allowed to writeor a paper until they have completed yet

another lengthy probationary period.

On national newspapers, this usu-

ally means spending considerable time as

a sub-editor, as I did, a role in which the

journalist is slowly acclimatised to the

newspapers values. The sub sits at the

bottom o the newspapers editorial hier-

archy, editing and styling reports as they

come in or publication. Above him or her

are the section editors (home, oreign etc),

a chie sub-editor (usually an old hand),and a revise sub to check their work. Subs

invariably spend years as reelancers or on

short-term contracts.

The subs primary task is to stop er-

rors o act and judgment getting into the

newspaper. But their own judgment is con-

stantly under scrutiny rom editors higher

up the hierarchy. I they ail to understand

the papers values, their career is likely to

stall on this bottom rung or their contract

will not be renewed.

Reporters who avoid a period o sub-

editing are in an equally insecure position.

They are usually taken on as a reelance

writer beore getting a series o short con-

tracts. During this period news reporters

are mainly restricted to the night shit,

when their job is to update or the later

editions stories that have already been led

by senior reporters during the day. Writers


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impartiality.)

In act, despite their claims to having

distinctive characters, newspapers closely

ollow the same news agendas, trying to

mirror each others story lists. One o thejobs I once had on the oreign desk was to

scan the pages o the rst editions o rival

papers to see i they had any stories we had

missed. All national papers do this compul-

sively.

5: Scc c w

The mirroring by newspapers o each oth-

ers news agendas is oten attributed to hu-

man nature, in the orm o the herd instinctor the tendency to ollow the pack. In truth,

this is the way most reporters work out in

the eld. They attend press conerences,

they chase ater celebrities together, they

speak to the same ofcial spokespeople.

I learnt this mysel the hard way when I

moved to Israel to report on the Israeli-Pal-

estinian conict. Naively, I assumed that, in

line with my vision o the ideal journalist

as an investigative reporter, a Woodward or

a Bernstein, that I should be trying to nd

exclusives, stories no other reporter knewabout. Ater all, most newspapers still in-

clude as their motto some variation on the

claim to be First with the news.

What I discovered, however, was that,

when I rung up the news desk back in

London, the editor would always start by

asking me where else the story had been

published. Paradoxically, when I said it

was an exclusive, I could hear his interest

wilt. Even though he knew I had a great

deal o experience, he did not want to take

a chance on a story that no one else had

reported.

On run-o-the-mill stories too, the de-

mand rom the news desk was the same:

could I get an ofcial source to conrm the

story? It happened even when I had seen

something with my own eyes. And an o-

cial source meant an Israeli source. It elt

almost as i the Israeli government and

does promote outstanding proessional

journalists, but it ensures that they also

subscribe to orthodox views o what jour-

nalism is there to do. The eect is that the

media identiy the best propagandists topromote their corporate values.

It is notable that there is not a single

large media institution dedicated to pro-

viding a platorm to those who dissent or

express non-conormist views, however

talented they are as journalists. Only at the

very margins o what are considered to be

let-wing publications such as the Guardian

and the Independent can such voices very

occasionally be heard, and even then only

in the comment pages.

Surprisingly, most national newspaperstalk a great deal about their values and

the special character that marks them out

rom their rivals. And yet when I was seek-

ing a job on the national newspapers, it

was striking how interchangeable the sta

were. I spent periods working reelance or

the Guardian, Observer and Telegraph, and

kept meeting the same aspiring journalists

trying to get work at these apparently very

dierent newspapers.

As reelancers we quickly became aware

o what each newspaper expected rom usin terms o story presentation, and the di-

erences were not great it was more about

nuance (that avourite term o proessional

journalists). Similarly, the nationals regu-

larly poached senior sta rom each other.

Journalists like to argue that this is not

surprising in a proessional environment.

Ater all, the point o proessional stan-

dards is that all newspapers should apply

the same principles o supposed neutrality

and objectivity.

Where, then, is this dierence o charac-

ter to be located in our media? According

to most journalists it is to be ound in the

commentary pages and in the selection o

news stories. This is where a paper reveals

its true values. (We will gloss over the prob-

lematic act that the need or stories to be

selected by whom and according to what

criteria? in itsel undermines the idea o


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Jonathan Cook

trends o the big agencies. Israeli newspa-

pers are subject to all the usual institution-

al constraints we have considered in the

case o the evening paper in Southampton.

But they also reect the dominant valueso a highly ideological and mobilised soci-

ety. The British medias reliance on parti-

san Israeli news gatherers or inormation

severely undermines their own claims to

objectivity and neutrality.

Being a oreign correspondent in Israel,

it should be underlined, is no dierent rom

being one anywhere else in the world. The

same issues apply.

The inadmissibility o many important

details o the Israeli-Palestinian conict

especially when they concern the weaker,Palestinian side is not conned to news

reports. Even the opinion pages o news-

papers are closed o to the ull spectrum o

human, mainly Palestinian, experience and

relevant political context, as I have repeat-

edly discovered.

Through personal contacts and ortu-

itous circumstances, I managed in the early

stages o the second intiada to publish

several commentaries in the International

Herald Tribune. All were critical o Israels

behaviour in a way that is rarely seen inany American media.

Ater a short time, Israels powerul lob-

by, realising that I had evaded the normal

saeguards, moved into action. Ater one o

my commentaries, the lobby organised the

largest postbag o complaints the IHT had

received in its history, as a sympathetic edi-

tor conded in me. I was orced to submit

a lengthy deence o my article to counter

the campaign o pressure rom the lobby

groups, with the IHT eventually accepting

that there were no errors in my piece and

reusing to publish an apology. However,

they severed all links with me another

triumph or the lobby.

Subsequent eorts by the main Pales-

tinian media organisation in the US to get

my commentaries published in American

papers and journals have ailed dismally.

Even publications regarded as progressive

army had to give their seal o approval be-

ore a story could be published.

In act, more than 95 per cent o the re-

ports led by Britains distinguished cor-

respondents in Jerusalem originate in sto-ries they have seen published either by the

worlds two main news agencies, Reuters

and Associated Press, or in the local Israeli

media. Exclusives are almost unheard o.

The correspondents main job is to rewrite

the agency copy by adding his own angle

usually a minor matter o emphasis in

the rst paragraphs or an addition o a ew

quotes rom an ofcial contact.

This reliance on the wires is in itsel a

very eective way o ltering out news that

challenges dominant interests. The agen-cies, dependent or survival on unding

rom the large media groups, are extreme-

ly deerential to the main Western power

elites and their allies. This is or two chie

reasons: rst, large media owners like the

Murdoch empire might pull out o the ar-

rangement, or even set up their own rival

agency, were Reuters or AP regularly to run

stories damaging to their business interests;

and second, the agencies, needing to pro-

vide reams o copy each day, rely primarily

on ofcial sources or their inormation.The minnow in the battle between the

agencies is AFP, the French news agency.

And much like the Advertiser in its golden

days, AFP needs to beat the Reuters-AP

cartel by nding other readers / buyers

or its wire service. It does this by trying

to provide a limited supply o alternative

news, especially o what are called human

interest stories.

In the context o the Israel-Palestine

conict this sometimes translates into sym-

pathetic reports o Palestinian suering at

the hands o the Israeli army or the Jewish

settlers, stories hard to nd in Reuters or

AP. Not surprisingly, the media in countries

that do not subscribe to the Western cor-

porate view o world aairs are the main

subscribers to AFP.

The main other source o inormation,

the Israeli media, reinorces the coverage


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eedback columns.

The case o Fisk is instructive. All the ev-

idence is that the Independent might have

olded were it not or his inclusion in the

news and comment pages. Fisk appearsto be one o the main reasons people buy

the Independent. When, or example, the

editors realised that most o the hits on the

papers website were or Fisks articles, they

made his pieces accessible only by paying a

subscription ee. In response people simply

stopped visiting the site, orcing the Inde-

pendent to restore ree access to his stories.

It is also probable that the other writ-

ers cited above are among the chie reasons

readers choose the publications that host

them. It is at least possible that, were moresuch writers allowed on their pages, these

papers would grow in popularity. We are

never likely to see the hypothesis tested be-

cause the so-called letwing media appear

to be in no hurry to take on more dissent-

ing voices.

Finally, it should also be noted that none

o these admirable writers with the ex-

ception o Pilger choose or are allowed

to write seriously about the dire state o

the mainstream media they serve. Sadly, it

seems sel-evident that were they to do sothey would quickly nd their employment

terminated.

We are ortunate to have their incisive

analyses o some o the most important

events o our era. Nonetheless it is vital to

acknowledge that even they cannot speak

out on an issue that is undamental to the

health o our democracy.

How then do I dare write as I have done

here? Simply because I have little to lose.

The mainstream media spat me out some

time ago. Were it otherwise, I would prob-

ably be keeping my silence too.

by American standards reuse to consider

my pieces.

The use o institutional power to silence

dissident voices is more savage and ugly in

the Israeli-Palestinian conict than else-where, but similar obstacles ace any jour-

nalist anywhere in the world who tries to

break out o the narrow connes o main-

stream reporting, analysis and commen-

tary.

6: I

How is it then, i this thesis is right, that

there are dissenting voices like John Pilger,

Robert Fisk, George Monbiot and SeumasMilne who write in the British media while

reusing to toe the line?

Note that the above list pretty much ex-

hausts the examples o writers who genu-

inely and consistently oppose the normal

rameworks o journalistic thinking and

reuse to join the herd. That means that in

Britains supposedly letwing media we can

nd one writer working or theIndependent

(Fisk), one or the New Statesman (Pilger)

and two or the Guardian (Milne and Mon-

biot). Only Fisk, we should urther note,writes regular news reports. The rest are

given at best weekly columns in which to

express their opinions.

However grateul we should be to these

dissident writers, their relegation to the

margins o the commentary pages o Brit-

ains letwing media serves a useul pur-

pose or corporate interests. It helps dene

the character o the British media as

provocative, pluralistic and ree-thinking

when in truth they are anything but. It is

a vital component in maintaining the c-

tion that a proessional media is a diverse

media.

Also, by presenting these exceptional

writers as straining at the very limits o

the thinkable, their host newspapers sub-

tly encourage a view o them as crackpots,

armchair revolutionaries and whingers

as they oten are described in the papers


18/18

The Reader Extra_ Keeping the Media Safe for Big Corp

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