Government and media: a union of deception

Humanist, March-April, 2005 by Suzanne La Londe

THE ENGLISH POET WILLIAM BLAKE wrote that a people's morality is known by its "minute particulars." Put more succinctly: our moral fabric is reflected in the way we treat the least among us--for example, a dog at the palace gate, to use Blake's imagery. In a day and age of bombastic displays of so-called morality among politicians and preachers alike, Blake's nuanced definition of morality is indeed fitting.

For the image the mainstream media paint of the United States gives Americans plenty of reason to be concerned, if not ashamed, of the minute and not-so-minute particulars that define our morality. In fact, the front page of the Sunday, November 14, 2004, New York Times sounds an alarm bell about what our sense of morality has become. The lead story covers the U.S.-led attack in Iraq on the insurgent bastion of Falluja. Readers learn that "earlier in the afternoon, ten separate plumes of smoke rose from southern Falluja, as if etched against the desert sky, and probably exclaiming catastrophe for the insurgents." Such poetic vocabulary as "ten separate plumes of smoke ... etched against the desert sky," summons to mind the image of Boy Scouts around a campfire. A more fitting and forceful imagery such as a blitzkrieg would have been more accurate.

Readers are privy to just some details of the attack: "Mechanized units, mainly M1A2 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, have entered the district, called Shuhada, with their muzzles blazing, blowing apart buildings, rolling over barriers, and confronting insurgents holed up in mosques and other refuges." Such a description--obviously more true to life than the plumes of smoke--begs the question of civilian casualties. How can readers read and, more absurd, journalists write such an article without asking the next obvious question about the effects of the attack and the number of people killed?

If we are to believe military officials, there have been no civilian deaths, and all ambiguity about this has been scrubbed clean by assurances from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who boasted that U.S. forces were "disciplined and precise." This defies logic. Are we expected to believe that all of the civilian population--300,000 men, women, and children--fled the city while insurgents stayed entrenched exclusively in the Shuhada neighborhood? Clearly, not all civilians could have fled the city. Reuters reports that an official from a Sunni Muslim group in the city claimed that about one-fifth of civilians remained. Reuters also gives an account of "scores of civilians killed in Falluja," while a BBC reporter confirms that he saw "local people and fighters killed on the streets."

If we examine the track record of collaboration between the U.S. military and the mainstream media on the issue of civilian casualties, it should come naturally for us to regard with cynicism the little, if any, mention of civilian mortality. For example, it has been a moral disgrace that the military hasn't conducted and reported "body counts" or even estimates of people killed--all part of an effort to portray the U.S. invasion as a charitable mission to bring democracy to the Iraqi people in an antiseptic war targeting "only" insurgents. Reported estimates hovered around 10,000--until the scientific analysis by a team from Johns Hopkins University was published in the British medical journal, Lancet, placing the actual number of Iraqi civilians dead at more than 100,000. The New York Times relegated these awesome figures to page eight of its October 29, 2004, edition.

Instead of headlines that would give the American public a much needed dose of reality, even the New York Times subjects us to the worst triviality. In the same issue that reports the destruction of Falluja, readers learn that American college students are eating more cereal. This story actually shares front-page prominence with the deathless annihilation of a city! How could the editors retreat into such cultural banality when a major catastrophe is occurring by the weapons of that same culture?

Then again, maybe it makes sense--perfect sense. Such a story of triviality reflects not only a society that relishes a light and airy life defined by superficial values, feigned morality, callous indifference for others with whom it shares the planet, ignorance, and hubris but above all the extent to which its most respectable press has renounced any responsibility to enlighten the public about "minute particulars." Another succinct example of the prevalence of light and airy news stories is the number of times National Public Radio reported that Sears and K-Mart are merging, while scant mention was made of Margaret Hassan, the head of CARE in Iraq, who was murdered by terrorists.

It seems that the mainstream media believe they should just report what they consider to be the "facts" and leave their readers to develop their own opinions from them. Not all readers, however, when confronted with unflattering images of the nation will process that information with honesty. Take, for instance, the remarks of the International Committee on the Red Cross about the fate of people wounded in the battle for control of Falluja. The ICRC urged "the belligerents to ensure that all those in need of such care--whether friend or foe--be given access to medical facilities." This statement--and not the banal one about college students eating more cereal--should have found a place on the front page of the Sunday New York Times to convey a sense of the true nature of the war in Iraq.