verbena-19

More Media Bias: Brian Ross "Completely Aware" of WMD Context

The national media watch group FAIR(Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) has uncovered more biased news reporting, this time on ABC, about Saddam Hussein's 10-year-old tapes. What makes it worse is that ABC knew it was stilting its report and misleading its viewers. When a large, erstwhile reputable newtwork such as ABC is so obviously misrepresenting the news, it's small wonder that Americans who get their news from the mainstream media still equate Saddam Hussein with 9/11, thus going along with the rationale for the devastating War on Iraq.

(Talk about a dumbed-down nation.)

Brian Ross "Completely Aware" of WMD Context
So why weren't ABC viewers allowed to know?

3/3/06

Two recent reports on ABC raised the possibility that 10-year-old tapes of Saddam Hussein might show that he "did hide weapons of mass destruction"--giving the White House's rationale for the March 2003 invasion a boost.

But as a February 17 FAIR action alert pointed out, ABC's reporting omitted evidence that undermined this argument. The tapes seem to show Hussein Kamel, Iraq's weapons chief at the time, talking about information about weapons programs that Iraq had concealed from U.N. inspectors. But when Kamel defected--soon after these tapes were recorded--he not only told CIA and U.N. investigators about this concealment, he at the same time insisted that Iraq had destroyed all its unconventional weapons stockpiles. FAIR's alert questioned why ABC failed to inform its viewers about this key information.

Responding to a query from FAIR about whether ABC was aware of the Kamel story, ABC reporter Brian Ross wrote:

"Completely aware of it of course. We felt the tapes stand for themselves."

This admission is puzzling, to say the least. How could a news outlet raise the possibility that Kamel's comments on the tapes could bolster the argument that Iraq had hidden weapons of mass destruction, and not mention that he had repeatedly told the U.S. and U.N. that Iraq had destroyed all of those weapons?

And far from letting the tapes stand for themselves, ABC provided comments from sources to help viewers interpret Kamel's recorded remarks--even though, in light of Kamel's later statements, some of those comments seem to be inaccurate. For example, ABC viewers heard from Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who said, based on the tapes, "You would think that it's pretty likely that there were WMD that were hidden or that were moved out of the country." If ABC knew about Kamel's later insistence that Iraq destroyed its WMDs, that means the network had compelling information to suggest that Hoekstra's interpretation was wrong.

Instead of reporting that, ABC's Nightline segment concluded that the tapes might "help both sides bolster their arguments." It's difficult to have any kind of rational argument when crucial information is kept out of the discussion.

FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information.
.....
Read more about FAIR

Journalists, Activists and Scholars Talk About FAIR

"I promote FAIR wherever I go. It is one of the most important pro-democracy projects in the United States."
-Barbara Ehrenreich

“What the FAIR collective—and the emphasis should be on the word collective—what it has accomplished in these years is quite remarkable. There are many people, and I’m definitely one of them, who are looking forward with eager anticipation to what’s sure to come next, to the insightful correctives, information, general enlightenment that doubtless lie ahead. I would just like to congratulate the collective on its wonderful achievements and hope that many others will be encouraged to join in this widely important work.”
-Noam Chomsky

"FAIR acts almost alone as an advocate of democratic journalism. I cannot even conceive of what we would do without it."
-Robert W. McChesney

“Viva FAIR! May you live forever, may the stones that you are dropping in the water make bigger and bigger ripples in our culture. May you lead us to a return to the vision of the framers about which so many in government are so often bragging—we want to get back to the Bill of Rights, we want to get back to insuring that America has a free, robust, cacophonous, sometimes nasty, sometimes difficult-to-love press that goes out there and gets the story that nobody else is getting.”
-Phil Donahue

"It is so important that we have an organization like FAIR: to challenge the crippling social myths that the right promulgates so successfully, to question the 'values' of an infotainment media, to expose the shoddy treatment that women and minorities receive in the press, and to appeal for a diverse and intelligent media that we all deserve and desperately need."
-Susan Faludi
.....
*Read what more journalists, activists, scholars say about FAIR.

posted by Annamarie at 8:52 PM