Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

Free to say whatever the boss likes

As anyone who has ever watched movies or television from the US knows, a 
"free press" is the cornerstone of the democratic system. This message is 
common to all capitalist governments, but the US Government, the epitome of 
bourgeois democracy, proclaims it more loudly and more frequently than any 
other.

By "free", the apologists for capitalism mean free from any and all 
government restraints or "interference". Restraints imposed by owners or 
advertisers don't count.

They also mean free from any "union bias" or "left wing" bias. The news 
must appear to be "balanced", with no overt political viewpoint; this 
means, of course, that it assumes a more or less covert conservative, 
ruling class political viewpoint.

That, however, is OK. It is still "free".

Apparently it is just a coincidence that all the television news programs 
present identical views and analysis. It is apparently purely coincidental 
that they all jumped on George Bush's "War on Terrorism" bandwagon with 
identical news reports and an astonishing uniformity of opinion.

It is also, it seems, purely coincidental that they all report strikes and 
other industrial matters solely in terms of picket line violence and 
inconvenience to the public.

One of the worst offenders in this regard is the Atlanta-based Cable News 
Network, CNN. The favoured media outlet for the US State Department, indeed 
a crucial part of US strategy for establishing the world-wide media "line" 
on any action in which the US is interested anywhere in the world, CNN has 
moved further to the right as this cosy relationship has developed.

But while the head honchos of CNN are congratulating themselves over their 
trend-setting position among US and indeed global capitalist news services, 
their journalists are still being told to "get the story", albeit in a 
"balanced" way.

But if the poor buggers try to get the story with any attempt at accuracy, 
if they try to report it fairly, they are likely to find themselves at odds 
with their bosses. For CNN's editorial line is extremely right wing.

CNN's coverage of the related topics of Iraq, oil and Palestine is at once 
extremely hostile and uninformative. CNN has for some time, in fact, 
reported news about Iraq under the provocative, politically motivated 
banner: "Target Iraq".

Any news from Iraq is always treated the way the channel treats news about 
unions: instead of "union bosses" holding the public to ransom you have 
"Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein" who is invariably "holding the world to 
ransom".

It's funny, isn't it, the way they never identify him as "former US 
henchman" or "one-time US puppet put in power with US weapons"? The history 
of past US involvement with Saddam is well known and readily available.

Perhaps CNN -- and other US news channels -- ignore it out of carelessness, 
do you think? It couldn't be company policy, could it, not with a free 
press?

Just how free this flagship of the US bourgeois media really is was 
glimpsed with startling clarity on the afternoon of Monday May 6.

CNN was reporting the news that Hussein had announced that, with the 
cessation of Israel's military attacks on Palestine, he was about to lift 
his embargo on supplying oil to the West. The embargo had been imposed as 
part of the struggle to force the imperialist powers to stop Israel's war 
against the Palestinians.

The woman newsreader read the news of Hussein's intention to lift his 
embargo. Her next sentence was clearly some much-needed background. 
However, she was able to say only, "The embargo has been in place for a 
month in protest against ..." when she obviously got an urgent interjection 
in her earphone.

She stopped in mid-sentence, listened, scanned to the bottom of her sheet, 
listened some more, sighed, then began reading an entirely different story 
from the bottom of the sheet about Ariel Sharon.

The story had just been censored on air, in mid-sentence, for all to see 
and hear. Someone in authority had intervened to make sure that CNN viewers 
were not exposed to news of Iraq undertaking solidarity actions with 
anyone, least of all making sacrifices to support the Palestinians.

The reporting of Iraq imposing the embargo "in protest" at Israeli action 
in Palestine was clearly lacking in the proper right-wing bias for CNN's 
management. That it was a statement of fact was of course irrelevant.

They ordered that it must not be read out, and it wasn't.

Another triumph for the free press!