Fwd: [Reader-list] The Press and footage of Palestinians "celebrating"

[Frederic Madre]

>From: Kali Tal <kali at kalital.com>
>List-Subscribe: <http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list>,
>Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 11:54:44 -0700
>
>Marcio Carvalho's claim that the Palestinian footage was from 1991, and the ensuing rush to debunk his assertion tell us more about right-wing strategies for spinning news and manipulating public opinion than they actually tell us about the footage itself.  If this was the claim of one guy who heard the story from a source he thought credible, and who jumped the gun and circulated the claim without seeing the evidence first, that's not such good fodder for the right-wing mill.  But if the story can be spun so that it appears to be about 1) a person who deliberately falsified information; 2) the knee-jerk reaction of the left in believing this person and spreading the story because we hate American so much; and, 3) the recantment of that person, then the war-mongers score points.
>
>The fact that so many people thought the Brazillian students' claim about false CNN footage was credible is not testimony to anti-American sentiment on the left, or a stupid willingness to believe anything that bashes America.  It is, instead, testimony to a well-documented tradition of deception and deliberate misinformation on the part of the government and the media, particularly when the media is dealing with volatile topics.
>
>We remember how TIME darkened OJ's fact to make him look more "criminal" (i.e., played on racism to create a pre-judgement of guilt): http://www.claykeck.com/patty/articles/timecover.htm
>
>We remember how CNN (the first network to come up with a logo and theme song for a war) played and replayed the single image of the "smart bomb" striking its target, and somehow forgot to report that 1) 93% of the bombs being dropped on Iraq were dumb as stumps; and, 2) only around 60% of the "smart" bombs actually hit their targets: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=9741
>
>We remember the 110 pounds of cocaine found in Noriega's home in Panama during the American invasion, and that it turned out to be ... tamales. Of course, that wasn't reported until a month later, while reporters continued to endorse the war by reporting the US Army-approved perspective without any apparent critique: http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/panamainv.html
>
>We remember the Tonkin Gulf incident of 1964, when the media gave us stories of  "unprovoked" attacks on US ships -- later revealed to be provoked after all, and to have been only one attack when two were reported. American public sentiment about the misreported Tonkin Gulf incident moved us toward committing ground troops to a war in Viet Nam : http://www.fair.org/media-beat/940727.html
>
>I was deeply concerned by the rhetoric in the http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/outrage/cnn.htm attempt to debunk the story. First, I think it was incorrect to say that the author of the original claim "recanted."  The author said that he could not lay his hands on the tapes and had been relying on the word of his professor. He promised to let the reporter who questioned him know if he found any further information.   "Recant" is a term with a lot of emotional freight.  It implies a deliberate attempt to deceive, and an apology. Neither of those were visible in the email response of the man who made the statement.   But even more disturbing was the claim posted on snope2.com that even if the footage HAD been stock, the media could be excused for using it.
>
>>  > >    Yet even if the footage had been recycled from an earlier time, we
>>>  >    have to ask why there would have been an uproar over it. Credible
>>>  >    journalists were on hand and were observing the celebrations. If they
>>>  >    hadn't been able to make video recordings to display as a backdrop to
>>>  >    their reports, would harm have been done if stock footage were run
>>>  >    instead, footage that would give the viewing audience a far better
>>  > >    idea of the feel of events than a flat voice-only report would have?
>
>Journalistic ethics underline the importance of making a clear and visible distinction between stock and documentary footage each and every time the footage is shown.  (Remember how furious the right was at Oliver Stone for NOT making that distinction in JFK?) The disingenous tone of the writer (and his political biases) are evident in the assumptions underlying his his later claims:
>
>>  > >    The primary issue should not really be whether older video footage was
>>>  >    used to represent a current event, but whether the news of event was
>>>  >    reported accurately. That is, was it correct to report that at least
>>>  >    some Palestinians were "celebrating" the news that terrorist attacks
>>>  >    had been made against the United States of America? Certainly CNN
>>>  >    wasn't the only news organization to report that information, as other
>>>  >    outlets such as Reuters and the Los Angeles Times carried the same
>>>  >    story. Also, other news outlets such as Fox News and The Jerusalem
>>>  >    Post reported that journalists were threatened for capturing images of
>>>  >    Palestinian celebrations, making real footage of the event harder to
>>  > >    obtain [...]
>
>As all media-watchers understand, the selection of images, the contextualization of images, and the repetition of images all shape the viewers' response.  Again, the disingenuous tone masks a bias towards a right-wing, pro-Israel perspective.  The single film clip was shown over and over and over on all networks.  Despite the fact that all one could see in the relatively short clip were some 50 people, the number of participants in the celebration were magnified in the minds of viewers through the process of sheer repetition, turning, by implication, a single taped incident into a nation- and possible region-wide celebration of American death.  The lack of corroborating footage has been been "explained" by US media outlets, who claim that journalists were threatened that if they photographed celebrations they would be harmed.  There is not, as yet, any documentation of that claim, only a vague reference to "Israeli sources."  It is the job of war reporters to take risks, and every war reporter understands that possible retaliation on the part of offended parties is included in the job description. The presence of Israeli forces in Palestinian neighborhoods makes it unlikely that any retaliation could have or would have taken place at the scene, and were Palestinian neighborhoods erupting in jubilee it is highly unlikely that only one film would have made it out of Israel.  On the other hand, the Israeli paper, Ha'aretz, reported in its September 13 edition:
>
>http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=74027&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
>
>>Israel, according to the sources, is seeking full-length videotapes made by
>>Reuters and The Associated Press TV News agencies showing such
>>celebrations. Images broadcast on TV stations around the world yesterday
>>showed Palestinians near Damascus Gate celebrating by cheering and
>>passing out candy.
>
>The fact that, over a week later, such tapes have NOT been shown on US media outlets indicates that the Israelis have, despite their efforts, failed to locate film of more celebrations.  Ha'aretz, in contrast to the US media, does not claim that the Palestinian Authority is "threatening" anyone about the films.  The word that they used was the far more low-key "pressuring."  Israeli news outlets have little hesitation when it comes to reporting genuine Palestinian threats, so it is fair to assume they used the word "pressure" advisedly. It may simply be that more footage did not exist because the celebrations were not particularly wide-spread or long lasting.  But the snopes2.com "analysis" is so embedded in the US media interpretation, and in support for anti-Palestinian sentiment, that it doesn't do what any responsible journal should do -- analyze the claims of both sides objectively.
>
>War journalism isn't, by nature, objective, particularly when the large majority of media outlets are owned not by independent citizens, but by corporations with interests that often conflict with those of the American people.  In order to defend ourselves from the relentless propaganda of a global-corporate media, we must simply approach everything presented to us via media as somehow "packaged" with an intent to manipulate the viewer. We can no longer afford the naive practice of trying to discern whether news is "true" or "false," for even "true" news can be spun in ways that create emotional reactions in the audience that work to the advantage of certain interests.  And we should, whenever possible, patronize and support independent media.  Those sources will also have their own biases, but they serve as counterpoint to the hegemonic global-corporate view of the world that inundates us.
>
>"When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty." -- Arthur Ponsonby
>
>Peace,
>Kali Tal
>_____________________
>Professor of Humanities
>Arizona International College
>The Universtiy of Arizona
>kali at kalital.com
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