The New Dark Age

MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

March 5, 2008

Swallowing The Kennel

Nick Davies’s latest book, Flat Earth News, is a “no-holds-barred assault on the British media,” according to Michael Savage writing in the Independent. (Savage, ‘Kamal Ahmed: “Nick is a coward”. Ahmed bites back,’ The Independent, February 11, 2008)

In the same newspaper, Stephen Glover declared: “There can be no more serious allegations against journalists than those made by Mr Davies.” The book, he added, “is gold dust”. (Glover, ‘Damning allegations that, if true, bring disgrace upon ‘The Observer’,’ The Independent, February 4, 2008)

In the Observer, Mary Riddell commented:

“Dog does not eat dog. This, as Nick Davies says, is an old Fleet Street convention. His latest book is ‘a brazen attempt to break that rule’. It is a task that Davies more than fulfils, swallowing the leash and kennel for good measure.” (Riddell, ‘Failures of the Fourth Estate,’ The Observer, February 3, 2008)

These ought to be shocking comments. If Davies’s book really does swallow the kennel, then he has succeeded in bucking a trend that has lasted more than 100 years. For the fact is that, over this time, genuine no-holds-barred assaults on the media have been ignored by those media. And Flat Earth News has certainly not been ignored. Sometimes several mentions, commentaries, reviews and extracts have appeared in the same papers and magazines, including: the Guardian, the Observer, the Independent, the Independent on Sunday, The Times, the Telegraph, the New Statesman, the Spectator, and across the BBC.

To be sure, there has been severe criticism – mostly that the book goes too far and is tainted by personal animosity. Riddell, for example, urged caution: “Many of Davies’s arguments are powerful and timely, if unduly pessimistic. British papers, for all their faults, have much left to commend them.”

Peter Preston, former editor of the Guardian, was discomfited by the tone: “rather too quickly, the tone grows shrill and devoid of humour”. (Preston, ‘Journalism: Damaged limitations: Hold the front page: the news machine is in a mess,’ The Guardian, February 9, 2008)

We have not found one suggestion in any review or commentary that Davies did not go nearly far enough.

Inside/Outside – The “Guardian Man”

Before we take a look at Davies’s media critique, it’s worth considering the premises that underlie his work. In one refreshing passage in the book, he dismisses the media’s groundless claim to objectivity:

“The great blockbuster myth of modern journalism is objectivity, the idea that a good newspaper or broadcaster simply collects and reproduces the objective truth. It is a classic Flat Earth tale, widely believed and devoid of reality. It has never happened and never will happen because it cannot happen. Reality exists objectively, but any attempt to record the truth about it always and everywhere necessarily involves selection…” (p.111)

As Davies says, judgements are not optional; they are inevitable: to use “this headline, this intro, this language, while rejecting others” reflects a judgement.

And yet Flat Earth News is based on its own “blockbuster myth”: namely, that honest media criticism is best restricted to arguments and testimony provided by media “insiders”.

Davies is himself an “insider”, of course, as he proudly tells us in the prologue: “I‘m a Guardian man. I’ve read the paper since I was fourteen. I‘ve worked for it for years and, when I came up with this project, the editor, Alan Rusbridger, agreed to support me while I pursued it.” (p.4)

Imagine the author of an expose on the arms industry declaring: “I’m a BAE Systems man. I’ve worked for it for years and, when I came up with the idea for this project, the chief executive, Mike Turner, agreed to support me while I pursue it.”

Davies makes the obvious point:

“It needs to be said that never at any stage has anybody from the Guardian tried to impose any kind of restriction or requirement on what I have written…” (p.4)

But even Davies’s own editor exposed the extreme naivety of that assurance back in 2000:

“If you ask anybody who works in newspapers, they will quite rightly say, ‘Rupert Murdoch,’ or whoever, ‘never tells me what to write,’ which is beside the point: they don’t have to be told what to write.” (Alan Rusbridger, interview with David Edwards, December 22, 2000

The focus on overt interference is a liberal herring. The real issue is the extent to which corporate values are simply internalised by executives selected to work for major corporations. What kind of internalisation of values do we have in mind? The kind that would lead someone to feel comfortable declaring themselves a “Guardian man” in the prologue of a book intended as a “no-holds-barred assault on the British media”.

Noam who? The “Outsiders”

If “outsiders” have reservations about the merit of reliance on corporate “insiders”, Davies has none. After all, he tells us, “a lot of media critics are outsiders who recycle evidence from other outsiders and often develop theories which simply don’t catch the reality of what goes on inside newsrooms”. (p.13)

Davies makes the claim repeatedly but is unwilling to put a single name to a single one of these recycled theories. We asked Davies why he failed to mention two notable media critics:

“Why didn’t you mention Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s propaganda model? I would think this is the key argument you’d want to accept or challenge in discussing media propaganda. It’s an awesome piece of work, surely the starting point for any serious analysis of the kind you’ve presented. Have you read Manufacturing Consent?” (Email to Davies, February 16, 2008)

Davies replied:

“If there’s any strength in the book, it’s because it’s written by an insider with the off-the-record assistance of a mass of other insiders, all using our own first-hand experience of what really goes on inside newsrooms to try to explain how it is that we produce so much falsehood, distortion and propaganda. I used outside/ academic sources for some factual material (the research which I commissioned from Cardiff being the biggest example) but I didn’t look to outsiders for analytical material, because I felt the insider’s analysis was what was valuable here. I’ve read some Chomsky and been to see him speak live, and I think he’s the bravest intellectual on the planet, but, for the reasons I’ve explained, I wouldn’t look to him on a project of this kind. I hope that makes sense.” (February 16)

And so Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s deeply insightful analysis – produced over decades in books like Manufacturing Consent, Necessary Illusions, The Political Economy of Human Rights, and so on – is just blanked. By the same logic, a historian could presume to analyse the Vietnam War +only+ if he or she had fought in the war and/or served in the upper echelons of the US and Vietnamese governments. We must assume, for example, that it would not be possible for a historian to gain meaningful insights from other involved sources.

But in reality, Davies does not just ignore “outsiders”; he also ignores “insiders”. John Pilger, for example, who praised the book highly, is mentioned only in passing in a couple of sentences. Despite being one of the most astute and experienced journalists and film-makers, the only reference to Pilger’s media criticism is his praise for the book itself! Likewise Robert Fisk, mentioned once. So, too, any number of radical US media “insiders”. Pilger has declared Herman and Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent nothing less than the “Greatest book of the twentieth century”. But this “insider” support for “outsider” analysis is not allowed to count.

The far less well-known award-winning US journalist Gary Webb +is+ mentioned. As we have described elsewhere, Webb exposed serious CIA and US government corruption. By way of a reward, his reputation and career were terminated by elite media and government smears (Webb subsequently committed suicide). Davies is happy to quote Webb, an “insider”, but not on his media analysis. And yet in the same chapter from the book cited by Davies, Into The Buzzsaw, Webb wrote:

“In seventeen years of doing this, nothing bad had happened to me. I was never fired or threatened with dismissal if I kept looking under rocks. I didn’t get any death threats that worried me. I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests. So how could I possibly agree with people like Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian, who were claiming the system didn’t work, that it was steered by powerful special interests and corporations, and existed to protect the power elite? Hell, the system worked just fine, as I could tell. It +encouraged+ enterprise. It +rewarded+ muckracking.”

And then:

“… I wrote some stories that made me realise how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I’d enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn’t been, as I’d assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job. It turned out to have nothing to do with it. The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn’t written anything important enough to suppress.” (Webb, ‘The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On,’ in Kristina Borjesson, ed., Into The Buzzsaw – Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press, Prometheus, 2002, pp.296-7)

Why is the support of “insiders” like Pilger, Fisk and Webb for the views of “outsiders” like Chomsky ignored by Davies? Davies’s explanation for his approach, after all, is that he preferred to depend on the “insider” view. But it seems he simply chose to exclude some of the most powerful media criticism from the discussion.

Davies does refer to “outsider” media analysis, which he describes as “conspiracy theories which are attractive but heavily overstated”. (p.14) He explains:

“So, for example, there is a popular theory that mass-media coverage is orchestrated or at least fundamentally restricted in order to win the favour of corporate advertisers. To an outsider’s eye, this is very tempting: these advertisers have money, the media outlets need the money, so they must be vulnerable to some kind of pressure from the advertisers to describe the world in a way which suits their interests. It’s a fine theory, particularly favoured by left-wing radicals, but its truth is very limited”. (p.14)

But it is not a “fine theory”; it is a straw man of Davies‘s invention. Moreover, we cannot think of a single serious media analyst who would subscribe to it. What rational person, after all, would accept that media performance – which must include consistent media support for the US-UK governments’ lies on Iraq, Kosovo, Iran and so on – is explained by a conspiracy to satisfy advertisers? Are we to believe this nonsensical notion is “tempting” to “an outsider’s eye” because they lack experience of a newsroom? We asked Davies to clarify:

“Which ‘popular theory’ do you have in mind? Who are the authors, please?”

Davies replied:

“It’s ‘a popular theory‘, ie one that is believed by many people. I would think it is one that must have been investigated or promoted by quite a few authors, but I’m not trying to make a link to that kind of written origin, so I can’t really help you on that.

Good luck,

Nick” (February 16)

The clarification on ‘popular’ was helpful. But +why+ is Davies “not trying to make a link to that kind of written origin”? If the “outsiders”, as well as the “insiders” agreeing with them, are excluded from the analysis, why would Davies not at least identify the “popular theory” proposed by “left-wing radicals”?

In reality, of course, the world is not awash with popular theories on media control – we can think of only one that is widely discussed (outside the mainstream, at least), and that is not exactly common currency. Are we to believe that Davies does not in fact have in mind “the propaganda model of media control” co-authored by the man he views as “the bravest intellectual on the planet”?

Could it be that Davies is really so ignorant of Herman and Chomsky’s work? Whatever the explanation, this remarkable omission is a classic example of exactly the kind of Flat Earth coverage Davies is supposed to be exposing: the leading radical media analysis is declared ‘flat’ (conspiracy-based) when in fact it is ‘round’ (based on a rational analysis of market forces). Perhaps this should be called a Cheese Moon Omission.

For clarification, we turned to former New Statesman editor Peter Wilby, who had written in Media Guardian:

“As an explanation of why most news outlets reflect the worldview of the rich and powerful, fewer journalists producing more copy, plus more PRs offering more instant ‘stories‘, sounds banal. But it is more significant than the conspiratorial pressures from owners and advertisers that most outsiders claim to detect. PR, far more than journalism, shapes the news agenda.” (Wilby, ‘Campbell’s media critique is only half the story,’ The Guardian, February 4, 2008)

It certainly sounds banal but this really is Davies‘s focus. Davies even invented a buzzword, “churnalism”, to help the churnalists churn out his message. We wrote to Wilby (February 5):

“Can you identify the ‘outsiders’ who are suggesting that conspiratorial pressures from owners and advertisers account for media servility to powerful interests? Specifically, can you point to examples where have they proposed a conspiracy?”

Wilby replied: “Herman and Chomsky get pretty close to conspiratorial pressures.” (February 5)

We responded:

“They truly and honestly don’t; it’s much more sophisticated than that. This is a key quote:

“‘We do not use any kind of ‘conspiracy’ hypothesis to explain mass media performance. Our treatment is much closer to a ‘free market’ analysis, with the results largely an outcome of the workings of market forces.’”

Wilby replied:

“OK, I take your strictures on Herman/Chomsky, though they do refer to ‘withdrawal of advertising’.”

We have a lot of respect for Wilby – he is a rare glimmer of light in the otherwise all-consuming darkness that is Media Guardian – so it is all the more surprising that he should be so ill-informed about such an important media critique.

Playing Fair – The Two Rules

With “outsiders” excluded, their powerful theories misrepresented to the point of absurdity, Davies states the “rules” by which he intends to proceed. In doing so, he unwittingly reveals the fundamental problem with “insider” media analysis. The first rule:

“I know a fair bit about sex and drugs and hypocrisy in Fleet Street: executives whose papers support the war against drugs while shoving cocaine up their nostrils in the office toilets.” (p.3)

Most of Fleet Street knows of one very senior executive in particular that Davies doubtless has in mind (so do we, and so do the editors of Private Eye who published a cryptic reference), but the public isn’t allowed to know. Why?

“I think we shouldn’t be writing about anybody’s private life at all unless there is some really powerful public need to known about it; and second, because I don’t want to be beaten up by former colleagues who might reasonably complain that I were betraying their confidence.” (p.3)

There is a “powerful public need to know” that a senior executive was caught shoving cocaine up his nostrils by office cleaners, obviously, but the people in a position to expose him have somehow managed to perceive no such need. Why?

The fact is that professionals are trusted to serve the interests of the organisation, and indeed the industry, employing them. When a journalist indicates that he or she is willing to cause serious harm and embarrassment, the unspoken bond of ‘professional’ trust is broken and he or she is no longer welcome. It is the same in every industry – one does not need to be an “insider” to understand how it works.

An even more serious admission is made in Davies’s second “rule”:

“It wouldn’t have been fair to target the media outlets for whom I’ve worked just because I had an inside track on the way they behave. Equally, it certainly wouldn’t have been right to ignore them or favour them. So, I set out to research the media in exactly the same way that I would research any subject. That applies, in particular, to the Guardian.” (pp.3-4)

In the very next line, as noted above, Davies comments, “I am a Guardian man,” noting that Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger “agreed to support” him while he wrote the book.

Imagine if Davies had been writing for Pravda during the 1979-1989 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan – an assault which may have cost the lives of a million Afghan civilians. As we know, Pravda was deeply complicit in facilitating the criminality of that invasion. Imagine if, with the Soviet occupation ongoing, Davies had commented that it “wouldn’t have been fair to target the media outlets for whom I’ve worked just because I had an inside track on the way they behave”. How much moral weight would Davies’s principle of employee “fairness” carry alongside the moral obligation to expose complicity in crimes that have cost hundreds of thousands of lives?

Ahead of the Iraq invasion, the British liberal media, the Guardian very much included, really did play a role comparable to that performed by Pravda. (See our Media Alert co-authored with Nikolai Lanine: ‘Invasion – A Comparison of Soviet and Western Media Performance,’; www.medialens.org/alerts/07/071120_invasion_a_comparison.php)

But in our society it is deemed almost unthinkable that a journalist would sacrifice that most sacred idol – The Career – to some higher ethical cause. As physicist and science journal editor Jeff Schmidt has pointed out, this ethical alienation is built into the very idea of ‘professionalism’:

“Professionalism – in particular the notion that experts should confine themselves to their ‘legitimate professional concerns’ and not ‘politicise’ their work – helps keep individual professionals in line by encouraging them to view their narrow technical orientation as a virtue, a sign of objectivity rather than of subordination. This doesn’t mean that experts are forbidden to let independent political thoughts cross their minds. They can do so as citizens, of course, and they can even do so as experts, but then only in the ‘proper’ places and in the ‘proper’ way.” (Schmidt, Disciplined Minds, Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, p.204)

UN diplomats like Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck may choose the path of career oblivion for the sake of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed by sanctions. But journalists persuade themselves that the “Gentleman’s agreements” of Fleet Street are sacrosanct. Davies, after all, opens his book with the words:

“Dog doesn’t eat dog. That’s always been the rule in Fleet Street.” (p.1)

That indeed is the rule. Davies, of course, insists that he does eat media meat in his book, but as his own “rules” suggest, there is much for which he does not have the stomach – he is, after all, an “insider” and is proud to be a “Guardian man”.

And this is why it is so wrong to try to persuade us that “insiders” working as part of deeply immoral economic systems are best placed to offer honest criticism of those systems. When those “insiders” then publish their criticism +within+ the system – while clearly intending to maintain their high status – then scepticism is demanded of the reader. Which is not to say the scepticism is necessarily justified – the proof of the pudding remains in the eating.

Part 2 will follow shortly…

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