[NYTr] Media Ignore 1.2 Million Iraqi Deaths )(& Update on Press Reactions) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:50:35 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [See also: Sep 26, 20076 UPDATE below] Medialens - Sep 18, 2007 http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php Media Ignore 1.2 Million Iraqi Deaths By Medialens We Can't Talk About Oil The media are not, as is commonly supposed, windows on the world; they are more like paintings or sketches of windows on the world - both the 'window' and the 'reality' beyond are manufactured corporate products. The problem is that the manufacturers selling their wares, while portraying themselves as disinterested, are anything but. They are profit-seeking media corporations that have a very clear interest in highlighting certain issues and in burying others out of sight. Economist Alan Greenspan - former Chairman of the US Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve - writes in a single sentence of his new 531-page memoir: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." (Leader, 'Power, not oil, Mr Greenspan,' Sunday Times, September 16, 2007) A Sunday Times leader briefly waved away this curious outburst: "Many free market economists, like their Marxist opponents, fall into the fallacy of believing that everything in politics hinges on financial self-interest. True, oil has always been an important factor in Middle Eastern strategy but even countries opposed to the war believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The real reason for the war was Saddam's defiance and the projection of US power after 9/11." (Ibid) Asked to explain his remark, Greenspan said: "From a rational point of view, I cannot understand why we don't name what is evident and indeed a wholly defensible pre-emptive position." (Richard Adams, 'Invasion of Iraq was driven by oil, says Greenspan,' The Guardian, September 17, 2007) Greenspan noted that he made his "pre-emptive" economic case for war to White House officials and that one lower-level official told him: "Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil." (Bob Woodward, 'Greenspan: Ouster Of Hussein Crucial For Oil Security,' Washington Post, September 17, 2007) Greenspan's comment was too important to be completely ignored by the media, but far too dangerous to be seriously discussed (the three sentences from the Sunday Times, above, constitute the most in-depth discussion to appear in the UK press). We can be sure that honest and open analysis of this absolutely central issue will not be forthcoming. Indeed, Greenspan has quickly "clarified" that, in arguing that "the Iraq war is largely about oil", he of course didn't mean that oil was the motivation for the war: "I was not saying that that's the administration's motive. I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential." (Ibid) 1.2 Million Iraqis Have Been Murdered Another aspect of reality that has no place in the corporate media's painted window was highlighted last Friday with the release (September 14) of a new report by the British polling organisation, Opinion Research Business (ORB). ORB is no dissident, anti-war outfit; it is a respected polling company that has conducted studies for customers as mainstream as the BBC and the Conservative Party. The latest poll revealed that 1.2 million Iraqi citizens "have been murdered" since the March 2003 US-UK invasion. (http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78) In February, Les Roberts, co-author of the 2004 and 2006 Lancet reports, argued that Britain and America might by then have triggered in Iraq "an episode more deadly than the Rwandan genocide", in which 800,000 people were killed. (Roberts, 'Iraq's death toll is far worse than our leaders admit,' The Independent, February 14, 2007; http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2268067.ece ) The key importance of the new poll is that it provides strong evidence for this claim, and strong support for the findings of the 2006 Lancet study, which reported 655,000 deaths. Roberts sent this email in response to the ORB poll: "The poll is 14 months later with deaths escalating over time. That alone accounts for most of the difference [between the October 2006 Lancet paper and the ORB poll]. There are confidence interval issues, there are reasons to assume the Lancet estimate is too low but the same motives for under-reporting should apply to ORB. Overall they seem very much to align. (e.g. both conclude that: most commonly violent deaths are from gunshot wounds [in contradiction to IBC and the MOH*], most deaths are outside of Baghdad [in contradiction to the other passive monitoring sources which tallied ~3/4th of deaths in the first 4 years in Baghdad and have only recently attributed even 1/2 as being elsewhere], Diyala worse than Anbar..)." [* MOH = Iraqi Ministry of Health] (Email to Media Lens and others, September 14, 2007) And yet, despite its obvious significance, the ORB study has been almost entirely blanked by the US-UK media. At time of writing, four days after the findings were announced, the poll has been mentioned in just one national UK newspaper - ironically, the pro-war Observer. It has been ignored by the Guardian and the Independent. The BBC's Newsnight may have been alone in providing TV broadcast coverage. The programme devoted the first 28 minutes of its September 14 edition to the financial crisis at Northern Rock bank. At 28:53 anchor Gavin Esler said: "More than a million Iraqis have been killed since the invasion in 2003, according to the British polling company ORB. The study's likely to fuel controversy over the true, human cost of the war. It's significantly up on the previous highest estimate of 650,000 deaths published by the Lancet last October. At the time, the Iraqi government described that figure as 'ridiculously high'. The independent Iraqi [sic] Body Count group puts the current total at closer to 75,000." (Newsnight, September 14, 2007) Esler's contribution ended after 34 seconds at 29:27. Could it be that journalists are just too ill-informed to understand the importance of the ORB study? Not according to news presenter Jon Snow, who responded to one emailer asking why Channel 4 had not covered the new study: "... anyone who reports iraq is bound to be aware of every death toll assessment. alas no one has the slightest idea exactly how many people have died..we are all certain that a very greta many have. Obviously those of us who find the war most heinous want to pin the largest possible number on the people who did this. it is an un fulfilling excercise because by definition it is unprovable and therefore pointless. What we do try to do is to report the known deaths whenever they happen. Iraq Body count, the Lancet extrapolated survey, the Red crescent are all estimates that help to give us a sense of numbers, but we shall never know for sure. What we also do is to report the four million poeple (minimum) who have been displaced by the war. the one and a half million in Jordan and in Syria respectively are largely counted numbers and reliable." (http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8904#8904) Snow wrote: "... anyone who reports iraq is bound to be aware of every death toll assessment". We are to believe, then, that highly trained professional journalists have a solid grasp of these issues - members of the public need not worry on that score! But what is so striking is that journalists consistently exhibit an inability to grasp even the basic meaning of the figures involved. Consider Esler's comment above: "The independent Iraqi [sic] Body Count group puts the current total at closer to 75,000." Iraq Body Count (IBC) does not at all offer a "total" figure to be compared with the Lancet and ORB studies. IBC only collects records of violent civilian deaths reported by two different (mainly Western) media sources operating in Iraq. Epidemiologists report that this type of study typically captures around 5 per cent of deaths during high levels of violence, such as exists in Iraq. By contrast, the Lancet studies provide figures for all deaths - violent and non-violent, civilian and military, reported and unreported. The response we received from the Newsnight editor, Peter Barron, is a further case in point: "I certainly think it was right to report the ORB findings, and to put them in context. The IBC figure is of course not offering a comprehensive estimate of the total number of deaths, but it has the virtue of being real data and therefore provides one end of the spectrum." (Email to Media Lens, September 17, 2007) The suggestion that the Lancet reports are not based on "real data" is remarkable. It is also wrong to suggest that IBC provides a different "end of the spectrum" to the Lancet reports. Talk of a "spectrum" presupposes that the same quantity is being measured in each case. But that is simply false. Snow also comments: "... alas no one has the slightest idea exactly how many people have died". In fact we do have a good idea of how many have died - the issue of exactness is a red herring. The point about the ORB study is that it provides strong supportive evidence for the findings of the earlier, far more detailed and rigorous 2006 Lancet study. The Lancet authors have been calling for exactly this kind of follow up study to help confirm or refute their findings. It seems clear that the Lancet figure of 655,000 deaths, although now a year out of date, was accurate. For the media to ignore the ORB study is an authentic scandal. Doubtless the failure is in part rooted in simple ignorance of its significance. If so, this amounts to a form of criminal negligence in the face of vast war crimes. But, as discussed above, structural realities continue to apply - the media system is an integrated component of a system that benefits from the subordination of people and truth to profit and power. SUGGESTED ACTION The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you decide to write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone. Write to Alan Rusbridger and Simon Kelner, editors of the Guardian and Independent, respectively. Ask them why their newspapers have not mentioned the ORB report: Email: Alan.Rusbridger@guardian.co.uk Email: s.kelner@independent.co.uk Write to Peter Barron, editor of Newsnight. Ask him if really believes 34 seconds does justice to the ORB study, in light of its significance in evaluating the 2004 and 2006 Lancet studies. Email: peter.barron@bbc.co.uk Write to Gavin Esler Email: gavin.esler@bbc.co.uk Write to Steve Herrmann, editor of BBC Online Email: steve.herrmann@bbc.co.uk Please send a copy of your emails to us Email: editor@medialens.org Please email us at editor@medialens.org *** Medialens - Sept 26, 2007 http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php I, (FASCIST) ROBOT - THE BBCbS GAVIN ESLER LETS RIP In response to our September 18 alert, bThe Media Ignore Credible Poll Revealing 1.2 Million Violent Deaths In Iraq,b BBC Newsnight presenter Gavin Esler sent one Media Lens reader the following response: bSorry but this medialens inspired stuff is very sophomoric. The last time I remember a robotic response from people like this was watching film of the nuremberg rallies. I always wondered why people marched to another's beat without any obvious thought from themselves. Perhaps you know the answer, or perhaps you merely intend to keep marching. bPlease don't write to me again in someone else's words. It is so embarrasing for you. Please learn to think for yourself. Gavinb The polite and thoughtful email that elicited this response was sent by James, a masters student at Durham University. You can read it here: http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2611 The email contains several points that we did not even make in our media alert. The irony of Eslerbs focus on our alleged fascistic tendencies is that it has become very much the reflexive response of irate journalists over the last six years. In his enthusiasm for the war that has since demolished Iraq, the Observerbs Nick Cohen wrote to us on March 15, 2002: "Dear Serviles I would have more respect for you if you showed the smallest awareness that a tyrant bore some responsibility for tyranny. I appreciate this is difficult for you, it involves coming to terms with complexity and horribly Eurocentric principles such as justice and universality, and truly I share your pain. But your for [sic] sake far more than mine, I'd like to know roughly how many deaths in Iraq are down to Saddam. If you admit that we're in double figures, or more, what should be done about it? Viva Joe Stalin" The Independent on Sundaybs deputy editor Michael Williams described Media Lens emailers - who were challenging the paper's hypocrisy in bsaving the planetb while banking the loot from fossil fuel adverts - as "a curmudgeonly lot of puritans, miseries, killjoys, Stalinists and glooms". (Williams, 'A bottle of bubbly for the best way to fly,' Independent on Sunday, January 22, 2006) Peter Beaumont of the Observer cringed with disgust as he told readers how Media Lens was ba closed and distorting little worldb, part of ba curious willy-waving exercise... Think a train spotters' club run by Uncle Joe Stalin." (Beaumont, 'Microscope on Medialens,' The Observer, June 18, 2006; http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1800328,00.html ) The Stalinist zombies were also very much on the march in the mind of BBC producer Adam Curtis, who interpreted our analysis of his series The Century Of The Self as us bstamping [our] little feetb and btrying to whip up an attack of the clonesb. (Email to Editors, June 18, 2002) The bclonesb, Eslerbs broboticb respondents, are members of the public who care enough about the devastating impact of corporate media bias to take time out of their day to write to journalists. This in a society that endlessly seeks to persuade us to care only about our immediate self-gratification and our immediate families, while the environment collapses around us, while 2 million people lie dead in Iraq from twelve years of sanctions and four years of illegal occupation. The Observer editor, Roger Alton, composed this response to one (also) extremely polite emailer: "Have you just been told to write in by those c*nts at medialens? Don't you have a mind of your own?" (Email forwarded, June 1, 2006 - our censorship) It could just be that Alton was also the bsenior journalistb who anonymously described us to a BBC reporter as bpoisonous c*nts". (Posted by BBC journalist David Fuller, Media Lens website, May 15, 2006) Esler clarified his outrage to another reader (who complained in response to the Nuremberg rally email): bThe reason no one takes media lens seriously is not the substance of your complaints. It is the robotic, identikit, narcissistic manner in which they are expressed. I know you will not understand this, but your complaint below is precisely what I had in mind. I made a comparison with the fascistic habit of mind which seeks to intimidate through numbers of people unthinkingly doing the same thing. Hilariously, you and a handful of other people have done precisely that. Berthold Brecht explains the fascistic habit of mind and its lack of self-awareness when he pointed out that bFurz hat keine Nase.b [bFart has no noseb] bPlease don't write again. Genuine complaints from geuine people I am happy to deal with. Phoney outrage from medialens is simply a waste of everyone's time. Again, I don't suppose you will get it. Gavinb (http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8919#8919) Esler wrote to yet another reader: bi object to the deceitful and frankly despicable methods of medialens which discredit whatever point it is they - you - have to make in your orchestrated and robotic campaign. if you really are doing this bthin kinglyb then you are utterly beyond redemption. you have decided to act like an automaton? hilarious. bplease don't write to me again. matters of war and peace are too important for your synthetic outrage. gavinb In fact there is no borchestrated and robotic campaignb. One of our readers - Miriam Cotton, co-editor of Irelandbs excellent Mediabite website (http://www.mediabite.org/)- made the point in an email to Esler: bPosters on Media Lens use that site in the same way they might watch Newsnight b as one source of media information along with newspapers, television and other news outlets. The only difference for us between the BBC and Media Lens is that the latter facilitates audience participation. But we are the same people who make up part of your regular audience. The vast majority of us have never met each other and we are from all walks of life and indeed are posting from different places around the world.b (Posted, Media Lens message board, September 21, 2007) We write analysis of media performance and invite anyone who happens to read it to write to journalists (and to us) in comment. To be sure, this is not always pleasant for journalists - no-one likes to be criticised - but it is not Stalinism, Nazism, fascism, or any other form of totalitarianism. It is vigorous public participation in political debate, which is supposed to be what democracy is all about. Another reader made a related point: Dear Gavin Esler If I read an Amnesty International alert and write a letter to the Embassy of Myanmar regarding human rights abuses I act as a concerned human being. If I read a Media Lens alert and send an email to Newsnight about their deplorable reporting of possibly 1 million deaths, I act as an automaton? Shame on you for your abusive and petty responses. Please concentrate on the issues and not the messenger. Regards Dr Aly Kassam I, Corporate Non-Conformist A further irony is that Esler is a stereotypical corporate journalist - a highly polished media performer, but one who often presents the benevolent claims of power as Truth. In 2004, Esler commented on the death of Ronald Reagan: "Many people believe that he restored faith in American military action after Vietnam through his willingness to use force, if necessary, in defence of American interests." (Newsnight, June 9, 2004) Reagan was, Esler insisted, "a man who was loved even by his political opponents in this country [America] and abroad". This will have come as news to the survivors of Reaganbs covert wars in Central America. Thomas Carothers, a former Reagan State Department official, observed that the human cost of the US war in Nicaragua alone "in per capita terms was significantly higher than the number of US persons killed in the US Civil War and all the wars of the twentieth century +combined+". (Quoted, Noam Chomsky, 'Hegemony or Survival', Hamish Hamilton, p.98) For details, see: http://www.medialens.org/alerts/04/040610_Reagan_Visions_1.HTM http://www.medialens.org/alerts/04/040615_Reagan_Visions_2.HTM Esler, by contrast, explored Reaganbs spiritual qualities, quoting Nancy Reagan to the effect that her husband "had absolutely no ego". In the Daily Mail, he went further: "above all, Ronald Wilson Reagan embodied the best of the American spirit - the optimistic belief that problems can and will be solved, that tomorrow will be better than today, and that our children will be wealthier and happier than we are." (Esler, 'The Great Communicator,' Daily Mail, June 7, 2004) The child survivors of Reaganbs ferocious war in Guatemala struggled to share this optimism. The UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean reported that the percentage of the Guatemalan population living in extreme poverty increased rapidly from 45% in 1985 to 76% in 1988 (Reagan was president from 1981-89). Other studies estimated that 20,000 Guatemalans were dying of hunger every year at that time, and that more than 1,000 children died of measles alone in the first four months of 1990. (Quoted, Noam Chomsky, 'The Victors,' Z Magazine, November 1990; January, 1991; and April, 1991) Esler did manage to mention the Iran-Contra affair: "The scandal blighted the last two years of an otherwise extraordinarily successful presidency...". As we noted in our Media Alerts on June 10 and June 15, 2004, Eslerbs views on Reagan coincided with most mainstream commentary across the media spectrum. As in almost all reporting, Reaganbs enormous and truly horrendous crimes were out of sight. Eslerbs, then, might well be described as a brobotic responseb. Two months later, Esler noted that US crimes at Abu Ghraib prison had produced: "Images that shamed America's mission in Iraq." (Newsnight, 24 August, 2004) Imagine what Western journalists would have made of a Soviet media claim in the 1980s suggesting that photographs of crimes in Kabul were bImages that shamed the Soviet mission in Afghanistan.b The Soviet invasion was a vast war crime, not a bmissionb that could subsequently be bshamedb. More independence of thought was manifested on August 26, 2004, when Esler referred to "Iran's nuclear threat" - a threat that existed then, as now, only in the minds of US-UK government officials and mainstream journalists. Esler again echoed government claims in discussion with Lancet editor, Richard Horton, on the subject of the 2004 Lancet report. Esler commented: "But you haven't got 100,000 death certificates, you haven't got 100,000 bodies. You've got somewhere between 8,000 and 194,000 is where you've put it, and you've gone in the middle." (BBC2, Newsnight, November 2, 2004) Horton responded: "But that... is a misunderstanding of the figures. The most likely estimate of excess deaths is 98,000. It's +not+ right to say that it's equally likely it could be between 8,000 and 194,000. The most likely figure is 98,000, and as soon as you go away from that figure, either lower or higher, it's much less likely it will be much lower or higher." It was a misunderstanding, but not uniquely Eslerbs - the claim has been repeated robotically by journalists right across the media. On April 12, 2007, Esler interviewed Nicholas Burns, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, "But do you worry that it is however demoralising, four years after the invasion of Iraq, several weeks of the so called surge in US troops, more Iraqi troops on the streets and so on, that you cannot guarantee the safety of people in what's supposed to be the safest part of the country?" Again, Esler had apparently accepted the government line that the bsurgeb was about guaranteeing bthe safety of the peopleb, rather than about defeating the insurgency and securing Iraqbs oil billions for US power. Conclusion - The Party Political Spinbots Once again we see the double standard journalists employ when dealing with brealb people - senior government and corporate managers with power and influence - and bunpeopleb, including members of the public. Esler would not dream of referring to the Nuremberg rallies in condemning the pre-programmed answers he so often receives from party political spinbots on Newsnight. And yet the most obvious and tedious theme of mainstream political discourse is that ministers and members of parliament are forever bon messageb, refusing to even minutely depart from their carefully prepared scripts. If Esler compared this genuine capitulation to Group Think with the behaviour of genocidal fascists responsible for the mass murder of millions, his position would quickly become untenable. Such a grave insult to people with power and influence - and to the memory of the victims of Nazism - would be deemed so serious, so outrageous, that the heavens would pretty much fall on Eslerbs head. But when it comes to us and our readers - anything goes! Meanwhile, the journalists who so casually berate thinking members of the public for their lack of independent thought, are all too willing, themselves, to conform to the strict demands of a corporate system that tolerates little dissent. SUGGESTED ACTION Our goal is to encourage reasoned debate. This seems unlikely to result from writing to Gavin Esler. We are therefore not recommending that readers write to him at this time. Please email us at editor@medialens.org This media alert will shortly be archived here: http://www.medialens.org/alerts/09/070926_i_fascist_robot.php Media Lens is to be awarded The Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award 2007: http://www.gandhifoundation.org/peaceaward.html The Media Lens book 'Guardians of Power: The Myth Of The Liberal Media' by David Edwards and David Cromwell (Pluto Books, London) was published in 2006. John Pilger described it as "The most important book about journalism I can remember." For further details, including reviews, interviews and extracts, please click here: http://www.medialens.org/bookshop/guardians_of_power.php Please consider donating to Media Lens: http://www.medialens.org/donate We have a lively and informative message board: http://www.medialens.org/board * ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us Our main website: http://www.blythe.org List Archives: http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ Subscribe: http://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr =================================================================