Inventing Reality

by Michael Parenti

  For reasons of their own, media corporate executives and owners sometimes maintain that their editors and reporters enjoy independence. After censoring and then removing a liberal editor, H. B. Du Pont denied that his newspapers served his personal political biases; he reaffirmed that they “operated independently with the objective of being a constructive influence.”18 Thus do owners lend a democratic facade to an undemocratic relation in order to better secure and legitimate the power they wield. Furthermore, they may actually believe that autonomy and objectivity are the operational rules. They have no reason to overrule compliant editors who are thereby seen as “independent.” And they find it easy to believe that the dominant view—which is their view—is the objective one. Indeed, owners are even less immune to the self-serving myths of objectivity and autonomy than editors and reporters.

  In order to operate effectively, the news media must have credibility; they must win a certain amount of trust from the public. To gam that credibility they must give the appearance of objectivity as befitting a “free and independent press.” Were owners to announce that their media were the instruments of their own political biases and their class power, they would reveal themselves as they are, and they would weaken the press’s credibility and its class control functions. They must take care not to exercise too blatant a control over the news. Needless to say, the frequent acts of news suppression they do perform are themselves rarely if ever reported as news.

  IS IT ALL ECONOMICS?

  More than a century ago Karl Marx observed that those who control the material means of production also control the mental means of production. So in every epoch the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class. Indeed, it seems so today. Viewpoints supported by money have no trouble gaining mass exposure and sympathetic media treatment, while those offensive to moneyed interests languish either for want of the costly sums needed to reach a vast public or because of the prohibitions exercised by media owners and management. In a word, the mass media are a class-dominated media—bound by the parameters of ownership in a capitalist society.

  The media play a twofold role. While seen as something apart from business, they actually are a big business. But like the “nonprofit” churches, universities, law schools, professional associations, arts and political parties, the media also are an institution geared for ideological control. Their role is to reproduce the conditions of social and class dominance, to carry out the monopoly management of image and information, but in such a way as to engineer an appearance of class neutrality and an appearance of independence from the corporate class that owns them.

  Some persons would deny that oligopolistic ownership fosters uniformity of ideas. They argue that even if the media do show a concentration of ownership, this does not explain everything about their content, for mass communication is influenced by an array of social, cultural, and psychological forces. For instance, the professional values of journalists ensure a good deal of independence in the media. To focus exclusively on the economic factor is to lapse into a simplistic materialist reductionism. Economic power is not everything, the argument goes.

  No one says economic power is everything, but it is quite a lot. And having taken note of the other factors, need we then hastily dismiss the material (and ideological) class interests that result from corporate ownership and control, as do more orthodox writers who prefer to blame the media’s “shortcomings” on inept reporters, an ignorant public, and cultural biases? Social experience is no less economic because it is also cultural and psychological. Life does not come in neatly divided and mutually exclusive subject areas as do academic departments. The “cultural” is not something to be counterposed as distinct from, and competitive with, the economic. How could there not be a linkage between cultural and economic interests? How could there be a viable society in which the two were chronically apart and opposed to each other?

  Most things are simultaneously cultural and economic. An automobile, a television advertisement, a board of trustees, a cosmetic kit, and a tool kit are all cultural and economic. The technology, commodities, services, institutions, and systems of ownership and command have both a cultural and economic dimension, and for that matter a psychological one as well. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine any of the dimensions existing in a context devoid of the others. This does not mean they operate with perfect coordination, but it is time we stopped thinking about them as being mutually exclusive and conceptually competitive.

  Economic power does not automatically translate into cultural hegemony, but it makes such hegemony much more likely. Those who own the media must make conscious efforts in selecting the right managers and editors, and setting down proper guidelines and permissible boundaries—so that they might exercise maximum control with a minimum of direct and naked intervention.

  GOVERNMENT MANIPULATION

  Along with owners and advertisers, government leaders exercise a substantial influence over what becomes news. Shifts in official policy are routinely reflected in media coverage and editorial opinion. How is such a confluence achieved between a supposedly democratic government and a pluralistic press that is neither owned nor officially censored by the state?

  First of all, common class interests often make for common political perspectives. On fundamental issues, media owners are eager allies rather than independent critics of the nation’s political leaders, sharing the same view about the desirability of the existing corporate economic system at home and abroad and the pernicious nature of those who struggle to get out from under it.

  Aside from this coincidence of ideological perspectives, newspeople generally are attracted to power, finding it more gratifying and rewarding to stand with than against it. Those who wield words often hope that they might exercise a determining influence over those who wield power. A former member of the Washington Post editorial staff writes, “Washington journalists are just like other people. Many of us are suckers for people who have fame and power.”19

  Aware that newspeople are ready to be seduced, rulers are not above enticing publishers, editors, and journalists with invitations into the charmed circles of power. In addition to cozy off-the-record receptions with top officials, there are gala events at the White House featuring not only the usual array of business bigwigs, diplomats, congressional leaders, and sports and entertainment celebrities but also a selection of journalists, editors, and publishers. The White House state dinner for the grand duke of Luxembourg, for instance, had a guest list that included ABC “Nightline” host Ted Koppel and his wife; NBC “Today” show host Bryant Gumbel and his wife; Gene Roberts, senior vicepresident and executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer; Nicholas Timmesch, resident journalist at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank; and Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of U.S. News & World Report.20

  Top journalists are “often socializing with people they’re supposed to be scrutinizing.”21 At one social event, CBS’s Lesley Stahl greeted the Republican Party national chairperson Frank Fahrenkopf with a kiss. And ABC’s Kathleen Sullivan walked arm-in-arm with Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.22 ABC’s Barbara Walters spent off-duty time with Henry Kissinger when he was in the Nixon administration.

  If individuals moved easily between journalistic and government employment in a communist country, this would confirm our impression of a totalitarian system that lacks an independent press. What then are we to conclude when finding the same “revolving door” mobility in our own country? Jack Rosenthal, a New York Times editor, was a former high-ranking official in the State Department. Leslie Gelb left his job as national security correspondent for the Times to become a bureau director in the State Department, only to reappear some years later as a Times editor. His replacement as Times national security correspondent, Richard Burt, joined the Reagan administration as a nuclear strategist. NBC News correspondent Bernard Kalb was a State Department public relations person during the Reagan administration. Another Reagan administration spokesperso
n, John Hughes, later became an editorial columnist for the Christian Science Monitor. Retired US Army general Bernard Trainor became a reporter covering military affairs for the rimes. NBC’s John Chancellor served as a government propagandist, heading up the Voice of America for a stretch of time. Pat Buchanan has moved back and forth from journalism to government several times, alternately serving in the Nixon and Reagan administrations and as a syndicated columnist and TV host for CNN’s “Crossfire” and “Capital Gang.” Similarly, Edward R. Murrow, Sid Davis, Carl Rowan, Pierre Salinger, Bill Moyers, William Safire, Diane Sawyer, Russell Wiggins, David Gergen, Joanna Bistany, Richard Perle, and Peggy Noonan worked both as journalists and as staff members of the White House or State Department or Pentagon or some related government agency. 23 With rare exceptions like Moyers, these revolving-door people share the ideological perspective of the national security state in whose employ they feel comfortable.

  The revolving door exists even at the highest reaches of government and media. Former top officials like Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, Defense Secretary Harold Brown, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Attorney General William French Smith, and CIA Director William Casey have held executive or board positions in the corporate structures of major media like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, GE/NBC, and CBS. 24

  In addition to the interlocking personnel, the government exercises an influence over news organizations through its control over the product they market: information (and misinformation). A daily assembly line of proposals, tips, press releases, documents, and interviews rolls out of the White House and various federal departments. In a matter of hours, sometimes minutes, the major media are telling the public what the government wants them to hear. The Pentagon alone spends millions of dollars yearly disseminating information that fits its view of the world. It employs a public relations staff of over three thousand people, many of whom can supply news nuggets to cooperative reporters—or nothing at all to uncooperative ones.

  Every morning the White House senior staff meet to decide, as one participant put it, “What do we want the press to cover today and how?” Within minutes after the decisions are made, the “line of the day” is sent out via computer to all senior administration officials and to thousands of government public relations people and press secretaries, covering agencies that deal with both domestic and foreign affairs. As a follow-up, officials call each network fifteen minutes before the evening news telecast to check on what will appear.25 As Reagan’s former chief of staff Michael Deaver once remarked about the self-serving stories he repeatedly planted in the press: “We fed it to them and they ate it. ”26

  The president obtains prime-time exposure to address the nation almost anytime he desires and exercises a daily built-in control over journalists. “You’re locked into this little press room,” lamented Washington Post reporter Austin Scott, “with only a telephone connecting you to the rest of the White House, and they have the option of taking your calls or not. All you get is staged events—press conferences, briefings, photo opportunities.”27 Reporters who refuse to go along may find themselves left with nothing to report. As ABC correspondent Sam Donaldson put it, “[White House officials] serve up what they want, and also deny us the opportunity to do anything else. So our options are, do nothing or do it their way.”28

  Top administrators, including the president himself, will telephone news executives to convey strongly worded “suggestions” and complain about particular stories and reporters. Dan Rather of CBS revealed that Reagan administration officials frequently went over his head to top CBS executives to complain about his reporting. The White House was especially displeased with CBS coverage of the unemployment situation and criticisms of the barring of reporters from the Grenada invasion. (CBS did not criticize the invasion itself.) Rather complained, “They are trying to change the coverage.” As to whether such pressure has an effect, he concluded, “I don’t care how good you are, how tough you are; in some way, on some days it is bound to work on your subconscious.”29

  Sometimes media heads try to act as buffers between state and journalist, but more often they seem quite ready to comply. “It is not uncommon for stories to be discreetly killed or softened” at White House request, reports one media critic.30 After meeting with the three network chiefs, in his capacity as White House aide, Charles Colson concluded, “The networks badly want to have these kinds of discussions... . They told me anytime we had a complaint about slanted coverage for me to call them directly. [CBS Board Chairman William] Paley ... went out of his way to say how much he supports the president, and how popular the president is.”31

  News agencies regularly show restraint when criticizing the president—especially a conservative president who is looked upon so favorably by media owners. When working in the AP’s Washington, D.C., bureau, reporter Owen Ullmann detected a disinclination on the part of management to report anything that might appear too critical of those in power, particularly the president. In this way AP avoided complaints from media bigwigs who might think the agency was being too critical of the White House.32

  Government leaders have ways of retaliating against unfavorable treatment. Officials can deny interviews, withhold access to information, give scoops to favored reporters and misleading information to disfavored ones, and award prestigious government positions to especially cooperative newspeople. After publishing an article in Newsday (a large-circulation Long Island, New York, daily) critical of the shady dealings of President Nixon’s close associate Bebe Rebozo, reporter Martin Schramm was denied access to White House communication director Ron Ziegler, and Newsday was excluded from the press corps that accompanied Nixon on his historic trip to China.33 When the Washington Post went after Nixon in the Watergate scandal, the White House prepared to retaliate by “taking an obstructionist position toward the Washington Post Company’s television licenses when they came up for renewal around the country.”34

  When dealing with the media, rulers are not above utilizing the police powers of the state. The FBI has harassed newspersons who persist in writing troublesome stories.35 The Justice Department won a Supreme Court decision requiring reporters to disclose their sources to grand juries, in an attempt to reduce the press to an investigative arm of the courts and prosecution.36 Dozens of reporters have since been jailed or threatened with prison terms on the basis of that decision. On repeated occasions the government has subpoenaed documents, tapes, and other materials used by news organizations. Such interference imposes a “chilling effect” on the press, encouraging self-censorship. Thus CBS offered to cooperate more closely on news stories about the White House in return for government assistance in quashing a congressional contempt citation against the network for its mildly critical documentary about the Pentagon.37

  Government repression was quite blatant when directed against the New Left “underground” newspapers that sprang up across the nation during the late sixties. These publications were harassed and attacked by police, FBI, CIA, and rightist vigilantes. News offices were broken into, ransacked, and even bombed; files and typewriters were stolen; telephones were tapped; and staffs were infiltrated by undercover agents or arrested on trumped-up drug or obscenity charges, causing suspension of publication and prohibitive legal costs. Underground newspaper street vendors were repeatedly threatened and arrested by police in a number of cities and mail distribution was sometimes interrupted. After visits from the FBI, printers were persuaded to discontinue their services; newsstands were persuaded not to handle underground papers; landlords suddenly doubled the office rent, forcing publications to move; and the Internal Revenue Service sought lists of backers and contributors of radical publications for possible tax violations.38

  The government’s campaign against the left extends into the main

  KEEPING COMPANY WITH THE COMPANY

  Daniel Schorr put us [journalists] on the spot years ago when he acknowledged that as a foreign corr
espondent for CBS he had routinely swapped intelligence with the CIA {New'York Times, January 5, 1978)... .

  I have known reporters abroad who would not file a story before checking it out at the US Embassy. They give it away in their dispatches: “according to Western diplomatic sources . . .” They could cover the scene just as well from the State Department in Washington, which gets the same reports.

  Schorr himself, in recounting how he exchanged information with the CIA, seemed insensitive to the possibility that it loaded his reportage. His [CIA] informants may indeed have been “generally more knowledgeable and objective than their diplomat counterparts,” but as he agreed, they only told him what they wanted known. In light of what we now know about the CIA, it takes an act of faith to believe that they never slipped him any disinformation.

  John L. Hess, “The Company I Didn’t Keep, ” CovertAction, Summer 1991, p. 65.

  stream press also. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was required by law to provide response time for various interests that were attacked or offended by statements in the broadcast media. For Americans who were too far left, however, this “fairness doctrine” never applied; the FCC stated it had no intention “to make time available to Communists or to the Communist viewpoints.”39 The FCC did not specify what were “Communist viewpoints” but apparently there were more than one and they were all excluded from fair treatment.

  For decades the major media repeatedly denounced communist systems for their unwillingness to grant media exposure to anticommunist views. But the media have said nothing about the unwillingness of their own organizations to give regular mass media access to left dissenters in the United States. When asked when he would allow antisocialist views in the Cuban press, Fidel Castro replied: when the capitalists allow anticapitalist views and information in the US press. Access to the mass media in the United States, he asserted, is a “freedom [that] exists only for those who agree with the capitalist system.”40 The FCC rulings against “communist viewpoints” lend truth to Castro’s contention.