ONE MINUTE SILENCE
11 September 2002, 04:27 PM
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Why we still don't get it, one year on
Americans are badly served by semi-official media propaganda
Mark Hertsgaard
Wednesday September 11, 2002
The Guardian
Perhaps the greatest lie told to the American public about the September 11 terrorist attacks is that they prove the outside world hates us. President Bush, for example, has repeatedly warned Americans about foreign "evil doers" who loathe everything we stand for. The US media has been no less insistent, referring time and again to "Why they hate us", as one Newsweek story put it.
But the world doesn't hate us, the American people. It is our government, our military, and our corporations that are resented. To anyone living outside the US, this may seem an obvious point. But we Americans are not used to drawing the distinction most outsiders do between Americans and America. One result of Americans' confusion is that, a year after the attacks in New York and Washington, we remain largely ignorant of how the world regards us and why.
Non-Americans, however, misunderstand the true source of our ignorance about them, which only furthers our mutual estrangement. Yes, our mind-boggling wealth and power encourage a certain complacency and arrogance. But that is not the most important cause of our global naivete.
Americans are ignorant about the outside world mainly because most of what we're told about it is little more than semi-official propaganda. Our political leaders portray the acts of our government, military and corporations in the best possible light, and our news media do little to challenge these self-serving declarations.
An outstanding example was President Bush's warning to foreign nations, days after September 11, that "either you are with us or you are with the terrorists". The US would never accept such ultimatums itself, yet the arrogance of Bush's remark went unnoticed by America's journalistic elite. The International Herald Tribune did not mention Bush's statement until the 20th paragraph of its story, deep inside the paper. By contrast, the French daily Le Monde highlighted it three times on its front page.
I spent six months travelling the world before and after September 11, gathering impressions about my homeland. I interviewed a wide range of people in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Today, as the Bush administration prepares to attack Iraq, I recall a comment by Ana, an intellectual in Barcelona, shortly after September 11: "Many of us have American friends, but we wish they would think a little more about their government, because we have to live with America's politics, and that is often difficult, especially when war is in the air."
Would outsiders be more forgiving if they knew how little critical information we Americans receive about our government's foreign policy? Even sophisticated foreign observers don't appreciate how poorly served Americans are by our media and education systems, how narrow the range of information and debate is in "the land of the free".
For example, last year's terrorist attacks presented an eerie coincidence to anyone familiar with the real history of American foreign policy. September 11 is also the date - in 1973 - when a coup encouraged by the US overthrew a democratically elected government in Chile. The official death toll in Chile, 3,197, was remarkably close to the number of lives lost to terror 28 years later in America. This disquieting piece of deja vu passed unremarked in American coverage.
We do not, thank God, have a state-owned or state-controlled press in the US. We do, however, have a state-friendly one. Our news media support the prevailing political system, its underlying assumptions and power relations, and the economic and foreign policies that flow from them.
Because most news coverage of the Middle East reflects the pro-Israeli bias that characterises official American policy, Americans are ignorant about basic aspects of the conflict. A poll last May found that only 32% of Americans knew that more Palestinians than Israelis had died in this spring's fighting.
In Washington, the media function like a palace court press. In the name of political neutrality, the definition of quotable sources is limited to the narrow spectrum from Republican to Democrat. If a given point of view - say, that missile defence is a dangerous fantasy - is not articulated by leading lawmakers, it is ignored. Instead of substance, journalists focus on palace intrigues: what is the White House proposing today, how will Congress react, who will win the fight? Rarely does the coverage stand back from insider debates, or offer alternative analysis. Thus our media fail to act as the check and balance our nation's founders envisioned.
So think twice, foreign friends, before judging my compatriots too harshly. Americans suffer daily from pseudo-news that parrots the pronouncements of the powerful and illuminates nothing but the corporate bottom line. Is it any wonder we don't understand the world around us?
· Mark Hertsgaard is an American journalist. His latest book is The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World
hertsgaard@msn.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why we still don't get it, one year on
Americans are badly served by semi-official media propaganda
Mark Hertsgaard
Wednesday September 11, 2002
The Guardian
Perhaps the greatest lie told to the American public about the September 11 terrorist attacks is that they prove the outside world hates us. President Bush, for example, has repeatedly warned Americans about foreign "evil doers" who loathe everything we stand for. The US media has been no less insistent, referring time and again to "Why they hate us", as one Newsweek story put it.
But the world doesn't hate us, the American people. It is our government, our military, and our corporations that are resented. To anyone living outside the US, this may seem an obvious point. But we Americans are not used to drawing the distinction most outsiders do between Americans and America. One result of Americans' confusion is that, a year after the attacks in New York and Washington, we remain largely ignorant of how the world regards us and why.
Non-Americans, however, misunderstand the true source of our ignorance about them, which only furthers our mutual estrangement. Yes, our mind-boggling wealth and power encourage a certain complacency and arrogance. But that is not the most important cause of our global naivete.
Americans are ignorant about the outside world mainly because most of what we're told about it is little more than semi-official propaganda. Our political leaders portray the acts of our government, military and corporations in the best possible light, and our news media do little to challenge these self-serving declarations.
An outstanding example was President Bush's warning to foreign nations, days after September 11, that "either you are with us or you are with the terrorists". The US would never accept such ultimatums itself, yet the arrogance of Bush's remark went unnoticed by America's journalistic elite. The International Herald Tribune did not mention Bush's statement until the 20th paragraph of its story, deep inside the paper. By contrast, the French daily Le Monde highlighted it three times on its front page.
I spent six months travelling the world before and after September 11, gathering impressions about my homeland. I interviewed a wide range of people in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Today, as the Bush administration prepares to attack Iraq, I recall a comment by Ana, an intellectual in Barcelona, shortly after September 11: "Many of us have American friends, but we wish they would think a little more about their government, because we have to live with America's politics, and that is often difficult, especially when war is in the air."
Would outsiders be more forgiving if they knew how little critical information we Americans receive about our government's foreign policy? Even sophisticated foreign observers don't appreciate how poorly served Americans are by our media and education systems, how narrow the range of information and debate is in "the land of the free".
For example, last year's terrorist attacks presented an eerie coincidence to anyone familiar with the real history of American foreign policy. September 11 is also the date - in 1973 - when a coup encouraged by the US overthrew a democratically elected government in Chile. The official death toll in Chile, 3,197, was remarkably close to the number of lives lost to terror 28 years later in America. This disquieting piece of deja vu passed unremarked in American coverage.
We do not, thank God, have a state-owned or state-controlled press in the US. We do, however, have a state-friendly one. Our news media support the prevailing political system, its underlying assumptions and power relations, and the economic and foreign policies that flow from them.
Because most news coverage of the Middle East reflects the pro-Israeli bias that characterises official American policy, Americans are ignorant about basic aspects of the conflict. A poll last May found that only 32% of Americans knew that more Palestinians than Israelis had died in this spring's fighting.
In Washington, the media function like a palace court press. In the name of political neutrality, the definition of quotable sources is limited to the narrow spectrum from Republican to Democrat. If a given point of view - say, that missile defence is a dangerous fantasy - is not articulated by leading lawmakers, it is ignored. Instead of substance, journalists focus on palace intrigues: what is the White House proposing today, how will Congress react, who will win the fight? Rarely does the coverage stand back from insider debates, or offer alternative analysis. Thus our media fail to act as the check and balance our nation's founders envisioned.
So think twice, foreign friends, before judging my compatriots too harshly. Americans suffer daily from pseudo-news that parrots the pronouncements of the powerful and illuminates nothing but the corporate bottom line. Is it any wonder we don't understand the world around us?
· Mark Hertsgaard is an American journalist. His latest book is The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World
hertsgaard@msn.com
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