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A Survivor's Guide to Media Doublespeak

by Daya Kishnn Thussu
***The US-led bombing of Iraq once again showed that the Western media employ double standards in their coverage of the Middle East. Most were not concerned about the legal authority behind the latest bombing of Iraq. How and why do the supposedly independent media allow themselves to be manipulated by governments in a democracy? Gemini News Service reviews a new book which exposes media doublespeak.
THE United States-led bombing of Iraq has once again exposed the double standards that characterise the Western media's dealings with the Arab world.
Much of the Western media Justified the use of military force to Implement all United Nations Security Council resolutions on Iraq to the letter. Israel's history of defiance of UN resolutions, in contrast, Is rarely subjected to the same criticism.
At the same time as the US was "punishing" Iraq. Israel was contravening the 4th Geneva convenUon by leaving more than 400 Palestinians stranded in no-man's land on the border with Lebanon. The UN resolutions on the subject have been ignored and Its envoys have returned empty-handed. But there is no outrage in much of the Western media.
US bombing of Iraq, which went beyond the UN Security Council's mandate, was widely welcomed. The* New York Times called the raid a "just punishment." Time magazine said it was "inevitable'' and "the only way to make Saddam abide by the UN stricture."
As usual, British newspapers echoed the US line : "Allies give Iraq a 'spanking'" (The Independent); Saddam, "bears enUre responsibility for the coalition's renewed resort to military action". (The Tinies): The West had no alternative but to mount a vigorous but measured response." (The Financial Times).
In Paris, even the usually sober Le Monde wrote In an editorial : "The language of force Is something he understands best and he asked for and got an inevitable riposte."
There was little discussion in the media about the legality of the southern no-fly zone — imposed arbitrarily on Iraq last August by US, Britain and Fnince without a specific mandate from the UN Security Council. Experts were found lo Justify US enforcement of the no-fly zone. In the new world order" scant regard is shown to such outdated concepts as state sovereignty.
Western journalists regularly yelay information illegally gathered by US aerial and satellite reconnaissance. They seem unaware that invading a country's airspace and using satellite photography for spying contravencc UN regulations. Thus a typical front page story reads : "Cloud over southern Iraq hindered US aerial and satellite reconnaissance".
In a recent book Beyond Hypocrisy : Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda (South End Press, Boston) US academic Edward S; Herman highlights the deception and hypocrisy contained in the US government's "doublespeak" and the media's role in propagating it.
With Noam Chomsky, Herman has written extensively on the role of the US media tn foreign policy. Their most notable collaboration was Manufacturing Consent Political Economy of Muss Media (1988), the definitive book on the working of Western media.
In his new book, Herman explores through essays, cartoons and a cross-referenced lexicon, doublespeak terms used in the language of US government policy.
The most Important aspect of doublespeak, Herman says, "is the ability to He. whether knowingly or unconsciously, and to get away with it; and the ability to use lies and choose and shape facts selectively, blocking out those that don't fit an agenda or programme".
In this thoroughly researched and lively book Herman finds media collaborating in the "double standard and' doublethink Intjilfclt tn the official agenda".
Herman argues that the mainstream media not only allow the agendas ol news to be bent in accordance with state demands and criteria of utility, they also accept presuppositions of the state without question. The attack on Iraq is but the latest tn a scries of interventions demonstrating US double standards which arc analysed by Herman. In all the cases he cites — Vietnam, Nicaragua, Panama — the media collaborated by using uncritically the same language as the US administration did to justify its actions.
The media's gullibility and grovelling before the powerful occurs," argues Herman, "despite recognition by media personnel, tn principle, that governments He. But in practice, when dealing with their own governments, especially in the area of 'foreign policy and Ihc military industrial complex, media personnel abandon or shy away from critical analysis."
The Cold War provided fertile ground for doublespeak. During the Reagan era, repeated claims of Soviet nuclear superiority, used to justify the arms race, were easily refutable at the time from Pentagon documents and testimony from Congressional committees. But. says Herman, “the press could never be bothered to examine these conflicting statements and try to assess their merits".
With the end of the Cold War. new adversaries had to be found or "manufactured". The record shows that the mass media failed to challenge the basis in reality of these supposed threats. In order to swing public opinion behind the Gulf War, the media were used to portray Saddam Hussein, a former ally, as a danger to world peace. Dissenting voices are rarely heard and then they are dismissed as "polemical" in contrast to "objective" accounts by established professionals. Seemingly independent 'expert - are brought on to vomr . nt on events. Few question their credentials or their biases.
No wonder books like this one are published by a nonprofit collective. It challenges the fundamentals of the mainstream media. This is not new territory for the South End Press, which has produced, against all odds, some of the most penetrating criticism of US involvement in the Third World.
According to Herman, "dissent is excluded tn the normal sourcing and processing of news, so that freedom of speech is perfectly compatible with systematic barriers to views that jar and threaten." Herman catalogues the words that arc fundamental to doublespeak : such as "defence," "containment," "aggression", and "national security".
The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait, for example, was called "naked aggression" in the Western media but US aggressions in Granada, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Indochina, Herman says, "were, of course, properly clothed in a cloud of justifying rhetoric, and given our power and propaganda muscle, they were not even designated aggression by the Western intelligentsia and press."
"Similarly," he continues, "when states invade ind occupy countries with our tacit approval and under our auspices, an invidious word like aggression, let alone naked aggression. Is not applied."
South Africa's occupation of Namibia. Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975 and Israel's attack on Lebanon in 1982. are cited as prime eg-
reaches its full potential in times of war. Although official censorship of the media is expected and accepted, Herman argues media control is often achieved more easily.
The propagation of big lies do.es. pot. require Pentagon censorship; the mass media do it freely and naturally. Censorship deals with the little lies (whether a plane was shot down, or 10 rather than six body bags were shipped off today). not the big ones that [xirtray our country as benevolent. fighting aggression, and eager for diplomatic solutions."
The Gulf War marked new heights in media manipulation. US television coverage of the war in Iraq was in what Herman calls a 'propaganda format* designed to "show the war in a good light from the standpoint of the administration, Pentagon, and weapons manufacturers, keeping casualties and collateral damage' as far out of sight and mind as possible." Only afterwards did the military admit that the "smart bombs", whose accuracy was stressed to reassure the public, were not so smart after all.
The result of this doublespeak, argues the book, which should be required reading in all newsrooms and journalism schools, is that The government has mastered the art of war-making propaganda, and the mass media have lost the capacity to challenge it by raising salient issues and forcing debate so that matters of justice and law are kept out of the public view".
One major point beyond the remit of this volume which has profound implications for the developing world Is the global reach of doublespeak. The US-dominated Western media have a virtual international monopoly in print, television and broadcasting news. With the growing power of satellite television and other information technologies, Third World dependence on Western news sources is further increased'.
DAYA KISHAN THUSSU is Associate Editor of Gemini News Service.