Why Do We Need a National Conference for Media Reform?

By David Swanson
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor

Sunday 14 January 2007

Here's why.

Bush just connected Iraq to 9/11 again, and the media will not tell you it was a lie.

Bush just gave a list of reasons why this time his escalation of the war will work. The reasons amounted to:

* We'll have more troops.

* We'll go into neighborhoods holding hands with Iraqis.

* Maliki won't "tolerate" any interference.

A minute later, Bush told us there will still be IED attacks and suicide bombings. The media will not point out that such actions ought really to count as interference.

Bush just announced that he wanted to share Iraq's oil profits with all of the Iraqi people, and the media will not examine what Bush is actually doing, or even question his right to determine what happens to Iraq's oil.

Bush just said that al-Qaeda is "still" active in Iraq, and the media will not tell you that al-Qaeda's activities in Iraq really began when Bush attacked and turned the country into a training ground for terrorism.

Bush just issued a vague threat to Iran and Syria, and the media will not question his right to do that or the sanity of doing so.

Bush just claimed that withdrawing from Iraq would amount to siding with "extremists," while continuing to occupy Iraq would amount to siding with Iraqis. The media will not contrast this lie with public opinion polls taken of Iraqis.

Bush just claimed he was making Americans safer with his occupation of Iraq. The media will not contrast this claim with any studies of the actual effects of the Iraq War.

Bush just claimed he cared about US servicemen and servicewomen. The media will not ask our troops what they think. Veteran groups and military family organizations opposing the war will not be asked to comment for the morning headlines.

The media WILL report on Bush's posture, tone of voice, tie color and attitude. The trivial will be made into the gargantuan. The important will be slipped in sideways, quietly, in the form of an unstated assumption that the "surge" is already underway and out of Congress's hands to stop Ð an action that would be indecent anyway.

The media will not ask, or try to answer, what Bush means when he says "victory." The media will not raise the question of why this war is being fought.

The media will depict the anti-war movement as striving ultimately only for a rejection of the "surge." No mention will be made of efforts to de-escalate and end the war. And the media will continue to call the "surge" a surge, gradually dropping the quotation marks.

The media will not show us the Iraqi people killed and injured by our war.

And as long as Tucker Carlson is given air time, people will ask me if I'm one of THOSE Swansons. No, I'm not. I have no money. The anti-war movement has no money. And we have no media.

But we do have the blues, and we are headed to Memphis: http://www.freepress.net/conference