The case of the obedient media

[Thanas]

Glenn Greenwald once more

(updated below - Update II - Update III [Tues.] - Update IV [Tues.])

Earlier today, I wrote in detail about new developments in the case of Raymond Davis, the former Special Forces soldier who shot and killed two Pakistanis on January 27, sparking a diplomatic conflict between the U.S. (which is demanding that he be released on the ground of "diplomatic immunity") and Pakistan (whose population is demanding justice and insisting that he was no "diplomat"). But I want to flag this new story separately because it's really quite amazing and revealing.

Yesterday, as I noted earlier, The Guardian reported that Davis -- despite Obama's description of him as "our diplomat in Pakistan" -- actually works for the CIA, and further noted that Pakistani officials believe he worked with Blackwater. When reporting that, The Guardian noted that many American media outlets had learned of this fact but deliberately concealed it -- because the U.S. Government told them to: "A number of US media outlets learned about Davis's CIA role but have kept it under wraps at the request of the Obama administration."

Now it turns out that The New York Times -- by its own shameless admission -- was one of those self-censoring, obedient media outlets. Now that The Guardian published its story last night, the NYT just now published a lengthy article detailing Davis' work -- headlined: "American Held in Pakistan Shootings Worked With the C.I.A." -- and provides a few more details:

The American arrested in Pakistan after shooting two men at a crowded traffic stop was part of a covert, C.I.A.-led team of operatives conducting surveillance on militant groups deep inside the country, according to American government officials. . . . Mr. Davis has worked for years as a C.I.A. contractor, including time at Blackwater Worldwide, the controversial private security firm (now called Xe) that Pakistanis have long viewed as symbolizing a culture of American gun slinging overseas.

But what's most significant is the paper's explanation for why they're sharing this information with their readers only now:

The New York Times had agreed to temporarily withhold information about Mr. Davis’s ties to the agency at the request of the Obama administration, which argued that disclosure of his specific job would put his life at risk. Several foreign news organizations have disclosed some aspects of Mr. Davis's work with the C.I.A.. On Monday, American officials lifted their request to withhold publication, though George Little, a C.I.A. spokesman, declined any further comment.

In other words, the NYT knew about Davis' work for the CIA (and Blackwater) but concealed it because the U.S. Government told it to. Now that The Guardian and other foreign papers reported it, the U.S. Government gave permission to the NYT to report this, so now that they have government license, they do so -- only after it's already been reported by other newspapers which don't take orders from the U.S. Government.

It's one thing for a newspaper to withhold information because they believe its disclosure would endanger lives. But here, the U.S. Government has spent weeks making public statements that were misleading in the extreme -- Obama's calling Davis "our diplomat in Pakistan" -- while the NYT deliberately concealed facts undermining those government claims because government officials told them to do so. That's called being an active enabler of government propaganda. While working for the CIA doesn't preclude holding "diplomatic immunity," it's certainly relevant to the dispute between the two countries and the picture being painted by Obama officials. Moreover, since there is no declared war in Pakistan, this incident -- as the NYT puts it today -- "inadvertently pulled back the curtain on a web of covert American operations inside Pakistan, part of a secret war run by the C.I.A. " That alone makes Davis' work not just newsworthy, but crucial.

Worse still, the NYT has repeatedly disseminated U.S. Government claims -- and even offered its own misleading descriptions --without bothering to include these highly relevant facts. See, for instance, its February 12 report ("The State Department has repeatedly said that he is protected by diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention and must be released immediately"); this February 8 article (referring to "the mystery about what Mr. Davis was doing with this inventory of gadgets"; noting "the Pakistani press, dwelling on the items in Mr. Davis’s possession and his various identity cards, has been filled with speculation about his specific duties, which American officials would not discuss"; and claiming: "Mr. Davis's jobs have been loosely defined by American officials as 'security' or 'technical,' though his duties were known only to his immediate superiors"); and this February 15 report (passing on the demands of Obama and Sen. John Kerry for Davis' release as a "diplomat" without mentioning his CIA work). They're inserting into their stories misleading government claims, and condescendingly summarizing Pakistani "speculation" about Davis' work, all while knowing the truth but not reporting it.

Following the dictates of the U.S. Government for what they can and cannot publish is, of course, anything but new for the New York Times. In his lengthy recent article on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller tried to show how independent his newspaper is by boasting that they published their story of the Bush NSA program even though he has "vivid memories of sitting in the Oval Office as President George W. Bush tried to persuade [him] and the paper's publisher to withhold the eavesdropping story"; Keller neglected to mention that the paper learned about the illegal program in mid-2004, but followed Bush's orders to conceal it from the public for over a year -- until after Bush was safely re-elected.

And recently in a BBC interview, Keller boasted that -- unlike WikiLeaks -- the Paper of Record had earned the praise of the U.S. Government for withholding materials which the Obama administration wanted withheld, causing Keller's fellow guest -- former British Ambassador to the U.N. Carne Ross -- to exclaim: "It's extraordinary that the New York Times is clearing what it says about this with the U.S. Government." The BBC host could also barely hide his shock and contempt at Keller's proud admission:

HOST (incredulously): Just to be clear, Bill Keller, are you saying that you sort of go to the Government in advance and say: "What about this, that and the other, is it all right to do this and all right to do that," and you get clearance, then?

Obviously, that's exactly what The New York Times does. Allowing the U.S. Government to run around affirmatively depicting Davis as some sort of Holbrooke-like "diplomat" -- all while the paper uncritically prints those claims and yet conceals highly relevant information about Davis because the Obama administration told it to -- would be humiliating for any outlet devoted to adversarial journalism to have to admit. But it will have no such effect on The New York Times. With some noble exceptions, loyally serving government dictates is, like so many American establishment media outlets, what they do; it's their function: hence the name "establishment media."


[...]

UPDATE IV: For Yahoo News!, Michael Calderone examines this controversy, notes that Obama officials made the same arguments to The Guardian about why Davis' CIA connection should be concealed, and includes this explanation from Guardian editors as to why they nonetheless reported it:


[Guardian Deputy Editor Ian] Katz noted that two senior Pakistan government sources officially confirmed that Davis was a CIA operative and explained in an email why it was relevant to report.
"We believe Davis's role in Pakistan is unavoidably connected with both the legal case surrounding him and with the U.S. government's attempts to seek his release," Katz said. "And since Davis is already widely assumed in Pakistan to have links to U.S. intelligence, we did not accept that disclosing his CIA role would expose him to increased risk."

Calderone also quotes AP executives as acknowledging that they "found out Davis was working for the CIA 'immediately after the shootings'" yet nonetheless concealed that from their readership even as Obama officials ran around making misleading statements about Davis' work (statements which AP dutifully reported). Whatever that behavior is, it isn't journalism.

[spartasman]

Ok, so I take it that you have no opinion on this, Thanas?

Anyway, this isn't surprising at all. The media in any nation often withholds information when asked by the gov't, especially if it has to do with such... clandestine matters. Is this really an issue, anyway?

[Edi]

Ok, so I take it that you have no opinion on this, Thanas?

Anyway, this isn't surprising at all. The media in any nation often withholds information when asked by the gov't, especially if it has to do with such... clandestine matters. Is this really an issue, anyway?

Been outside the US much? I know the media has withheld stuff here, for example, but it has never to my knowledge been anything like this. We actually have a watchdog press that has no qualms about putting the screws to the government, and much of Europe is the same way.

There's a reason US politicians are very wary of European media outlets: They can bleat "off the record" as much as they lie, but it has no effect and anything they do say is fair game and they don't get softball questions. The list of US politicians waltzing into European media expecting the same deferential treatment they get at home and getting massacred is fairly long.

[Vendetta]

Anyway, this isn't surprising at all. The media in any nation often withholds information when asked by the gov't, especially if it has to do with such... clandestine matters. Is this really an issue, anyway?

Y'know, the very first thing they forgot to mention when they wrote the founding document of your backwater hick country is that this kind of thing explicitly should not happen.

[MKSheppard]

Hey Thanas; I was just about to ask you about the RAYMOND BOURNE (as a friend calls it) case via PM. It was a little bet me and my friend had over how long it would take for RAYMOND BOURNE to show up here.

Rumor has it he was/is a CIA operative; hence why Obama was/is leaning so hard on Pakistan over this.

[Zaune]

In the interests of fairness, I should point out that the Guardian reports that Davis initially opened fire in self-defence against an attempted mugging. His actions after that are less defensible, but it's possible he simply panicked.

[thejester]

It's one thing for a newspaper to withhold information because they believe its disclosure would endanger lives. But here, the U.S. Government has spent weeks making public statements that were misleading in the extreme -- Obama's calling Davis "our diplomat in Pakistan" -- while the NYT deliberately concealed facts undermining those government claims because government officials told them to do so. That's called being an active enabler of government propaganda.

Greenwald is clearly labouring under a different definition of 'propaganda' than the rest of us.

I also like it how he quietly acknowledges that being a diplomat and being employed by the CIA aren't mutually exclusive...but then writes an entire article about how outrageously misleading the Administration has been.

[Simon_Jester]

This particular incident is not so troubling, I think; it's the institutional mindset implied- the idea that (for instance) the New York Times actually takes pride in letting the administration decide whether or not it can publish stories about fact that would embarass the administration's foreign policy stance.

[Rogue 9]

Oh gee, a diplomat turning out to be an intelligence operative! Shocking!

CIA or not, he has diplomatic immunity; just because he worked for Intelligence (something every country on Earth does) doesn't suddenly exempt the host nation from its diplomatic obligations. They should PNG his ass and send him packing, not suddenly trample all over diplomatic immunity just because they know the U.S. won't react the way certain other countries would and retaliate against Pakistan's embassy staff.

[Thanas]

^The situation in Pakistan is not the point. That even the "liberal" media obeys the Government and keeps important, potentially election-impacting knowledge hidden from the public however is.

[Rogue 9]

^The situation in Pakistan is not the point. That even the "liberal" media obeys the Government and keeps important, potentially election-impacting knowledge hidden from the public however is.

True. But it would be easy to report it after he was gotten home, presuming that was the result; as it stands the knowledge may well kill him. Were I a reporter and I knew the price of a scoop would probably be a human life, I'd hesitate too.

[Thanas]

^The situation in Pakistan is not the point. That even the "liberal" media obeys the Government and keeps important, potentially election-impacting knowledge hidden from the public however is.

True. But it would be easy to report it after he was gotten home, presuming that was the result; as it stands the knowledge may well kill him. Were I a reporter and I knew the price of a scoop would probably be a human life, I'd hesitate too.

The problem with this point of view is that it was already stated several times in Pakistani mass media that he was CIA. And in other cases, like the illegal Bush wiretapping, the NYT kept the secret for over a year until Bush was re-elected.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

CIA or not, he has diplomatic immunity; just because he worked for Intelligence (something every country on Earth does) doesn't suddenly exempt the host nation from its diplomatic obligations. They should PNG his ass and send him packing, not suddenly trample all over diplomatic immunity just because they know the U.S. won't react the way certain other countries would and retaliate against Pakistan's embassy staff.

He might have diplomatic immunity. Not everybody working for an embassy has it, and the initial story given by the State Department was that he was a consular worker, not part of the embassy. There's a reason Pakistan is launching an investigation into whether he actually is immune from prosecution or not, and that reason is because there's a not inconsiderable chance the US is trying to give him diplomatic immunity ex post facto, in which case I think Pakistan would be perfectly entitled to tell the Americans to sod off.

[Winston Blake]

It's one thing for a newspaper to withhold information because they believe its disclosure would endanger lives. But here, the U.S. Government has spent weeks making public statements that were misleading in the extreme -- Obama's calling Davis "our diplomat in Pakistan" -- while the NYT deliberately concealed facts undermining those government claims because government officials told them to do so. That's called being an active enabler of government propaganda.

Greenwald is clearly labouring under a different definition of 'propaganda' than the rest of us.

Seems OK to me:
Dictionary.com - Propaganda:

"1. information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc. "

1. the organized dissemination of information, allegations, etc, to assist or damage the cause of a government, movement, etc
2. such information, allegations, etc

Official government communications to the public that are designed to influence opinion. The information may be true or false, but it is always carefully selected for its political effect.

I also like it how he quietly acknowledges that being a diplomat and being employed by the CIA aren't mutually exclusive...but then writes an entire article about how outrageously misleading the Administration has been.

It's perfectly possible to be misleading while not saying anything untrue. You know the thing with 'Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?' - they didn't put 'the whole truth' in there just because it sounded neat. In fact, this is one of the oldest tricks of politics. The American government misled people by conveniently telling partial truths.

[thejester]

*shrug* if you want to use those definitions fine, but it renders every bit of political literature from Common Sense to the latest DFAT release on trade with Tanzania 'propaganda' - effectively rendering the word useless, IMO. My impression of Greenwald over a host of issues is that he throws around loaded terms like 'propaganda' or 'war crimes', knowing that he's inside a techincal definition but is well outside of what Joe Blogs would associate with the terms. I certainly wouldn't consider keeping quiet about this man's CIA cover to be 'enabling government propaganda' in same way the NYT's work in the lead up to OIF was 'enabling government propaganda'.

As for misleading - yeah, I guess you're right, they have been playing a political game. So what? Why is this issue so crucially important?

[Winston Blake]

As for misleading - yeah, I guess you're right, they have been playing a political game. So what? Why is this issue so crucially important?

Well, if it was anybody else doing it to America instead of America doing it to somebody else it'd be an outrage to all Americans, and America would probably drag my country into another foreign adventure.

[Rogue 9]

As for misleading - yeah, I guess you're right, they have been playing a political game. So what? Why is this issue so crucially important?

Well, if it was anybody else doing it to America instead of America doing it to somebody else it'd be an outrage to all Americans, and America would probably drag my country into another foreign adventure.

Oh please, nobody got invaded over the last spy ring to get broken up in the United States; why would it be any different?

[thejester]

As for misleading - yeah, I guess you're right, they have been playing a political game. So what? Why is this issue so crucially important?

Well, if it was anybody else doing it to America instead of America doing it to somebody else it'd be an outrage to all Americans, and America would probably drag my country into another foreign adventure.

This doesn't answer my question and is pretty much nonsensical anyway. I agree, if a foreign diplomat gunned down two Americans in the middle of New York there'd be outrage in the US. Unfortunately that's not the issue I was referring to - I want to know why it's so desperately important that the American public know that he works for the CIA, not the State Department.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

This doesn't answer my question and is pretty much nonsensical anyway. I agree, if a foreign diplomat gunned down two Americans in the middle of New York there'd be outrage in the US. Unfortunately that's not the issue I was referring to - I want to know why it's so desperately important that the American public know that he works for the CIA, not the State Department.

I don't think that's the issue at all. The issue is that the NYT lied about it. If they didn't already know that he worked for the CIA, then fine. If they hadn't given any details at all on who he worked for, fine. The actual information itself isn't important; they could have said he worked for the Moon Men and was the precursor to an invasion of Earth, and the same problem would remain. Essentially, IMO, they should either tell the truth or they should leave that particular aspect out of the story entirely. Printing falsehoods that you know are false show a lack of journalistic integrity; we rightly pan people like Fox News for doing it, and the NYT deserves to be criticised for it as well.

[Winston Blake]

Oh please, nobody got invaded over the last spy ring to get broken up in the United States; why would it be any different?

The part where the guy whips out a gun and goes Jason Bourne all over peoples' asses.

This doesn't answer my question and is pretty much nonsensical anyway. I agree, if a foreign diplomat gunned down two Americans in the middle of New York there'd be outrage in the US. Unfortunately that's not the issue I was referring to - I want to know why it's so desperately important that the American public know that he works for the CIA, not the State Department.

To be fair, you didn't actually ask a question. You just made an expression of incredulity toward the attitude that the Administration has been misleading by pretending the guy was just a diplomat. To you, it may have seemed 'nonsensical' for me to respond to that; I think you ought to have been clearer about what your point actually was.

[Vympel]

I would've thought it blindingly obvious that American newspapers printing deliberately misleading garbage in their newspapers because the government told them to is a bad thing.

I want to know why it's so desperately important that the American public know that he works for the CIA, not the State Department.

If its desperately important enough to report on at all, its important enough that you not tell outright lies to your readers with nonsense like:- "the mystery about what Mr. Davis was doing with this inventory of gadgets."

Here's the NYT justifying its behavior by saying its reporters are patriotic - lol.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn ... index.html

Remember, its the job of US newspapers to look after US national security interests. Your free media.

[Thanas]

From Vympel's link:

Indeed, Goldsmith's main point is that media entities that are free of this bias (he names The Guardian, Al Jazeera and WikiLeaks) are willing to disclose truths which "patriotic" American media outlets will conceal. That, of course, is exactly what happened in the Davis case, and in so many other episodes as well. Bizarrely, Goldsmith believes he's defending the American media by arguing that subjective policy goals and nationalistic loyalty are what drives their reporting. But that "defense" is squarely at odds with how most reporters hold themselves out to the public: as beacons of journalistic objectivity who do not allow their opinions or outcome preferences to shape what they report. Goldsmith's factual premise is certainly correct: nationalistic bias is a central ingredient in how American national security journalists and their editors "report" the news.

This was exactly the point I made the other day when highlighting a passage from NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller in his long article about Wikileaks and Julian Assange, in which he explained why the NYT published WikiLeaks documents. Keller assured the public that -- despite publication of these documents -- "the journalists at The Times have a large and personal stake in the country's security" and are thus "invested in the struggle against murderous extremism." Keller understands the War on Terror -- in which, he said, the NYT sides with the U.S. -- as one "directed not just against our people and our buildings but also at our values and at our faith in the self-government of an informed electorate."

Keller -- without even realizing it -- has ingested a whole slew of biases about the War on Terror: that it's about a "struggle against murderous extremism"; that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- the subjects of the WIkiLeaks documents -- are designed to enhance "the country's security"; that The Terrorists hate us for our freedoms; that the War on Terror makes us safer; and that the U.S. is one of the Good Guys in the world (or at least the ones who deserve the allegiance of the NYT). One is perfectly entitled to agree or disagree with Keller's premises, but whatever it is, that outlook is anything but "objective."

And now we arrive at the question of whether reporters ought to have these nationalistic biases. There's certainly nothing wrong with journalists, as individuals, harboring feelings of patriotism or any other political outlook -- as long as it doesn't interfere in their journalistic duties. One such duty is to inform their readers of what's newsworthy and to avoid misleading them; another key duty is to serve as an adversarial check on those in political power ("the Fourth Estate") rather than dutifully serving as their stenographers and propagandists. And here is where Goldsmith's claims about what motivates these reporters becomes so problematic.

A desire to promote American policy or its "interests" will often directly conflict with core journalistic obligations. It's often the case that disclosing the truth about the American government (a journalistic duty) will undermine the government's policy aims or subvert government "interests." The same is true for serving as an adversarial watchdog on government officials: exposing their false statements and lies, uncovering their corruption and deceit, contradicting their propaganda; doing that can also undermine American interests. Reporters who engage in journalism with the goal of advancing U.S. interests or promoting their nationalistic allegiance -- which Goldsmith suggests is the majority of them -- are engaged in activism and propaganda, not adversarial journalism. That's fine, I suppose, if they acknowledge their biases, but those who are driven by these allegiances while pretending to be "objective" are engaged in a game of deceit.

Ultimately, the most important point here may be Goldsmith's recognition that the biases and concealments of the American media are becoming increasingly irrelevant. That's because, as he explains, "the growing scrutiny of American military and intelligence operations by an increasingly powerful global media that is relatively indifferent to U.S. national security interests is an important reason why U.S. national security secrets are harder than ever to keep." This is also why WikiLeaks is so vital: because, as Jay Rosen repeatedly points out, as a "stateless organization," they are free of the nationalistic allegiances which Goldsmith argues shapes (and restricts) the American media's reporting.

One can debate whether it's good that American media outlets are driven in their reporting by an allegiance to the U.S. government and what these reporters define as America's "national interests." But what's not debatable is that this is far away from an "objective" press, and even further away from an adversarial one. America's "establishment media" is properly described as such precisely because their overarching objective is to promote and defend establishment interests in what they report to -- and conceal from -- their readers. That's precisely why so many people are increasingly turning to other outlets that are emancipated from those biases -- foreign media, the Internet, whistle-blowing sites -- in order to remain informed.

Also, since when does Patriotism mean meaningless allegiance?


And here is another article which lays out the whole illogical thinking behind this: link.