Censored 2014 (29 page)

(Lack of) Election Coverage 2012

The year 2012 marked the spectacle of another US presidential election season. Corporate media coverage of the entire election process was akin to political theater: dripping with pageantry, oozing with canned patriotism, lacking any real objectivity or critical perspective. All major news media outlets were on board to cover former Mas
sachusetts governor and Republican candidate Mitt Romney, and current president and Democratic candidate Barack Obama throughout the campaign trail, cataloguing and remarking upon their every move, however irrelevant.

The country watched three presidential debates—which are controlled by a private corporation run by Democrats and Republicans, called the Commission on Presidential Debates—between the Republican and Democratic candidates only, along with one debate between the two vice presidential candidates, as they discussed topics including the economy, healthcare, and the role of the federal government, among others. While the public focused on coverage of two candidates arguing two sides of an official narrative, along the way providing entertainment with oddities from “Big Bird” to “binders full of women,” something very important was missing from their news reports on the 2012 election: actual democracy. So-called “mainstream” corporate media offered no coverage of third party presidential candidates, who were actually bringing forth many alternatives to the views espoused by the two major, corporate-backed, political party candidates.

While corporate media offered extensive coverage of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, only
Democracy Now!
and the
Huffington Post
provided any time to third party candidates during the 2012 presidential election.
Democracy Now!
aired “expanding the debate” segments for each of the presidential and vice presidential debates. These broadcasts showed each of the debates in real time and paused to allow third party candidates—such as Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson, and Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode—the same amount of time to answer the same questions.
The Huffington Post
offered similar coverage, giving Reform Party candidate Andre Barnett and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson the opportunity to participate in the debate as well.

If there had been corporate media coverage of these third-party candidates during the debates, the public would have had a broader range of ideas to consider, and a more representative pool of candidates from which to choose. While Obama and Romney presented and argued about the exact same ideas for health care, both Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson criticized “insurance company care” and advocated for single-payer universal health care, which was totally absent from the presidential
debate.
⁷⁹
Many of the third party candidates talked about ending all wars, bringing troops home now, and cutting the defense budget, instead of offering arbitrary timelines and refusing to cut from defense in the name of “national security.”
⁸⁰
They even addressed the emerging police state, with some candidates promoting the repeal of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the USA PATRIOT Act, following due process, and ending warrantless spying.
⁸ⁱ
With proper mainstream news coverage, the country could have been more informed about their actual choices beyond the two major party candidates.

Democracy Now!
also reported on the secret debate contract for the 2012 election. This twenty-one-page document, drawn up by the Democratic and Republican candidates, excluded all third party candidates from the presidential debates, prohibited these two candidates from participating in any other debates, and restricted the moderator in the debates from asking any follow-up questions.
⁸²
In response to the exclusion, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and vice presidential candidate Cheri Honkala tried to simply gain access to one of the debates at Hofstra University and were arrested. They were then literally bound and tied in custody for eight hours. Yes, in the United States of America, land of the free, these official candidates on the national Green Party ticket for president and vice president, two women on the ballot in most states from a legally registered political party, were arrested trying to access a public debate at an institution of higher learning, and bound by authorities, like in a third world dictatorship. But hey, at least they weren't shot, they were only tied up—this is America, after all. Of course, how this type of corporatist collusion with a police state can even exist let alone be tolerated in the US should be quite a mystery.

One would think this merited serious news coverage, even investigating. Not in America. Before being taken away, Dr. Stein offered a statement that encompassed the presidential elections of 2012: “This is what democracy looks like in the twenty-first century.”
⁸³
And a grim look it is at that.

Thatcher vs. Chávez: Celebrity Death Match of Political Grief Porn Propaganda

The first few months of 2013 saw the deaths of two significant global political figures. On March 5, 2013, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez died of cancer at the age of fifty-eight. Chávez held power for fourteen years in Venezuela, and was known for transforming the country through a socialist revolution. One month later, on April 8, 2013, former prime minister of Great Britain Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke at the age of eighty-seven. As Britain's first female prime minister, Thatcher led the country for twelve years and ushered in a wave of capitalism heavily focused on Milton Friedman–inspired free market economics. Both were important and controversial leaders in their respective countries, and both of their deaths received substantial amounts of corporate media coverage in the US. Reports following their deaths showed a clear bias regarding their political legacies.

Americans love their grief porn, their infatuation with deaths of well-known people, and the fact that some celebrities are political figures sometimes even exaggerates attention. The deaths of Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston were certainly big news, and the deaths of Thatcher and Chávez also garnered considerable attention, but for different reasons.

Corporate news reports on the death of Margaret Thatcher tended to have a very positive view on her life and politics. For a leader considered to be controversial, there was no shortage of praise when it came to Thatcher's time as prime minister. Hailed for being the “Iron Lady” and “uncompromising,” many news reports focused on her success in the financial sector of the country. By pushing for deregulation and privatization, the
Wall Street Journal
stated she “helped turn London from an increasingly obsolete financial center into a rival to Wall Street.”
⁸⁴
The “patriot prime minister” had “taken a country that was on its knees and made it stand tall again” according to BBC News.
⁸⁵
The US admired her patriotism as well. Fox News reported “she never faltered, in word or deed, in her support of the United States,” while NBC News quoted President Barack Obama calling Thatcher “an exemplar of British strength” and a “role model for young women.”
⁸⁶

Whenever a report offered a negative statement, it quickly switched back to something positive, while reminders of respecting the deceased became a common refrain. This kind of coverage paid little attention to the drawbacks of Thatcher's economic policies, such as the detrimental effects they had on the average working person while continuing to make the rich richer. Anything truly controversial was left out of corporate media coverage, such as her support for Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, her support of the apartheid regime, or her use of police and the secret service to defeat powerful unions.
⁸⁷
With a leader whose political values closely mirrored those of the US establishment, there was not much room for unfavorable facts to be mentioned. Yet no such restraint was shown to Chávez in the US.

While corporate media coverage for Margaret Thatcher was mostly fawning and kept in a tone of respect for the recently deceased, the same respect was not given when it came to coverage of the death of Hugo Chavez. Corporate outlets mentioned some of the good Chávez did with redirecting Venezuela's oil profits toward social programs for the poor, along with some affirmative statistics such as a stark decrease in poverty, child mortality, and malnutrition deaths.
⁸⁸
But for every one of these statements, there were numerous that promptly followed, representing an opposing, belittling comment. Common criticisms included the country's high inflation, high crime rates, and Venezuela being left with an unsustainable economic model, all of which had a tendency to be exaggerated. Some, like Pamela Sampson of Associated Press went so far as to say that Chávez wasted money on the poor and could have built lavish cities like in Dubai. Jim Naureckas, of the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), quoted Sampson,

Furthermore, reporting became exceptionally poor when it came to personal attacks on Chávez. Descriptions ranged from CBS referring to him as a “bully” to
USA Today
quoting that he ran “the Venezuelan economy and political system into the ground,” with the worst being Fox News calling him a “dictator” and “thug,” stating that “many rejoiced” upon his death.
⁹¹
So much for extending respect to the dead, as was the rallying cry around any criticism of Margaret Thatcher. American comedian turned cultural critic George Carlin once said—let's not have a double standard here, one standard will do just fine. Indeed.
⁹²

US corporate media coverage of the deaths of Margaret Thatcher and Hugo Chávez were skewed and misrepresented in many respects, and primarily positive reporting only went to the leader that more closely represented the policies of the US. The corporate press in America never gave the public a fair or balanced accounting in the matter. And that degree of framing and spin is clearly News Abuse.

EPITAPH AS EPILOGUE, AND THE
REBIRTH OF MEDIA FREEDOM

It is not necessary to conceal anythingjrom a public insensible to contradiction and narcotized by technological diversions.

—Neil Postman,
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
1985)

Over the years, the research for these Junk Food News and News Abuse chapters amounts to a cultural epitaph for the American public. Cultural historian Morris Berman, in his last book
Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline,
painstakingly points out that America has become a land victimized by its own illusions of
progress, crass materialism, and anti-intellectual furor, all heralded as the “American way” by corporate media.
⁹³
But there are more Americans and more global citizens born every day, and through education, media literacy, critical thinking, community building, and the fostering of increased awareness and solidarity, we can build a movement to navigate these troubled waters history has given us.

While this chapter closes on bleak notes, we must be ever alerted to the fact that across the US and the world, millions of people yearn for a better life, more transparent governments, and broader possibilities of who we can become as a global village. Part of the Junk Food and News Abuse chapter “snarkily” calls out the chicanery of corporate media failures, but it does so to also illustrate that we the people are in on the game and can transcend it.

While we certainly want to pressure big media to keep the public informed given the size and potential significance of their megaphone, we can't merely wait for change to come. We must also be that change. Together, working with each other on more independent and grassroots levels, we can more accurately inform each other and become the media. By what we do and how we act, we make irrelevant the once towering but now gatekeeping institutions of the corporate press—ones now teetering, faltering, built on houses of cards and lies, waiting for their own epitaph to be scribed. It is one that we the people, the independent and citizen journalists of tomorrow, will happily write in our own headlines of a people's history in the making. Count on it. Be the media. Free the press. Via, veritas, vita.

MICKEY HUFF
is the director of Project Censored, and professor of social science and history at Diablo Valley College.

NOLAN HIGDON
is adjunct faculty in history at Diablo Valley College, and an affiliate researcher with Project Censored.

MICHAEL KOLBE, SAM PARK, JENNIFER EIDEN, AND KIMBERLY SOIERO
are past or present Project Censored interns, undergraduates and college graduates alike, who contributed to this chapter.

Notes

^1.
“By the Book: Walter Mosely,”
New York Times Book Review,
June 2, 2013, 10.

^2.
Neil Postman,
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business,
(New York: Penguin, 1985). This chapter has been guided by Postman's work for some time, and also informed by other like-minded scholars including Chris Hedges, Mark Crispin Miller, Daniel J. Boorstin, Marshall McLuhan, Jean Baudrillard, and Morris Berman, to name a few.