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Today's
Stories
April
16 / 18, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Bush, Kerry and Empire
April
15, 2004
Greg
Moses
Follow the Families, Not the Script
Virginia
Tilley
The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt:
Just Change the Channel
Ron
Jacobs
They Coulda Been Champions of the World:
Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes Reporting
in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion Story: We Rule; You
Die
April
13, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Ill, Old and Young of Fallujah Ask:
"Do We Look Like Fighters?"
Stan
Goff
The Bridge: a Rant
Dave
Lindorff
The Real Lessons of Vietnam
April 10
/ 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick
Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other Delicacies
Robert
Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview with Lee
Evans
Brandy
Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon
Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website
of the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9,
2004
Robert
Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L.
Hess
The
Non--Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8, 2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick
Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid
Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas
Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7,
2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick
Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali
Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert
Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6, 2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William
Blum
The
Anti--Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan
Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al--Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert
Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
|
Weekend
Edition
April 16 / 18, 2004
Setting the Record Wrong
How
the "NewsHour" Changed History
By NORMAN SOLOMON
When
the anchor of public television’s main news program goes out of
his way to tell viewers that he’s setting the record straight
about a recent historic event, the people watching are apt to assume
that they’re getting accurate information. But with war intensifying
in Iraq, a bizarre episode raises some very troubling concerns about
the “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.”
Here’s what happened:
During a panel discussion April 7 on
the NewsHour, while battles raged in close to a dozen Iraqi cities,
a retired U.S. Air Force colonel referred to the American authorities’
closure of a newspaper that had served as a megaphone for the anti-occupation
Shiite leader Moktada al-Sadr. “The immediate problem we have
to remember is we started this ... with the aggressive policies towards
Sadr that came from us, shutting down his press,” Col. Sam Gardiner
said.
The program’s anchor spoke next.
Jim Lehrer: “The reason we shut
down his press is because it was calling for violence and anti-American
--”
Col. Gardiner: “Sure.”
Lehrer: “I just want to get that
on the record.”
But Lehrer’s comment -- ostensibly
setting the record straight -- was at odds with the available factual
record about Sadr’s newspaper. In sync with other news accounts,
the New York Times had reported two days earlier that “the paper
did not print any calls for attacks.”
I contacted the NewsHour and asked
whether Lehrer’s statement had been based on information contrary
to what had been reported in the April 5 edition of the Times. If so,
I asked for any citation that backed up his assertion. Or, if Lehrer
did not have such a citation, I asked if there were plans for an on-air
correction to set the factual record straight on the program (which
reaches nearly 3 million viewers across the United States each night).
In reply to my inquiry, a NewsHour
spokesperson cited two articles: A Chicago Tribune piece, dated April
5, said that “the pro-Sadr newspaper Al Hawza was shut down ...
for allegedly printing false information that incited violence against
the coalition.” And an April 6 New York Times piece said that
the Sadr newspaper “was closed last week after American authorities
accused it of printing lies that incited violence.”
The NewsHour spokesperson, Lete Childs,
told me: “I hope these two articles help you understand the citations
for Jim Lehrer’s statement to Col. Gardiner.”
But the two articles that the NewsHour
cited only seemed to underscore the disconnect. Apparently, the NewsHour
staff hadn’t been able to find a single source to back up Lehrer’s
on-air statement that “the reason we shut down his press is because
it was calling for violence.” And the NewsHour did not provide
any explanation for why, in sharp contrast to the flat-out report in
the New York Times that “the paper did not print any calls for
attacks,” Lehrer had gone on the air and claimed that it did.
I reached the reporter in Baghdad who’d
written the Chicago Tribune article, Vincent Schodolski, and asked if
he was aware of any evidence that the American authorities shut down
Al Hawza because it was “calling for violence.” Schodolski
replied: “I have no other citations than the reasons given by
the CPA itself.” My search of the official Web site for the Coalition
Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq, turned
up briefings and news releases with references to Sadr’s newspaper
-- but no backup for what Lehrer had said on the air.
At a March 30 press conference, Dan
Senor of the CPA charged that Al Hawza had tried to “incite violence.”
That was very much in keeping with what the April 5 New York Times reported
-- that while “the American authorities said false reporting,
including articles that ascribed suicide bombings to Americans, could
touch off violence,” nevertheless “the paper did not print
any calls for attacks.”
Lehrer’s refusal to correct his
evident error is especially striking because he had emphasized his incorrect
statement on the air by immediately adding: “I just want to get
that on the record.” (My request to a NewsHour spokesperson for
a direct comment from Lehrer did not yield any statement from him.)
When I asked whether a decision had
been made, one way or the other, about doing a correction on the NewsHour
to set the factual record straight, the last piece of stone in the damage-control
wall moved into place. I got the message: “The NewsHour with Jim
Lehrer stands behind the ‘Iraq: What Now?’ discussion segment
from April 7 and will not be making a correction.”
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