Fox TV Blatantly Distorts Iraq Information
Dear
friends,
The
following article, taken from The Nation, came to me by way of
Suzanne Taylor's email list, and her Making Sense of These Times website: http://www.theconversation.org. Prof.
David Cole of Georgetown University shares his personal experience
of unbelievably blatant news bias while he was interviewed
by Fox TV. Please help spread the news by forwarding this to all who you
think might be interested. Thanks and have a great day!
With
best wishes,
Fred
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040719&s=coleweb
My First (and Last) Time With Bill O'Reilly
by DAVID COLE
It
started innocuously enough. On Monday, June 21, a producer from Fox News's The
O'Reilly Factor called to ask me to appear as a guest that evening to
comment on a front-page story in the New York Times claiming that
the Bush Administration had overstated the value of intelligence gained at
Guantánamo and the dangers posed by the men detained there. I'm generally not
a fan of shout-television, and I had declined several prior invitations to
appear on O'Reilly's show, but this time I said yes. Little did I know it
would not only be my first time, but also my last.
I
sat in the Washington studio as the taping of the show began in New York with
a rant from Bill O'Reilly. He claimed that "the Factor"
had established the link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and then played
a clip from Thomas Kean, head of the Senate's 9/11 Commission, in which Kean
said, "There is no evidence that we can find whatsoever that Iraq or
Saddam Hussein participated in any way in attacks on the United States, in
other words, on 9/11. What we do say, however, is there were contacts
between Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Iraq, Saddam--excuse me. Al Qaeda."
I
was impressed. O'Reilly, who had announced his show as the "No Spin
Zone," was actually playing a balanced soundbite, one that accurately
reported the commission's findings both that there was no evidence linking
Saddam and 9/11, and that there was some evidence of contacts (if no
"collaborative relationship") between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Maybe
all those nasty things Al Franken had said about O'Reilly weren't true after
all.
But
suddenly O'Reilly interrupted, plainly angry, and said, "We can't use
that.... We need to redo the whole thing." Three minutes of silence
later, the show began again, with O'Reilly re-recording the introduction
verbatim. Except this time, when he got to the part about Kean, he played no
tape, and simply paraphrased Kean as confirming that "definitely there
was a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda." The part about no link to
9/11 was left on the cutting-room floor.
Now
it was my turn. O'Reilly introduced the segment by complaining that we are at
war and need to be united, but that newspapers like the New York Times
are running biased stories, dividing the country and aiding the enemy.
"The spin must stop--our lives depend on it," O'Reilly gravely
intoned. He then characterized the Times story that day as claiming
that the Guantánamo detainees were "innocent people" and
"harmless." He said the paper's article "questions holding the
detainees at Guantánamo."
I
noted that the Times had said nothing of the sort. And I pointed out
that the article relied on a CIA study finding that the detainees seemed to
be low-level and had provided little valuable intelligence.
That
didn't convince O'Reilly, however, who again criticized the Times
for misleading its readers by terming the detainees innocent and not
dangerous. I replied that he was misleading his own viewers, by exaggerating
what the Times had said. "No, I'm not," he retorted. So
far, the usual fare on newstalk television.
But
then I decided to go one step further: "It seems to me like the pot
calling the kettle black, Bill, because I just sat here five minutes ago as
you re-recorded the introduction to this show to take out a statement from
the head of the 9/11 commission stating that there was no evidence of a link
between Saddam Hussein and 9/11."
Apparently
O'Reilly does not like being called "the pot." He exploded,
repeatedly called me an "S.O.B." and assured me that he would cut
my accusation from the interview when the show aired. He also said I would
"never ever" be on his show again. At this point, I wasn't sure
whether to take that as a threat or a promise.
Sure
enough, when The O'Reilly Factor aired later that night, both Thomas
Kean's statement about 9/11 and my charge about O'Reilly deleting it were
missing. All that was left was Bill O'Reilly, fuming at the liberal media's
lack of objectivity and balance, and ruing the divisive effect
"spin" has on our national unity.
David
Cole (cole@law.georgetown.edu), The Nation's legal affairs
correspondent and a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, is the
author of No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal
Justice System (New Press), co-author, with James X. Dempsey, of Terrorism
and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties for National Security
(New Press) and author of Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and
Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism (New Press).
If you are receiving this Update from a third
party, sign up by sending your full name, how you met up with us
and, if you are willing, a little bit about you to
suzanne@mightycompanions.org
-- To subscribe to or unsubscribe from the WantToKnow.info list (one email every few days):
http://www.WantToKnow.info/subscribe --
