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Man Bites Watchdogs
“This is actually a quite unique event," said Sut Jhally, settling in at the podium. "I thought this was going to be a progressive conference that put the analysis of propaganda at its center. In fact, it has turned into an example of the operation of propaganda itself." Jhally had just insulted the people who'd invited him to Chicago to speak. "I wanted to give that to you up front," he told his audience. Then he began his lecture. He'd explain why he was fuming when the time came. Jhally's host was Chicago Media Watch, a grassroots organization haunted by mounting evidence that the American media are being taken over by a handful of massive corporations. In CMW's view these corporations skew and limit the news, and therefore they must be opposed and alternative viewpoints championed. CMW thinks of its primary mission as educational. It's far from alone in its beliefs. As media giants absorb one another to create behemoths -- locally the Tribune Company is example A -- some of the more progressive ants at the feet of the elephants have organized. CMW publishes a newsletter, holds conferences, and wants to create a program it can take into schools. The younger Chicago Independent Media Center -- Chicago Indymedia for short -- fights fire with fire. Part of a national network of similar outlets, it maintains a Web site "designed to promote alternative views that counter the corporate media's distortions." The site's open to anyone who wants to post on it. Jhally, a professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts and executive director of the Media Education Foundation, is famous for his studies of how advertising and marketing work on the public mind. He'd starred at CMW's 2000 conference, and CMW enthusiastically invited him back. The theme of the 2002 conference, held November 2 at Loyola University's Crown Center, was "Propaganda: War, Terror and the U.S. Empire." Its purpose, to quote the program, was to "examine the various modes of propaganda used to convince Americans that war is moral and necessary, that civil liberties are expensive luxuries, and that there are no alternatives." That public opinion is now being manipulated was not at issue here; the audience showed up to hear about the techniques that have made the manipulation so effective. But Jhally had chosen a subject -- perhaps the only subject -- that actually does divide media progressives. He intended to argue that the Israeli government is brilliantly manipulating American public opinion against the Palestinians. And so CMW president Liane Casten had asked someone else to follow him to the microphone and give Israel's side. Jhally arrived at midday, got the lay of the land, and was so furious he promptly canceled his hotel reservation and booked a six o'clock flight back home. But he went through with his lecture. He told his audience he'd come to "unpack" the American public's strong support for the Israelis, something he called "the end result of perhaps the most powerful example of propaganda and public relations we can find in the world." The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip goes largely unexamined and the Jewish settlements unacknowledged by the American media, he said, which is why the media can reserve the concept of "retaliation" for the Israelis and condemn Palestinian violence as mindless "hatred and rage." Stretches of time when no Jews die become times of "calm" in the American media, no matter how many Palestinians die at Israeli hands during them. Aggressive watchdog groups "cow" into silence any reporter "who wants to tell the truth." When Jhally's analysis brought him to the subject of cowed reporters he was ready to circle back to the remark that began his lecture. The pressure on journalists to conform, he said, "works in other ways as well. It also works when there is an event such as this, which, as I said, I thought was a left-wing progressive event in which you may actually open the debate in some way." Apparently it wasn't. "It's not often," he said, "I can actually point and say, `Here it is, actually working. This is how the propaganda works. You can change the debate. You can change the discourse within a supposedly progressive organization.' "Let me tell you the story of how I came to speak at this conference. I'm sorry if this is going to upset someone, but nothing is gained by keeping silent. I was asked to attend this conference a few weeks ago. The last time I came I had a very good time, and although it is a very busy time for me I was happy to do it again. I responded by saying I would come, but only on a number of conditions. One of them was I wanted to speak about Israel, because this issue is not talked about. I only wanted to speak about this topic. That set off the first set of negotiations. If I had said I wanted to come and talk about Pentagon propaganda it would have been `Sure, great, come.' This issue, no. I was asked, could I come and speak about something else? I said no. This was the only thing I was going to come to talk about. I was then contacted to see could I come and speak but in a debate forum, where someone else would rebut me? I asked if there was going to be someone from the Pentagon and from the corporate media to rebut other speakers. I was told no." Why did the rules have to be different for Jhally? Days later Casten gave me an explanation. "CMW doesn't need to repeat what has become overwhelming media promotion for this war [against Iraq]," she said. But the intifada is more complicated. "There are so many hot buttons around the Middle East issue, so much polarization, so much rage, and so much extremism, that in good faith I could not put only one side on. It would not work. We would be roundly criticized, and justly so." But Jhally was telling his audience that this polarization serves the ends of the Israeli government: when any critique of Israeli conduct is regarded as a viewpoint so controversial that immediate rebuttal must be provided -- in the name of fairness and balance -- the critique is blunted if it's heard at all. "No one wants to be controversial," he said. "So look around you and see how the propaganda system works. This is, in fact, the system in operation. It's kept a lot of people quiet. It kept me quiet a long time." Onstage, waiting his turn to speak, was Richard Baehr, former education director of the Illinois chapter of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- which identifies itself as "America's pro-Israel lobby." AIPAC, said Jhally, "is one of the very organizations, in fact, I talk about that wants to control debate. Even in this space, here, you can't think out loud." Yet Jhally had. A few minutes later he was done, and when Casten took the microphone she looked every bit as grim as you'd expect a reformer to look who'd just been pilloried for being part of the problem. Wondering out loud whether to allow questions, Casten observed that though Jhally would soon have to leave, Baehr hadn't spoken yet and she wanted to give him equal time. "Why? Why are you giving him equal time?" screamed Chris Geovanis, who was standing in the aisle below. "Oh, no," said Casten to herself. "You have done a disgusting disservice to media activists here like myself that you brought in under false pretext to have to listen to an apologist for a racist state," Geovanis shrieked. A former CMW board member now active in Indymedia, Geovanis is a famous hothead in Chicago's progressive media circles. She'd walked in near the end of Jhally's lecture because she was part of the next event, the "action" panel wrapping up the conference. "When you try to censor that individual -- how dare you!" Geovanis screamed. "How could you have engaged in such a despicable act? And you have betrayed the principles of this organization. I'm ashamed to know you! I'm ashamed to know you! It's disgusting! It's disgusting. It's disgraceful." Already the muttering had started, and Geovanis was being nudged toward the door. "You're a disgrace," she continued. "You sold out the basic principles of this organization, Liane!" Geovanis subsided, order returned, Jhally took a question, and then Casten made a statement. "I am appalled," she said, "that anyone, anyone, would object to hearing the reason of more than one side." Some in the audience applauded. "I am so appalled that when I was a young kid I used to believe -- " "Where's the Pentagon?" a male voice shouted. Geovanis hadn't been speaking only for herself. "Yeah, where's the Pentagon, Liane?" yelled Geovanis, still in the room. "We don't need a Pentagon representative," said Casten. "We've got them all over our minds. We've got them everywhere. We've got them in the media. The Pentagon wasn't invited. But in this case, because of the volatility of the situation, Chris -- " "You caved in!" yelled Geovanis. "Oh no. I didn't cave in. I asked Mr. Baehr to come -- " "That figures," said Geovanis. " -- because he has information that perhaps we need to hear," Casten said. "And I'm going to ask some of the people who cannot hold their tongues and remain civil during the rest of this discourse to get up right now and go." "How corporate-press-like of you," yelled Geovanis.
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