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   From: oO@oO.com   
      
   Normalizing the Unthinkable   
      
   John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Charlie Glass, and Seymour Hersh on the failure of   
   the world's press   
      
   By Sophie McNeill   
      
   06/03/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- The late journalist Edward R.   
   Murrow might well have been rolling in his grave on April 21. That's because   
   Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a lecture that day in Washington,   
   DC to journalists at the Department of State's official Edward R. Murrow   
   Program for Journalists.   
      
   For the Bush administration to use the memory of a person who stood up to   
   government propaganda is ironic to say the least. Secretary Rice told the   
   assembled journalists that "without a free press to report on the activities   
   of government, to ask questions of officials, to be a place where citizens   
   can express themselves, democracy simply couldn't work."   
      
   One week earlier in New York City, Columbia University hosted a panel on the   
   state of the world's media that would have been more in Murrow's style than   
   the State Department-run symposium. Reporter and filmmaker John Pilger,   
   British Middle East correspondent for the Independent Robert Fisk, freelance   
   reporter Charlie Glass, and investigative journalist for the New Yorker   
   Seymour Hersh appeared together at this April 14 event.   
      
   Before the afternoon panel began, I met up with John Pilger at his hotel. He'd   
   just flown in from London and was only in New York for the panel before   
   flying to Caracas, Venezuela the next day. A journalist for over 30 years,   
   Pilger has reported from Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, Palestine, and   
   Iraq-to name a few of the countries to which his investigative reporting and   
   filmmaking had taken him.   
      
   Pilger told me that he'd never been as concerned about the state of the   
   media as he was today. "I think there's a lot of reasons to be very   
   concerned about the information or the lack of information that we get.   
   There's never been such an interest, more than an interest, almost an   
   obsession, in controlling what journalists have to say."   
      
   Despite the fact that the war in Iraq is reported daily in most U.S.   
   newspapers and networks around the world, Pilger didn't think the world's   
   press accurately conveyed the reality of life for Iraqi civilians. "We get   
   the illusion that we are seeing what might be happening in Iraq. But what we're   
   getting is a massive censorship by omission; so much is being left out," he   
   said. "We have a situation in Iraq where well over 100,000 civilians have   
   been killed and we have virtually no pictures. The control of that by the   
   Pentagon has been quite brilliant. And as a result we have no idea of the   
   extent of civilians suffering in that country."   
      
   I asked Pilger what the untold story of Iraq was that's just not getting   
   through. "Well, the untold story of Iraq should be obvious," Pilger said.   
   "But it never is. The untold story of Vietnam was that it was an invasion   
   and that huge numbers of civilians were killed. And in effect it was a war   
   against civilians and that was never told and that's exactly true of Iraq."   
      
   With the majority of the world's press holed up behind 4.5 miles of concrete   
   barrier in the green zone, it seems impossible for the standard of reporting   
   to improve anytime in the near future. I asked Pilger if he blamed   
   journalists for not wanting to put their lives at risk? "No, I can't," he   
   said. "But I don't see the point of being in the green zone. I don't see the   
   point of wearing a flak jacket and standing in a hotel in a fortress guarded   
   by an invader.   
      
   "But there have been journalists-and others-who have actually gone with the   
   insurgents; who have reported about them. One of them, for instance, is a   
   young woman named Jo Wilding, a British human rights worker. She was in   
   Fallujah all through that first attack in 2004. Jo Wilding's dispatches were   
   some of the most extraordinary I've read, but they were never published   
   anywhere."   
      
   Pilger said the mainstream press needs to get over its hang up of "our man   
   in Baghdad" and prioritize whatever information can be obtained by whoever   
   is brave enough or has the best contacts. "There are sources of information   
   for what is happening inside Iraq. Most of them are on the web. I think   
   those who give a damn in the mainstream really have to look at those sources   
   and surrender their prejudice about them and say we need that reporter's   
   work because he or she has told us something we can't possibly get   
   ourselves. And I think that's the only way we will really serve the public."   
      
   We had talked too long and had to quickly jump in a cab to make it to the   
   panel on time. The hall was packed with university students, professors, and   
   the public.   
      
   Charlie Glass   
      
   The event quickly got underway with Charlie Glass as the first speaker. A   
   former ABC America correspondent in the Middle East, Glass drew laughs from   
   the crowd when comparing his experience to the other panelists. "When I   
   began journalism I approached it in the way a lot of young naïve people do,   
   in that it was a vocation, a higher calling to tell the truth. My three   
   colleagues up here have managed to do that throughout their careers. I tried   
   very hard to do that throughout my career.but I worked for an American   
   network. It's not easy," joked Glass.   
      
   Glass spoke about the censorship he had encountered as an American TV   
   reporter covering the Middle East, referring to a story he filed during the   
   Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. There had been rumors of Israeli Shin   
   Bath death squads murdering Lebanese civilians in the South and Glass and   
   his crew had managed to film the evidence behind these killings. "We nailed   
   this story. We folded one of the death squads. We got to the palace where   
   they had assassinated a man half an hour after he had been killed. We filmed   
   it. We filmed the eyewitness. We filmed UN soldiers, who had seen the same   
   things, discussing it," recalled Glass.   
      
   "ABC news didn't broadcast it. But they won't tell you they're not going to   
   broadcast it because they're afraid of losing advertising. They won't tell   
   you they won't broadcast it because they're afraid of the public reaction.   
   They tell you they just didn't have room that night or the next night or the   
   next night. And that's just the way it is. That is why very few people in   
   this country have any idea what's going on in the Middle East."   
      
   Glass believes this kind of censorship has led to a chasm of   
   misunderstanding within the U.S. public. "You don't understand what's been   
   going on in Iraq because you've been lied to again. Just like you were in   
   Vietnam. Just like you were in Lebanon and just like you were in the West   
   Bank and Gaza," he said.   
      
   "Nobody has a clue why things went wrong in Iraq. Well, I'll tell you why.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)