Naked Empire

NAKED EMPIRE - PART I

The Masters Of Self-Adulation

In this two-part Media Alert we will test a simple claim: that elite journalists promote a fraudulent version of the world shaped by the powerful interests of which they are a part.

Because entry to the club of high-profile journalism is conditional on acceptance of this fraud, the public is exposed to little else. As a result, society is enveloped by a bubble of media pseudo-reality that bears little relation to, and often reverses the truth of, the world around us. In essence, the ridiculous is rendered reasonable through repetition and the crowding out of sane alternatives.

Historically, an important part of this process has involved intellectuals and journalists congratulating each other on the important, courageous work they are doing. As Noam Chomsky has observed:

"Heaven must be full to overflowing, if the masters of self-adulation are to be taken at their word." (Chomsky, Year 501, Verso, 1993, p.20)

By contrast, rogue individuals who dare to challenge the fraud are met with silence, grudging acknowledgement, or "screeches and other monkey-like noises," American writer David Peterson notes.

As a rule of thumb, it is safe to assume that widespread media praise and applause indicate low-grade thought and high-grade servility to power. Mainstream journalists, indeed, would do well to reflect on Thoreau's words:

"The greater part of what my neighbours call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behaviour. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?" (Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience, Penguin, 1986, p.53) (...)

NAKED EMPIRE - PART II

(...) At the start of this Media Alert we proposed that elite journalists create a fraudulent version of the world shaped by the needs of the powerful interests of which they are a part. We have seen how two influential mainstream journalists - Snow and Marr - have been hailed as brilliant journalists, even as national treasures, while Pilger's dissident journalism has been almost completely ignored.

What is so interesting is that this is indeed reasonable, if we accept the media's unspoken framework of reality. If we assume that Western power is fundamentally benevolent, that the US-UK governments only react to the crimes of others, sometimes destructively because of personal failings and mistakes, then Snow and Marr do an excellent job - they are witty, charming and combative.

By the same media logic, Pilger is a weird troublemaker carping on about nothing very much, inventing evil intent and crimes where none exist. He is best ignored, received with a sneer, or smeared.

But if, using our capacity for rational thought, we step outside the media bubble, we will see that state-corporate power is wreaking havoc around the world at an unimaginable cost in human and animal suffering. We will see that corporate domination has had a devastating impact on the honesty of our mass media, and so on the ability of the public to resist the subordination of people and planet to profit.

And given that this is the case, Marr and Snow, like the vast majority of mainstream journalists, must be judged to be failing disastrously in their roles. We need only look at the media's catastrophic performance in the run up to last year's attack on Iraq to see the results.

And again, from this different perspective, Pilger can be seen to be one of a tiny number of journalists with the integrity and intelligence to expose the exploiters and killers employed to put profits first. He is willing to subordinate his own interests to the needs of the victims of Western power who, beyond the bright lights of liberal 'progress', lie as tortured and crushed as they ever were. From this point of view, it is Pilger who should be embraced with personal warmth and admiration - it is +his+ work that should be granted ten times as many reviews as tittle-tattle by Snow and Marr.

It is clear from all of the above that leading journalists are highly rewarded for +not+ rationally describing or analysing the key facts and issues surrounding the modern media. Praise is earned for +not+ making sense of the world, for +not+ helping the public see through the lies and distortions by which they are constantly assailed.

In a world so full of suffering, so beset by confusion that is so ruthlessly exploited, this is a very great cruelty. It is also a prime example of how a fraudulent version of the world is created, one that is shaped by the needs of powerful interests.


Naked Empire
by David Edwards and David Cromwell
MEDIALENS
14 and 16 December 2004