by Mickey Huff
The corporate media presented some coverage via the Internet, but not much more at the time the scandal was really breaking (even though Bloomberg reported that Barclays announced LIBOR misstate-ments some four years earlier). Ben Dimiero and Rob Savillo of Media Matters for America reported that during the period between June 27 through July 12, 2012, television networks ABC, NBC, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC spent nearly ninety-one minutes reporting on the Tom-Kat divorce, while the Libor scandal received only a miniscule twelve minutes of coverage.19 As Wall Street and Washington sloganeer that the banks are “too big to fail, too big to jail,” maybe we need some celebrity big bank breakups for financial scandals the magnitude of Libor to attract the big media attention they truly deserve.
“Kill the Gays Law?” Corporate Media Coverage Won’t Touch This!
South Korean songwriter, rapper, dancer, and producer Park Jae-Sang, or, as he is known on stage, “Psy,” became a junk news sensation over the past year. He is best known for his international hit song “Gangnam Style,” which became the most-watched video in the history of YouTube with nearly one trillion views.20 The video’s success even earned the singer a trip to the White House to meet President Obama.21 Corporate media-induced controversy struck Psy when health officials in England issued a warning to middle-aged men to avoid overexerting themselves, after a forty-six-year-old Psy fan with a heart condition collapsed while performing the equally popular signature dance that accompanies Psy’s hit song.22
After the tragedy, the singer issued an apology to the family “for any pain caused.”23
Corporate media pundits previously took offense to Psy’s 2004 performance of “Dear American,” which expressed criticism of the “war on terror” and the murder of two Korean schoolgirls by US ar-tillery. Just as conservative media pundits had objected to the White House invitation extended by the Obama administration to rapper and poet Common, they also petitioned to bar the Korean rapper from performing there, prompting Psy to issue an apology for the nearly ten-year-old performance criticizing US actions.24 Despite the controversy, Psy became a media darling and performed with former rap/pop sensation MC Hammer at the American Music Awards. They performed Hammer’s 1990 mega-hit “U Can’t Touch This,” which dominated the airwaves and was part of the New Year’s celebration in New York’s Times Square.
While the corporate media fretted over Psy and celebrated the return of MC Hammer, Equality Matters reported that between October 31 and December 5, 2012, corporate news outlets CNN and Fox News devoted more time to “Gangnam Style” than the renewal of Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” law.25 The law bans intercourse with same-sex, under-aged, or disabled persons, and allows the death penalty as punishment for offenders. The law found little attention in the American corporate press, but plenty of coverage in alternative and foreign media.26 Regarding the bill, Ugandan speaker of parliament Rebecca Kadaga said that the country had “no space for gays.” In a ghastly interpretation of the holiday spirit, she vowed to push the bill into law “as a Christmas gift.”27 For those looking for more egregiously open and hostile, murderously intolerant, in-your-face, homophobic policies by governments around the world—U Can’t Touch This (though sadly, there are several other countries trying).
Triumph of the Swill: Sailing the Seas for Junk Food News
The overabundance of corporate news media coverage surrounding a cruise ship that was stranded without power adrift in the Gulf of Mexico left many angry, shocked, and even . . . rudderless. The 102,000-ton Carnival Cruise ship, aptly named “Triumph,” lost power after an engine room fire.28 There were no injuries reported from the 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew members. The liner was ultimately towed by tugboat to Mobile, Alabama.29
Corporate media outlets, and CNN in particular, offered in-depth and lengthy coverage of the inconveniences and less than luxurious conditions the passengers and crew endured. Most notably, they had to do without air conditioning, elevators, toilets, and kitchen equipment to prepare hot meals. The luxury liner was temporarily unable to provide fresh water. Passengers dealt with the privations by defecating in plastic bags, eating cold meals, and sleeping upon the deck of the ship. Sewage swill sloshed along Triumph’s hallways and passengers had to wait in long lines for meals. CNN provided a forum for passengers to recount their own personal horrors of the experience.30 CNN posted over fourteen stories and videos on their website and dedicated five reporters to the story.31 They even ran uninterrupted coverage, something previously reserved for events like 9/11. Understandably, CNN drew the ire of more serious reporters as well as The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, who charged that the absurd amount of coverage was an attempt to boost the network’s sinking ratings. Maybe the joke was on Stewart as the endless (and mostly uneventful) coverage of the so-called “Cruise from Hell” doubled CNN’s rating for the week.32
While passengers facing “first world problems” received an abundance of coverage, poor Americans found themselves shipwrecked. Compromises between the Obama administration and Republicans under the rubric of the Budget Control Act of 2011 received little coverage. The backroom agreement called for infinitesimal cuts in military spending while calling for a whopping $500 billion cut in domestic spending (which is about two-thirds of the Pentagon’s annual budget). The proposed cuts will lead to the loss of food stamps for an estimated 600,000 women and children; the loss of government-financed housing for some 100,000 formerly homeless people; the elimination of early education slots for as many as 70,000 poor children; the elimination of federal support for 7,200 school employees who serve special-needs children, and who inspect for job or food safety, forcing unpaid furloughs; and finally, the reduction by $500 million of federal loans to small businesses.33 There are plenty of real castaways in America who deserve our attention and concern, not the ones being towed on a luxury cruise liner, to the unblinking eyes and misplaced gasps of corporate media’s self-proclaimed “Most Trusted Name in News.”
NEWS ABUSE
[M]ost of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningjul action.
—Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business 1985)
Former Project Censored director Dr. Peter Phillips created the category of News Abuse over a decade ago. Phillips differentiated between Junk Food News, stating that News Abuse was distorted reporting about otherwise serious issues. Phillips suggested that many stories that ended up taking on the veneer of a Junk Food News story in fact began as legitimate topics for news coverage. The news media can lose sight of the original thesis of a story, miss or distort important facts that alter the meaning of a report, or give far too much attention to a story than the subject’s overall societal significance merits. What is lacking most often in News Abuse stories is a substantive topic or subject context and history. Because they address serious, newsworthy issues, News Abuse stories linger in the public mind, but in a skewed or erroneous form. News Abuse stories can also take a turn into the sensational, the irrelevant, the trivial, the mundane, or worse—they become a form of propaganda.34
Phillips’s message was most underscored whenever news media coverage missed the point of newsworthy issues. This year, our examples include how Sesame Street again became part of our national political discourse as a major party candidate used a fictitious character to wage ideological conflict in an election. The election and candidate were clearly newsworthy, but the media’s focus on Big Bird rather than on more substantive issues in the election was News Abuse. And so it goes. From sex scandals in the CIA distracted from their arming the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan (and Syrian) opposition; Americans pleaded to save Twinkies (real junk food) instead of real people’s pensions and jobs—here are this year’s examples of News Abuse in action.
Saint Elmo’s Fire: Sesame Street Under Attack . . . Again
In 2012, PBS and Sesame Street found themselves in the conservative crosshairs yet again. During the elect
oral debates, Republican candidate Mitt Romney targeted Big Bird when he suggested the elimination of the subsidy to PBS as a means to reduce government spending. The statement caused a flurry of activity within social media as people attempted to rally support for Big Bird and PBS. The incident gathered even more momentum when mainstream media outlets reprinted a letter by eight-year-old Alabama resident Cecelia Crawford, who wrote: “When I grow up I’m going to get married and I want my kids to watch it so do not cut it off. . . . You find something else to cut off!”35 In response, media pundits suggested the letter was a forgery, while the Obama campaign capitalized on it by posting on the web: “Save Big Bird! Vote Democratic.”
While Big Bird and Sesame Street served as a bloody shirt to rally the respective Republican and Democratic bases, the corporate media became transfixed upon sex allegations surrounding Kevin Clash. Clash was the voice and puppeteer for Elmo on Sesame Street. He testified before congress as Elmo in support of children’s music programs. Clash, who is gay, was accused by a former lover of having sexual intercourse with him while he was a minor. The accuser ultimately recanted and the charges were deemed false. However, three additional accusations surfaced from former lovers seeking financial compensation.36 Clash’s accusers admitted that the sex was consensual, though they had been underage. They are currently seeking damages ranging from $75,000 to $5 million.37 The allegations ended Clash’s twenty-four-year run with Sesame Street.
The story became a corporate media distraction from stories that matter to a nation that claims to support democratic ideals. Conservatives argued that Clash was proof that the Democratic–supported PBS undermined “American Values.”38 News outlets such as TMZ, Fox News, CBS News, the New York Daily News, as well as the Huffington Post, immediately fixated upon the story. It was ranked by the Huffington Post as one of the top crime stories for 2012—although no criminal charges had actually been filed by the time of this writing.39
Meanwhile, stories of environmental importance went unnoticed by the corporate media during the Elmo fire, but not in the alternative press. Independent media outlet Common Dreams reported that, in return for a waiver of future prosecution, British Petroleum (BP) agreed to pay $4.5 billion in fines and pled guilty to fourteen felony and misdemeanor charges as a result of the Deep Water Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The “spill,” as it was erroneously dubbed by the corporate media, gushed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf over a three-month period (some argue even more, not to mention the damage of the chemical Corexit that was dumped to “clean up” the mess in violation of Environmental Protection Agency rules).40 The incident also killed eleven workers and has seriously damaged the Gulf region over the long term, impacting the thousands—and possibly millions—that relied on the Gulf to make a living, or were simply unfortunate enough to be living on the coast where toxins linger. The Department of Justice found the company guilty of one misdemeanor count under the Clean Water Act and another under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Finally, BP was found guilty of one felony count for obstruction of Congress for misleading Congress about the amount of oil that had surged into the Gulf.41
Another story ignored during the Elmo fallout was the release of scientific findings that waters around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant continue to remain toxic. The water around the plant contains levels of caesium-137 at around 1,000 becquerels. Caesium-137 is a radioactive isotope commonly used in nuclear reactors and weaponry. It is a highly problematic and virulent substance because it is easily soluble in water. These findings were presented at the Fukushima Ocean Impacts Symposium at the University of Tokyo.42
It’s too bad that, like Sesame Street, the corporate news is often literally brought to us by the letters B and P, as in BP, who like many in the oil and energy sector are major advertising clients (read: revenue source) for corporate media, which in turn played down BP’s role in the Gulf oil ecocide for which they were responsible. Corporate media also failed to emphasize that the amount BP was fined was actually less than the corporation’s profits for one quarter of one year. As for Fukushima—a lingering disaster that may have an epic and growing legacy as trouble still mounts—the corporate media in the US can’t be bothered. For most Americans, it’s Fuku who? They’ve moved on to the next distraction.
From Benghazi with Love: The Scandal of Making a Scandal
The year’s most widely covered sex scandal involved former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), General David Petraeus, and his biographer Paula Broadwell. As commander of forces in Iraq, supporters of General Petraeus, including the media, hailed him as an innovator and the “best general since Eisenhower.”43 (And yes, Petraeus was the head of a spy and secret-keeping agency and couldn’t keep a secret about his own affairs—maybe that is news after all.) Petraeus’s resignation came upon the heels of the September 11 and 12, 2012, attacks upon the American consulate and the CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, in which four people were killed, including US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. According to noncorporate sources, Stevens was, in fact, the US liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan opposition.44 Moreover, Stevens allegedly facilitated the shipment of arms to the insurgents fighting against the government in Syria.45
Media outlets reported that the affair was uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) while investigating complaints that Broadwell had sent threatening e-mails to socialite and military groupie Jill Kelley, whom she suspected of having an affair with Petraeus as well. Kelley, who has been dubbed “The Tampa Kardashian,” was also implicated in charges of sexual misconduct involving former Afghanistan commander General John Allen.46 In addition, there have been allegations that Broadwell attempted to gain access to Petraeus’s e-mails and may have been privy to other classified information.47 It appears as though Broadwell has confirmed these suspicions herself; during a speech at the University of Denver, she claimed that the attack upon the CIA annex was an attempt to rescue captured Libyan militia members.48
At the outset of the September 11 and 12, 2012, attacks, the Obama administration stumbled to find explanations, falsely claiming that the attacks were a protest against an anti-Islamic video made in the United States and posted on the Internet; an explanation initially signed off on by Petraeus. Eventually, however, the Obama administration, the CIA, and Petraeus concluded that the attacks were indeed perpetrated by an element related to al-Qaeda. Republicans quickly seized upon the administration’s lies in an attempt to derail Obama’s re-election campaign. Only later was it revealed that the attacks were carried out by Ansar al-Shariam, a militia group that is sympathetic to al-Qaeda, and allegedly materially funded by the United States.49
In a half-hearted effort to investigate the causes and failures surrounding the Benghazi attacks, the Accountability Review Board (ARB) issued a report that placed the preponderance of the blame upon the State Department for the security lapses that preceded the attacks upon the American consulate. National security officials failed to properly assess the escalation of violence and disorder in eastern Libya that witnessed “a string of assassinations, an attack upon a British envoy’s motorcade and the explosion of a bomb outside the American Mission.”50 The inquiry found that the State Department had relied too heavily upon inadequately trained personal and local militias. Moreover, the ARB report found that State Department officials had appallingly denied requests for more security by personnel stationed at the American Embassy in Tripoli.51 The report concluded by charging “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within . . .” the bureaus of Diplomatic Security and Near Eastern Affairs within the State Department, which led to a security environment “that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.”52 A critic of the ARB report, Ronda Hauben of Global Research, charged that it failed to shed light on the Benghazi attacks.53 First, she argued the division of the report into “classified” and “unclassified” versions could only serv
e to obfuscate any attempt to discover the truth. Second, the ARB report did not mention the CIA’s role, which she contended was “the crucial question that any legitimate investigation into the situation must explore.”54
The corporate press focused on the subsequent political firestorm surrounding Petraeus’s resignation, and thereby created a media environment that failed to cover the real story of the Benghazi attacks. Barry Grey of the World Socialist Web Site explained: “The attack on the US consulate and the CIA annex exposed the fact that Washington had financed and helped arm al-Qaeda–linked Islamist and jihadist forces in its bloody 2011 war to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi and install a more pliant regime.”55 The government and media cover-up of the CIA’s role in the Benghazi attacks has screened the agency’s actions from the eyes of US citizens and the aided overthrow of sovereign leaders. This no doubt diminishes the standing of the Unites States in the global community and erodes fundamental American ideals. This is also further evidence of the scandal of manufacturing a scandal in order to distract from another scandal at work in Washington DC. One might also say this is obfuscation writ large.
While the “mainstream” corporate media inflated the Petraeus affair beyond all comprehension, avoiding more crucial issues at hand in Libya, it also ultimately obscured the ongoing and deplorable treatment of women in the military (see Censored story #16 in this volume), which has eventually found some coverage due to a congressional inquiry into allegations of sexual assault at Joint Base San AntonioߝLackland. The scandal has been labeled “the largest sex scandal in military history” and drew comparisons to the “Tail-hook Scandal.” As a result of an Air Force inquiry into the allegations, six instructors have been court martialed for adultery, rape, and conducting unprofessional relationships and nine others and are awaiting court martial. Moreover, the Air Force found thirty-two military training instructors allegedly engaged in inappropriate or coercive sexual relationships with fifty-nine recruits and airmen at Lackland. The Pentagon estimates that 19,000 cases of sexual assault occur each year with only a few thousand actually reported. Out of the incidents reported, only 200 resulted in court martial.56
