Good story - pity about the
propaganda By Hans Durrer
In 1962, Konrad Kellen wrote in the
introduction to Jacques Ellul's Propaganda: The
Formation of Men's Attitudes that Ellul
designated "intellectuals as virtually the most
vulnerable of all to modern propaganda. He listed
three reasons: (1) they absorb the largest amount
of second-hand, unverifiable information; (2) they
feel a compelling need to have an opinion on every
important issue of our time, and thus easily
succumb to opinions offered to
them
by propaganda on all such indigestible pieces of
information; (3) they consider themselves capable
of judging for themselves."
Needless to
say, the likely victims of propaganda are often
also the unconscious producers of
propaganda. Here's an example that, not least for the sake
of argument, equates journalists with
intellectuals. On Sunday, April 8, 2007, the Washington
Post published an article headlined "White House looked
past alarms on Kerik" by staff writers John
Solomon and Peter Baker. The article begins like
this:
When former New York mayor Rudolph W
Giuliani urged President George W Bush to make
Bernard B Kerik the next secretary of homeland
security, White House aides knew Kerik as the
take-charge top cop from September 11, 2001. But
it did not take them long to compile an
extensive dossier of damaging information about
the would-be cabinet officer.
They
learned about questionable financial deals, an
ethics violation, allegations of mismanagement
and a top deputy prosecuted for corruption. Most
disturbing, according to people close to the
process, was Kerik's friendship with a
businessman who was linked to organized crime.
The businessman had told federal authorities
that Kerik received gifts, including $165,000 in
apartment renovations, from a New Jersey family
with alleged mafia ties.
The article
describes in detail the financial deals, the
initially positive reviews of the nomination by
New York's Democratic senators Hillary Clinton and
Charles Schumer and how, after new revelations,
Kerik's nomination eventually collapsed.
At first glance, it seems that this is
simply good reporting. Who did what to whom and
when and where and all the rest of it.
Moreover, it is well written and one comes
away with the feeling of now knowing what there is
to know about this case. So what is the problem?
The problem is that the necessary questions were
never asked. And because they were never asked,
one feels at the end of the article that the
system works well, because the one rotten apple
was duly taken care of.
What do I mean by
the necessary questions? This one for example: How
was it possible that such a guy was heading the
New York Police Department? To be fair, somebody
must have asked at least a somewhat similar
question, as Solomon and Baker report that
Giuliani told reporters that they
had a right to question his judgment in putting
Kerik in charge of the New York Police
Department and recommending him to Bush. "I
should have done a better job of investigating
him, vetting him," Giuliani said. "It's my
responsibility, and I've learned from it."
It goes without saying that this is a
rather poor statement. But worse, it was not
followed up. I mean: Giuliani worked together with
Kerik for many years, he is the godfather of the
two youngest of Kerik's children, Kerik sat on the
board of Giuliani Capital Advisors - it is pretty
obvious that they must know each other pretty
well.
Moreover, according to the
Washington Post, "Kerik rose up through the ranks
of city government when Giuliani was mayor,
serving as chief of both prisons and commissioner
of police. He moved to Giuliani's firm in 2002 and
oversaw much of the firm's security work."
In other words Kerik, despite his numerous
flaws that must have been obvious to everybody
around him, was never regarded as unfit for his
job. On the contrary: "He earned 30 medals for
meritorious and heroic service, including the
department's Medal for Valor for his involvement
in a gun battle in which his partner was shot and
wounded in December 1997," as Wikipedia reports.
Really good reporting would have not only
questioned but scrutinized how it was possible
that this man could have had such a career; really
good reporting would have exposed the flaws of the
system that allowed such a man to rise up through
the ranks of city government; really good
reporting would have never accepted Giuliani's
response - "I should have done a better job of
investigating him, vetting him ... It's my
responsibility, and I've learned from it" - but
would have challenged him, for it is hard to
believe that he did not know what kind of man
Kerik is. And what exactly did Giuliani really
learn from all this? Apart from quickly removing
Kerik from the board of his firm, that is? How
come journalists didn't ask?
Flawed
journalism then. Nothing extraordinary, happens
every day. But what has this to do with
propaganda? Journalism that almost exclusively
concentrates on who did what to whom and when,
etc, journalism that personalizes almost every
issue, journalism that fails to investigate,
analyze and expose the "How come? How is this
possible?", is no journalism at all, it is
propaganda.
Hans Durrer has
degrees in law, journalism studies, and applied
linguistics, from universities in Switzerland,
Wales and Australia. He has lived in Southeast
Asia, and worked in Cuba, Southern Africa, Central
America, Argentina, Brazil, China, Switzerland and
Turkey. He is author of Ways of Perception: On
Visual and Intercultural Communication (White
Lotus Press, Bangkok, 2006).
(Copyright
2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
