Remember yellowcake? Back in 2003 the Bush administration told us that Iraq was buying uranium in the form of yellowcake that could be enriched to weapons grade. That was the linchpin of President Bush’s justification for the Iraq war. It was not true. In the eyes of many Americans, the Bush administration never recovered its integrity.
Now President Obama has had his yellowcake moment. Once again the American people have been spun. Dangerously spun. Ben Rhodes’ interview in the New York Times exposed the administration’s sales strategy for the dangerous Iran deal, and over the weekend the Associated Press reported the money trail from the Plowshares Foundation to NPR and to other media organizations that facilitated the “echo chamber.”
Are news media no more than public relations mouthpieces? The press has complained that this administration - while promoting the concept of transparency and full disclosure - has been more secretive and less responsive to the press than its predecessors. But the latest revelations are even more troubling.
The notion that a partisan organization can pay legitimate news outlets to cover, not just an area of interest (in this case, nuclear proliferation), but a particular position on that area of interest (why the Iran deal is good), undermines the very notion of the free press. How can we distinguish between NPR’s news and its “advertorials?”
There has always been tension between the way news outlets support themselves and their ability to report the news with objectivity and fairness. Traditionally, the conflict was advertisers’ interests vs. freedom of the press. Today, the influence of money, power and information in a time of reduced resources for an independent press chip away at the search for truth. “Citizen journalists” in far-flung places who set up false photographic images that are accepted at face value and distributed by news organizations are one disturbing trend. Donations made to think tanks for “research” on positions of interest to the donors is another. Now we can add the problem of donations to news outlets. We are increasingly vulnerable to manipulation. The deck is stacked.
A well-informed citizenry, the bedrock foundation of democracy, is an endangered species.This year’s extremes of political lying and false information are alarming. Their danger goes beyond the presidential campaign, and just plain ethics. They infect the larger society. Even when a lie is corrected, it leaves an impression.
The old joke, “Question: how do you know when politicians are lying? Answer: when their lips move,” is not so funny. As citizens we need to decide whether we want our leaders to be sales people, marketers and branders, or do we want authoritative leaders we can trust?
We also need to figure out whether news sources are primarily sales sites, mere eyeball collectors and partisan mouthpieces? Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness” seems almost quaint right now. We’ve moved beyond it to a much more insidious situation.
There are large regions of the world where people routinely distrust the news. They cynically don’t expect truth from either their leaders or their news. In ill-informed and suspicious populations, conspiracy theories abound. Take a look: Those parts of the world are either in chaos, and/ or lack freedom.
We need to make important changes so that we don’t move in their direction.
There have been some efforts to recover truth in the media. Snopes.com will check a story if asked. Politifact chooses certain comments by politicians to fact check. These efforts are laudable, but not nearly enough. We readers and viewers need to demand that those who report the news check the facts before publishing — both news reports and opinion commentary.
There’s no time to lose. And that’s a fact.
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