» Archive: Article
January 24, 2006
An Election Day Call To Action
All joking about Erections Canada aside, I solemnly swear that the following statement is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
And the Queen.
I mentioned the Queen because it’s better to leave no stone unturned, as my stone grandfather who guides me in my work as a stone sculptor always says. After standing staring at this great boulder flung from Europe’s shore on the catapult of colonialism, the boulder some call Canada, I’ve decided it’s time to get out my carving tools, and to set to work on trying to make something decent out of it.
January 19, 2006
Judging Paul Martin
[There couldn't be a stronger rebuttal to those nitwits who are saying either that a) the NDP should lay off the Liberals or b) are campaigning with the Liberals. It's also an excellent backgrounder on what Paul Martin has been up to in his 12 years at the centre of a Liberal government. -- dru]
Forget the hype. Forget the hysteria. Here are the facts.
by Murray Dobbin (Planet 'S' - Saskatoon)
How do you judge a politician’s promises?
It depends, in part, on whether or not they have a record to go by. Of course, that’s not absolutely necessary - you can judge Stephen Harper by what he has said for nearly twenty years about what his core beliefs are. Many of his policies this time around fundamentally contradict everything he has ever said. Score zero for the credibility of his promises.
But Paul Martin is even easier. He has a real and very extensive record – which the media, to their shame, is not interested in any more. If you want to know what a prime minister would really like to do, take a look at what they did when they had no restrictions on their power. Judging Martin on the recent minority government doesn’t count - he was trying to stay in power and had to please the NDP (and the public) with at least some progressive policies.
No, much better to look at what he did as finance minister from 1993 - 2002. Martin was for those nine long years the de facto prime minister of the country. Jean Chretien wasn’t interested in policy or governing. He was a politician who saw his job as maintaining the Liberals in power. He gave virtual carte blanche to Martin to determine the direction of the government. While this was disastrous for the country, it does give us a crystal clear view of what the man is really all about.
June 14, 2005
Interview with Carol Wall, Presidential Candidate for the Canadian Labour Congress
by Sean Cain
This week, trade union activist Carol Wall will run against incumbent Ken Georgetti for the presidency of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). If elected, she will be the first woman and first person of colour to hold the position. From 1995 to 2000, she was a National Representative for the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) and became its first human rights director. In 2002, she was elected CLC Vice President representing Workers of Colour. She is also a member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and has served on the boards of several non-for-profit organizations.
Carol took time this week to answer some questions about her experiences in the trade union movement, its challenges, and what it needs to do in order to rebuild its membership and gain greater influence among working Canadians.
read more...May 14, 2005
Media Reform Conference: Day 1
After spending a long, sleep-deprived day of attending workshops, hearing speeches, and putting a whole lot of faces to a whole lot of names, I now must attempt to say something about what's going on at the National Conference on Media Reform.
Right now, I'm sitting in a session on holding the media accountable, where David Brock just used the word 'blogosphere'. Ugh.
But here are some of the overall themes:
- 2,000 people (and apparently hundreds were turned away) came to Saint Louis to attend a conference on media reform. It's pretty incredible.
- "We're winning." Speakers keep saying this, citing a list of victories, like when public pressure stopped the further rollback of media ownership regulations. I don't know if this is really true, but it seems incontrovertible that the media reform movement is gaining momentum in a pretty serious way.
- What's in the movement?
- Groups that hold media accountable (Youth Media Council, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Newshounds, Media Matters, FAIR) by pointing out lies, getting licenses revoked, and so on.
- Local projects to create free wireless internet networks in communities (and fighting evil legislation sponsored by Verizon that tries to shut them down)
- Efforts to get local radio stations to carry Democracy Now!
- And, of course, the creation of independent media.
- The "echo chamber". I think it was Naomi Klein who said it first, but people keep repeating it. Apparently, the problem isn't that the news isn't out there. Said Klein: "We have more than enough damning facts to bring down this government... every week. What we lack is the amplification." And again: "Every day, we hear a story that, if amplified, could bring down the government". So there has been a lot of talk about how to do this...
- ...which set things up nicely for Independent World Television, an effort to raise $25 milllion to start a progressive global television network led by Paul Jay. What seems to be setting the effort apart from any other pie-in-the-sky idea is that Jay (who used to produce Counterspin) seems to be very well connected, and plays the visionary role well. But the real test will be whether they can gain a big audience once they start to produce a show and put it out there. (Check out Evan's thoughts on IWT.)
- Despite some efforts by the organizers to keep things diverse on the panels, the conference is very white, and (right now, for example) David Brock is getting all kinds of questions, and people are basically ignoring the Youth Media Council person.
- I ran into Brian and Jessica from New Standard News, who are writing hard news every day.
- I chatted with a bunch of Indymedia types, and I'll repeat what I've said before about the structure and idea being resilient. There's a second generation of folks getting involved, and some of the old school is figuring out how to deal with burnout. And IMCs are buying buildings left and right. Philly has a building St. Louis has a building, and Urbana Champaign just bought the post office!!
- Juan Gonzales gave a good talk at the Corporate Media panel, drawing attention to some mostly-unknown history of media reform movements. Some of the overlooked examples he pointed out: C Everett Parker of the United Church, who led a grassroots movement to revoke the license of a KKK-controlled TV station in Mississippi and did other good work; The Cherokee Phoenix, which was the first Native American newspaper, founded in 1828; The Freeman's Journal, the first black-owned paper, founded one year earlier; the fact that the first Chinese-language daily newspaper was founded in Sacramento (though I can't find anything with a brief google). Gonzales talked a lot about organizing media workers, of which there are, by his count 300,000 in the US. He also warned against the easy "we are winning" rhetoric: "Capitalism has not survived for so long because it is foolish".
One good quote, from Norman Solomon, speaking on efforts to fight the Republican efforts to push PBS to the right:
If I'm starving, and have some crumbs, then I'm going to be pretty angry if you take those crumbs away. But I'm not going to say that it's my dream to get the crumbs back.
April 19, 2005
Volpe in Montréal
At his announcement of the changes to immigration policy this morning, Joe Volpe was confronted by Palestinian refugees who are facing deportation.
More photos here.
April 15, 2005
The Case Against Alan Dershowitz
[The following was written by Regan Boychuk (reganboychuk at hotmail.com), who is a graduate student in political science at York University. We generally welcome guest posts and suggested links; if you have something you'd like to say, or wish to respond publicly to something in the Dominion or on the weblog, send it to us. --dru]
Dershowitz vs. Public Committee Against Torture in Israel
Alan Dershowitz is a well-known lawyer and professor at Harvard law school, a prolific author, and makes regular appearances in the media. When it comes to Israel, he is particularly outspoken and taken quite seriously within certain segments of the North American mainstream.
Whether he deserves to be taken seriously is another issue altogether.
In a recent talk at Osgoode Hall Law School, Professor Dershowitz repeated many of the controversial claims of his recent book, The Case for Israel, but one struck me as -- even by his standard -- exceptionally far-reaching.
In the course of arguing that Israeli authorities no longer torture Palestinians, Dershowitz claimed he had a long conversation with the Israeli human rights organization, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), in which PCATI not only conceded that there was no longer any torture for them to investigate, but that they refused to change their name because it helped them attract media attention.[1]
Although organizers of his lecture wore shirts arrogantly proclaiming, "Dersh knows more than you", I decided to check his claim.
First, I visited PCATI's website and immediately found its July 2003 report containing 48 affidavits testifying to the continued use of torture against Palestinians by Israeli authorities.
More than three years after Professor Dershowitz claims torture had stopped, PCATI reported: "Each month, the ill-treatment reaching the level of torture as defined in international law is inflicted in dozens of cases, and possibly more. In other words -- torture in Israel has once more become routine."[2]
read more...February 18, 2005
Close Encounters of the Intransigent Politician Kind
This is as close as it gets to liveblogging on the Dominion Weblog... I'm at McGill's "Canada's Place in the World" conference, where a few Canadian foreign policy bigwigs (Bill Graham, Pierre Pettigrew, Aileen Caroll) and a lot of fresh-faced students are discussing, well, Canada's place in the world.
Wireless isn't working, so I'll post this post facto.
The debate seems to have been significantly constrained by the fact that our government apparently has little to no ability to deviate from what the US tells us to do, and the terrorist threat of course dominated the agenda. Security certificates, AIDS, and other worthy issues did make guest appearances.
But let's be honest, I was there to ask questions of the keynote speakers, the three ministers listed below.
Pierre Pettigrew
It's the usual. Pettigrew talked about his eight day trip to the middle east, and how he was always hearing. A lot of people seemed to be impressed, though I confess that it seemed like a lot of abstract platitudes: partnership, trust, etc.
The interesting part came during the press scrum after the talk. One reporter asked him about human rights in Haiti, and he responded with a throwaway answer about strengthening "our" presence there. I asked him a followup about whether the Government was going to fully disclose the program that the RCMP is using to train the Haitian National Police (which several human rights groups and eyewitnesses have accused of commiting massacres in poor neighbourhoods in Haiti and taking political prisoners), but I didn't finish the question. He cut me off, and ignored attempts to finish the question. He was heckled a bit by some activists who were in the scrum. I followed him out the door, repeatedly asking the same (simple) question about disclosure. He didn't say anything, but got a bit flustered and started making faces at me and waving his hands around his head (apparently mocking me?). This image will be with me for a while, and was, despite the seriousness of the issue, totally hilarious in a pathetic way.
His communications guy Sebastien Théberge stuck around and answered questions, but was stunning in his total lack of basic information, despite having been to Haiti. He kept telling me to send him human rights reports. There's no way an even remotely responsible Foreign Affairs dept wouldn't be aware of, say, the University of Miami Report on Haiti. In this sense, I sort of preferred Pettigrew's faces to Théberge's bullshit. But I'll send him the report all the same.
Earlier on, I evesdropped a bit on Pettigrew's schmoozing, and was, despite my jaded nature, astounded at the intensity of the self congratulation and reinforcement that goes on. If you've seen The Corporation, the footage of Pettigrew with Tom D'Aquino is totally indicative of what goes on in these comfortable rooms.
But jeez, what I wouldn't give for a photo of Pierre Pettigrew making faces at me.
[after the jump: Aileen Carroll, Bill Graham]
read more...January 19, 2005
Gov. Schwarzenegger's first execution
It's not the first time that he's denied clemency, but this one didn't make it past Federal Appeals.
It's hard to find any news on this execution. Here's one from SignOnSandiego.com
January 06, 2005
Affirmative Action, Cuban Style
by Fitzhugh Mullan, M.D.
New England Journal of Medicine
Volume 351:2680-2682 December 23, 2004 Number 26
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/26/2680
"I feel as if I'm standing on the backs of all my ancestors. This is a huge
opportunity for me," Teresa Glover, a 27-year-old medical student, told me
during a recent visit to her medical school. "Nobody in my family has ever
had the chance to be a doctor." Glover's mother is a teacher, and her father
a dispatcher for the New York subway system. Her background is a mix of
African American, Barbadian, and Cherokee. She graduated from the State
University of New York at Plattsburgh. "I wanted to be a doctor, but I
wasn't sure how to get into medicine. I had decent grades, but I didn't have
any money, and even applying to medical school cost a lot."
January 05, 2005
MasterCard donates revenue it gets from tsunami offerings
Written by CBC News Online staff
TORONTO - MasterCard Canada said Wednesday it will donate all the revenue it makes on tsunami relief offerings to certain charities.
The credit card company made the announcement after taking some heat over the fees charged on donations to charities following the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that devastated many countries in southeastern Asia.
read more...October 24, 2004
Leadership?
Exactly what is leadership? And why is it so often—far too often in my estimation—used as a metric to define someone’s character—character, for that matter, is another one of those empty buzzwords that intends to inspire confidence of the person or people it refers to. But when you clearly try to understand this amorphous term it becomes very difficult to articulate the ways in which it has any bearing on reality. Further, it becomes incredibly maddening when one tries to apply this shapeless word to political polling and, even worse, political figures
read more...September 25, 2004
Haiti and Kerry, new COHA Release
See Council On Hemispheric Affairs's latest: Haiti: Smoldering on the Edge of Chaos
Also see Ben Terrall's "Will he Stand up? Kerry and Haiti"
September 24, 2004
Canada’s vote in the US election
by Stephen James Kerr
I was surfing the net on Friday September 3rd when I came across a link to a story in the Globe and Mail about the Martin government's adoption of a no-fly list, similar to the one in the United States. Under Canada's Public Security Act, the government can restrict travel within Canada based on… they don't have to tell you why.
read more...Building A "Canadian" Decolonization Movement
Fighting The Occupation At "Home"
by Devin Burke
devin@riseup.net
If you've been following the news, it would appear that the current situation in Kanehsatake has been unravelling over the past 7 months, from the time when James Gabriel, unannounced to the community, first attempted to establish his own personal police force, with the stated purpose of "cracking down on organized crime". However, if you speak to a Kanehsatake community member and ask when this problem began, you will likely be told that it's a situation rooted much more deeply in the history of Mohawk-Canadian relations, that it dates back well before the time when Jimmy Gabriel came into power, and even long before the 1990 uprising known as the "Oka Crisis". Many would likely say that the current conflict is merely symptomatic of a greater problem, that being Canadian colonialism.
read more...September 21, 2004
The Creator vs. Canadian Imperialism
Check out this solid piece: "Exercise Narwal, Gunboat Diplomacy, and Oil," by Macdonald Stainsby
September 07, 2004
Propaganda System Number One: From Diem and Arbenz to Milosevic
Classic Edward Herman:
"The United States is not only number one in military power but also in the effectiveness of its propaganda system, which is vastly superior to any past or present state-managed system.
A further important feature of the U.S. system is that this propaganda service is provided without government censorship or coercion, by self- censorship alone, with the truth of the propaganda line internalized by the numerous media participants. This internalization of belief makes it possible for media personnel to be enthusiastic spokespersons in pushing the party line, thereby giving it a naturalness that is lacking in crude systems of government-enforced propaganda."
July 29, 2004
Is a USA Economic Collapse Due in 2005?
"What is clear now is that this unsustainable effort is likely to come to an end sometime in 2005, just after the elections, regardless of who is President. Given the scale of the money-printing by the Fed and the US Treasury since 2001, it is pre-programmed that the "correction" of the latest Greenspan credit binge will impact the entire global financial and economic system. Some economists fear a new Great Depression like the 1930's. The world today depends on cheap US dollar credit. When US interest rates are finally forced higher, dramatic shocks will hit Europe, Asia and the entire global economy, unlike any seen since the 1930's. Debts that now appear manageable will suddenly become un-payable. Defaults and bankruptcies will spread as they did in the wake of the 1931 Creditanstalt collapse."
Read On at GlobalResearch.ca...
July 27, 2004
More good old Canadian hypocrisy
Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham* tried to strike a macho pose last week as he strode towards a microphone where he announced that Canada was recalling its ambassador to Iran. His performance was a response to Iran's secret trial of Iranian agent
Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, accused in the brutal murder of Canadian photo journalist Zahra Kazemi in 2003.
read more...May 05, 2004
Bush and Armageddon
by Joel Wendland
www.dissidentvoice.org
April 19, 2004
Bush may have mental health issues. In his never-ending quest to generate international support for his war on and occupation of Iraq, George W. Bush met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on April 15th. He announced he was reversing over 20 years of U.S. policy by accepting Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank. He also flatly stated his opposition to the Palestinian right of return for those who fled or were forced out of Israel in the 1940s.
read more...April 19, 2004
Tiny Minority Attempts to Decide Canada's Future
April 14 2004
A cabal known as the Canadian Council of Chief Executives is undertaking nefarious moves to put an end run on both democracy and the citizens of Canada. The premier lobby group in Canada, the CCCE, is advancing their personal agendas at the expense of all Canadians.
The CCCE has unleashed their 'Deep Integration' war plan. Putting a friendly face to the colonization of Canada by calling the plan - "New Frontiers: Building A 21st Century Canada-United States Partnership In North America", they are hoping to achieve the undoing of generations of Canadians. The plan should be called - "New Frontiers: Building the Colony of Canada".
The leader of these quislings is Tom d'Aquino, who is well known for his disdain of Canada and Canadians in general. This latest move by the CCCE is no different. Let us remember this in NOT an American lead initiative, but purely a move by wealthy Canadian based CEOs who are showing just how out of touch with most Canadians they really are.
Just short of pre-emptive surrender, this plan is disturbing to say the least.
read more...April 01, 2004
Car Thieves and Generals
Less than twenty-four hours after being stripped of his diplomatic immunity, Alfonso Portillo took a dawn journey across the Guatemala-El Salvador border; by late afternoon, he was safe in Mexico. Mr. Portillo, formerly President, now Fugitive, made a quick break after the Guatemalan Constitutional Court ruled unanimously to revoke his membership in the Central American Parliament, allowing him to be prosecuted for charges of corruption and complicity in murder. But the Fugitive is not the only Guatemalan public servant feeling the heat. Others, who have not yet opted for the tri-national escape route, are collapsing as interconnected cases of assassination, corruption and organized crime are investigated and slowly linked together.
read more...March 16, 2004
John Clarke Speaks in Halifax
The following is a full transcript of a talk given by John Clarke of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty in Halifax, Nova Scotia last December. It has not benefitted from the copyediting and stylistic improvements (and photos, and links to other articles) made to the version that appeared in issue #16 of the Dominion. It does, however, contain some material that was left out of that one.
Clarke spoke at a public discussion on the Criminalization of Dissent, held in the ballroom of the Khyber Centre for the Arts.
Listen to audio of the talk [13 MB, MP3]
Update: the audio, having been broken, has been repaired.
read more...March 04, 2004
Is Democracy in Haiti the First Victim of Paul Martin's "Deep Integration"?
Last week, the US government unseated the democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide. Aristide, who was elected with 92% of the popular vote, claims that the US threatened to ensure a bloodbath if he did not leave. But it is not necessary to believe his version of the story to determine that there was a coup. Since 2000, the US government has been systematically working to destabilize the fragile democracy in the western hemisphere's poorest country: by blocking $400 million in aid and over $120 million in loans, and simultaneously funding the political opposition (whose popular support is estimated at between 8% and 12%) to the tune of $70 million. The same opposition has been calling for Aristide's removal since before he was elected in a landslide. The power of these figures is further amplified by the fact that fully 80% of Haiti's population lives on under $2 per day, and the national budget is a mere $300 million.
So where was Canada in all of this?
Paul Martin has recently been back-peddling, claiming that he always "supported a power-sharing agreement" between the opposition and Aristide. If this claim is measured against Canada's actions, it is a lie.
read more...February 25, 2004
Full Transcript: Interview with Duff Conacher
The following is the full transcript of an interview that appeared in issue #15 of the Dominion. This version has not benefitted from copyediting, but contains interesting material that didn't make it into the print version.
read more...Interview with Trevor Ngwane
The following is a transcript of an email interview with Trevor Ngwane of the South African Anti-Privatization Forum. For information about him, as well as a fascinating account of the last two decades in South Africa, see the interview that appeared in New Left Review.
read more...January 04, 2004
Corporate Media Silence on Whistleblower
Back in early March the British Observer reported on a “dirty tricks” campaign aimed at six UN Security Council members who were non-committal on voting for the UN resolution desired by the US and UK. The US decided to eavesdrop on communications to Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York.
A young woman working in British intelligence, Katherine Gun, was later singled out as the person responsible for revealing the illegal surveillance plot. The celebrated physicist and humanist Albert Einstein once said, “Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.” Ms. Gun obeyed her conscience and leaked information on the US and UK governments' eavesdropping on the UN missions. In the end the US attempt to coerce the six countries to vote for a resolution approving an aggression on Iraq (based on what is clearly known to be lies) failed.
Media analyst Norman Solomon asks why the story of Ms. Gun remains uncovered in the corporate US media. He cites Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, who said of Ms. Gun's disclosure, "Truth-telling like this can stop a war." This time it didn't.
Meanwhile a group of former CIA people calling themselves, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, has been calling for CIA workers to obey their conscience and step forward now in an attempt to expose the lies behind the war drive and occupation.
A google search on Katherine Gun and Canada turns up zilch for Canada’s corporate media. Emails sent to the various newspapers have so far gone unanswered. Why is the plight of this courageous woman facing prison time in Britain uncovered in the Canadian corporate media?
November 29, 2003
An informal update from the School of Americas
As I write thousands of people are approaching the gates of Fort Benning, in Columbus Georgia. Leigh, Anna and I traveled here after the protests in Miami, Florida, as did many other people.
A short update on Miami. In total over 300 people were arrested and to date only thirty have been arrested. We have heard reports of people being beaten, kept in cages without toilets and being hosed down periodically. The reports have been very disturbing, definitely an escalation of police violence from any other protest that i have ever been to, yet ironically it was almost one of the most passive. Starhawk said “I want to say that we often think that we live in the US with a great deal of privilige but I now know what it is like to walk down the street and be afraid of being arrested for walking, I know what it is like to see my friends snatched off the street for no reason, to be unsure if my friends will be in jail or not.”
read more...November 21, 2003
An Informal Update from Miami
Today was the intense day. We have heard that all countries signed a more basic version of the FTAA, an apertif as it were. Their goal is to fill it out by 2010 or even later. And that the Ministers were so far away that our vigorous chanting was in vain. A march left the convergence centre at 5:30 am. We didn't wake up in time, which was lucky as we found out later that the police had arrested people on that march and pepper-sprayed and tasered others.
People talk about those who are willing to do direct action. Today I discovered that direct action is merely marching through the streets without a permit. Certainly the police in Miami did not want us to march through the streets. About 2000 people gathered at 7 am in downtown with puppets and drums. The police presence was intense, with hundreds in full out riot gear lining the streets. Very intimidating. The police tried to direct the march but the protesters chose their own route. Within half an hour the protesters were stranded with lines of police blocking streets in all directions. The police forced us out in front of the fence, where others armed with rubber bullets and tear gas were mounted on 'easy lifts' well above our heads. Water cannons, armoured vehicles and hundreds of other police also outfitted in riot gear lurked in the background. Six helicopters overhead (one or two may have been media) and their constant whining noise ensured that you did not forget that you were in a police state. There was an impasse for a while and then....
read more...July 25, 2003
Amid cheers, the hollow sound of decay
[Note: since we don't run opinion articles in the print version of the Dominion due to space constraints and priorities, we will occasionally run submissions on the weblog.]
With an easy stride, many in Oregon accepted the fact that public school students would be spending Fridays at home or in the streets vandalizing public property. There was a war going on and CNN insinuated that the victory over evil in a distant land would flood the United States with luxury cars, cheap gas, and a return to the standard of living we enjoyed during the Clinton administration. Only those who lost their state subsidized medical insurance were up in arms in March, and they only numbered 150,000 or a few more. Police departments, mental health services, and temporary assistance programs for needy families seemed like inconsequential sacrifices in light of the imminent menace of foreign terrorism.
read more...July 23, 2003
Objectivity, take III
Columbia Journalism Review Re-thinking Objectivity
['Objectivity'] exacerbates our tendency to rely on official sources, which is the easiest, quickest way to get both the "he said" and the "she said," and, thus, "balance." According to numbers from the media analyst Andrew Tyndall, of the 414 stories on Iraq broadcast on NBC, ABC, and CBS from last September to February, all but thirty-four originated at the White House, Pentagon, and State Department. So we end up with too much of the "official" truth. More important, objectivity makes us wary of seeming to argue with the president - or the governor, or the ceo - and risk losing our access. Jonathan Weisman, an economics reporter for The Washington Post, says this about the fear of losing access: "If you are perceived as having a political bias, or a slant, you're screwed."What frustrates me is the baffling yet prevalent belief that questions can be objective. Not only is it nonsensical to say that a question is objective, the question is necessary before objectivity is even possible.
If I say "blue", that statement is not objective, it's just a word. But if I say "blue" in response to "what colour does the sky appear to be, right now?", then it's an answer. Subsequently, I can decide whether the answer is objective or not by examining how I came upon the answer.
The only way that the question "what colour is the sky?" can be objective is if it is the answer to another question, like "what is the most pressing question, according to my peers?" But that question isn't objective either unless it is an answer to another question ("what criterion should I use to decide what question to ask?"). This leads to both an infinite loop-back and answers that are impossible to call objective without a philosophical apparatus that is very complex indeed.
July 21, 2003
Lies and Reporting
Timothy Noah has a plausible theory about why this particular Bush lie has caught so much attention which he explains in this piece in Slate. (Part I is here).
The yellowcake lie landed on Page One solely because it occasioned a brief and fatal departure from the Bush White House's press strategy of stonewalling. "Bush Claim on Iraq Had Flawed Origin, White House Says" read a New York Times headline on July 8. Glancing through the story, Chatterbox initially puzzled over its Page One placement. Didn't we know already that Bush's yellowcake line was a lie? Then Chatterbox realized that the novelty component wasn't the lie, but the Bush administration's admission that it had told a lie. In the Bush White House, this simply isn't done.[...]
The ugly reality about stonewalling and lying is that, if pursued with the proper discipline, it can be an effective public-relations tool. Mainstream reporters may contrast what a White House press spokesman says with what somebody else says, but they usually hesitate to state bluntly that Person A is lying and Person B is telling the truth. (An admirable exception is Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, who has devoted considerable energy to documenting Bush's falsehoods.) If a press secretary states consistently that up is down, most reporters will present this as a matter of opinion. But if he states repeatedly that up is down, then says that up is up, and then resumes saying that up is down, reporters will seize on the inconsistency and cry foul. Unlike disagreement between one person and another (or even disagreement between one person and the rest of humanity), a single person's saying one thing and then saying another is usually taken (sometimes unfairly) as prime facie evidence that a lie has been told.
Reporters, of course, are in the business of "objectively" presenting what politician say. It is well beyond their scope to evaluate what is said. This is the central paradox of "objective" reporting: as soon as one starts to deal with the matter itself, and not what is said about it or depicted, one enters the realm of "opinion" or editorialization. Opinion can be objectively reported, but objective evaluation can only be opinion. Confused yet?
(I've written about the way 'objectivity' is conceived in American journalism and the problems it raises in a previous post.)