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When Gary Webb was coming up,
news reporting was a noble
virtue.
There was a lot to get excited about-black power, queer and women's rights, state marijuana decriminalization measures, and most importantly, a war that nobody wanted. During this journalistic golden age of the '60s and early '70s, politics came across a little more real. Democrats and Republicans bore some discernible differences-distinctions that were hard to ascertain during the 2000 presidential election, since reporters rarely strayed from the course of topics prescribed by party strategists. Find a pundit today who thinks prescription drugs for seniors is America's most pressing social issue if you doubt the two-party influence on the media.
But back then, people could usually count on the 6 o'clock news or the morning paper to keep them up to speed. Investigative reporters like Seymour Hersh, who won a Pulitzer Prize after breaking the story of the 1968 My Lai massacre, were charged with challenging policy and defining discourse. Just three years after that story first appeared in 36 newspapers across the country, a floppy-haired college dropout and well-manicured Yale alum brought down a president on the pages of the Washington Post. The duo, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein defined the profession to which daring, rebellious and idealistic kids once aspired. While it may be hard to imagine now, reporters were then thought of like America's freedom-loving soldiers in Afghanistan or firemen in New York-courageously jumping in harm's way for the good of their fellow man. This is the climate in which former San Jose Mercury News reporter Webb and CBS News producer Kristina Borjesson were inspired to go to journalism school and fight the good fight.
They didn't do so bad. Each uncovered stories of government malfeasance that would make their Watergate predecessors blush. Webb published stories in the San Jose Mercury News that suggested the CIA was protecting a Los Angeles drug ring affiliated with Nicaragua's rightist contras. Borjesson, as a producer for CBS, amassed a mountain of information that offered new insight into the cause of the mid-air explosion of TWA Flight 800, which crashed off the coast of Long Island July 17, 1996 and killed all 230 passengers on board. Contrary to the government's "official" diagnosis of mechanical failure, Borjesson found all fingers pointing to an entirely different explanation-that the Boeing 747 was actually blown out of the sky by a U.S. Navy missile in a training exercise gone awry.
They and other veteran reporters and media watchdogs talk about their experiences in Into the Buzzsaw, a compilation of first-person accounts which Borjesson edited and compiled. Needless to say, their evaluation of today's "Free Press" ain't pretty. While Woodward and Bernstein's efforts resulted in a Pulitzer prize, never-ending speaking engagements, and near-god status in journalism schools nationwide, Borjesson and Webb have become marginalized and seen their names dragged through the mud. They were denounced not only by the government they challenged, but even more insidiously, by their own colleagues, who allowed themselves to become spin doctors for the federal government whether they meant to do it or not. After Watergate broke, the rest of the media rode the Post reporters' coattails, as anyone who's seen Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman's 1976 "All The President's Men" may remember. Contrast that with the fallout after Webb's groundbreaking "Dark Alliance" ran in the Mercury News. The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and Washington Post declared the series "flawed" based on their own perfunctory analyses, not to mention the disinformation they were getting from federal officials. One of the Post's barbs actually came from a former CIA informant who covered the agency for the newspaper. The ensuing media pressure eventually led Mercury News editor Jerry Ceppos to apologize for series "shortcomings" in a lengthy column. Webb left the paper not long thereafter.
Borjesson, who was eventually fired from CBS, faced an equally formidable backlash. Time magazine, The New York Times and Washington Post all took shots at her seemingly ridiculous theory. Government officials were given a soapbox to discredit reporters, without their own assertions being taken to task. This theme resurfaces again and again throughout the books 18 vignettes. Webb recalls an encounter he had with a CNN producer, who insisted that the reporter be asked on the air to explain his "allegations" against the federal government. Because the CIA wasn't admitting any wrongdoing, CNN could only refer to Webb's exhaustive research as allegations, the producer reasoned. "Are you telling me that until the day the CIA confesses to drug trafficking, CNN's position is that these events may not have happened?" Webb quipped. "What the fuck is that? When did we give the CIA power to define reality?"
When it comes to misinformation and disinformation, many factors come into play. Of course, you've got officials like those in the Bush administration, for whom wartime breeds a sense of executive privilege to distort the truth. Not long after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bill Maher's infamous assertion that the suicide hijackers were not "cowards" spurred White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer to warn Americans to "watch what you say, watch what you do." (This comment was conveniently deleted from the official White House transcript of the press conference). All this happened while the Defense Department was creating its Office of Strategic Influence, proposals for which included spreading bogus stories through foreign news outlets as a means of fighting terrorism, The New York Times later reported.
The potential of abuse from such top-down information dissemination is obvious enough, but more inherent problems aren't as obvious. Journalists covering war in the post-Sept. 11 America have been less than eager to ask the government critical questions. In a surprisingly candid interview with the BBC, Dan Rather admitted patriotic fervor had some effect on the way he did his job. "It is an obscene comparison," Rather was recently quoted. "But you know there was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck," he said. "Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions."
But back then, people could usually count on the 6 o'clock news or the morning paper to keep them up to speed. Investigative reporters like Seymour Hersh, who won a Pulitzer Prize after breaking the story of the 1968 My Lai massacre, were charged with challenging policy and defining discourse. Just three years after that story first appeared in 36 newspapers across the country, a floppy-haired college dropout and well-manicured Yale alum brought down a president on the pages of the Washington Post. The duo, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein defined the profession to which daring, rebellious and idealistic kids once aspired. While it may be hard to imagine now, reporters were then thought of like America's freedom-loving soldiers in Afghanistan or firemen in New York-courageously jumping in harm's way for the good of their fellow man. This is the climate in which former San Jose Mercury News reporter Webb and CBS News producer Kristina Borjesson were inspired to go to journalism school and fight the good fight.
They didn't do so bad. Each uncovered stories of government malfeasance that would make their Watergate predecessors blush. Webb published stories in the San Jose Mercury News that suggested the CIA was protecting a Los Angeles drug ring affiliated with Nicaragua's rightist contras. Borjesson, as a producer for CBS, amassed a mountain of information that offered new insight into the cause of the mid-air explosion of TWA Flight 800, which crashed off the coast of Long Island July 17, 1996 and killed all 230 passengers on board. Contrary to the government's "official" diagnosis of mechanical failure, Borjesson found all fingers pointing to an entirely different explanation-that the Boeing 747 was actually blown out of the sky by a U.S. Navy missile in a training exercise gone awry.
They and other veteran reporters and media watchdogs talk about their experiences in Into the Buzzsaw, a compilation of first-person accounts which Borjesson edited and compiled. Needless to say, their evaluation of today's "Free Press" ain't pretty. While Woodward and Bernstein's efforts resulted in a Pulitzer prize, never-ending speaking engagements, and near-god status in journalism schools nationwide, Borjesson and Webb have become marginalized and seen their names dragged through the mud. They were denounced not only by the government they challenged, but even more insidiously, by their own colleagues, who allowed themselves to become spin doctors for the federal government whether they meant to do it or not. After Watergate broke, the rest of the media rode the Post reporters' coattails, as anyone who's seen Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman's 1976 "All The President's Men" may remember. Contrast that with the fallout after Webb's groundbreaking "Dark Alliance" ran in the Mercury News. The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and Washington Post declared the series "flawed" based on their own perfunctory analyses, not to mention the disinformation they were getting from federal officials. One of the Post's barbs actually came from a former CIA informant who covered the agency for the newspaper. The ensuing media pressure eventually led Mercury News editor Jerry Ceppos to apologize for series "shortcomings" in a lengthy column. Webb left the paper not long thereafter.
Borjesson, who was eventually fired from CBS, faced an equally formidable backlash. Time magazine, The New York Times and Washington Post all took shots at her seemingly ridiculous theory. Government officials were given a soapbox to discredit reporters, without their own assertions being taken to task. This theme resurfaces again and again throughout the books 18 vignettes. Webb recalls an encounter he had with a CNN producer, who insisted that the reporter be asked on the air to explain his "allegations" against the federal government. Because the CIA wasn't admitting any wrongdoing, CNN could only refer to Webb's exhaustive research as allegations, the producer reasoned. "Are you telling me that until the day the CIA confesses to drug trafficking, CNN's position is that these events may not have happened?" Webb quipped. "What the fuck is that? When did we give the CIA power to define reality?"
When it comes to misinformation and disinformation, many factors come into play. Of course, you've got officials like those in the Bush administration, for whom wartime breeds a sense of executive privilege to distort the truth. Not long after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bill Maher's infamous assertion that the suicide hijackers were not "cowards" spurred White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer to warn Americans to "watch what you say, watch what you do." (This comment was conveniently deleted from the official White House transcript of the press conference). All this happened while the Defense Department was creating its Office of Strategic Influence, proposals for which included spreading bogus stories through foreign news outlets as a means of fighting terrorism, The New York Times later reported.
The potential of abuse from such top-down information dissemination is obvious enough, but more inherent problems aren't as obvious. Journalists covering war in the post-Sept. 11 America have been less than eager to ask the government critical questions. In a surprisingly candid interview with the BBC, Dan Rather admitted patriotic fervor had some effect on the way he did his job. "It is an obscene comparison," Rather was recently quoted. "But you know there was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck," he said. "Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions."