Norman Solomon

Of Death Be Not Proud

"The story today is going to be very discouraging to the American people," President Bush said at a news conference Wednesday, hours after 37 American troops died in Iraq. "I understand that. We value life. And we weep and mourn when soldiers lose their life."

How long will the U.S. news media continue to indulge that sort of pious talk from the White House without challenge? The evidence is overwhelming that the president and his policy team are quite willing to devalue -- in fact, destroy -- life when it gets in their way. And if they "weep and mourn when soldiers lose their life," the grief is rigorously selective.

The day Bush can "weep and mourn" when anti-occupation fighters "lose their life" in Iraq will be the day he transcends his oily fundamentalism. But no such day is on the presidential calendar...

Read the full full column.

On Michael Powell's resignation

Norman Solomon was on KPFA's Morning Show with Jim Naureckas of FAIR and Jeff Perlstein of Media Alliance on January 25th discussing Michael Powell's decision to resign as chair of the FCC.

The segment starts about 32 minutes into the show. You can listen (direct audio link) to the MP3 stream using using iTunes or Winamp.

A Shaky Media Taboo - Withdrawal from Iraq

The latest polls show that most Americans are critical of the war in Iraq. But the option of swiftly withdrawing all U.S. troops from that country gets little media attention.

So far this year, many news outlets have lapsed into conjecture on what George W. Bush has in mind for the Iraq war. At the end of a recent lengthy editorial, the New York Times noted that “there’s speculation about whether President Bush intends to use the arrival of a new elected government [in Baghdad] as an occasion to declare victory and begin pulling out American troops.”

Right now, that kind of speculation amounts to a smokescreen for a war-crazed administration. Its evident intention is for large numbers of U.S. troops to stay in Iraq for a long time.

Predictably, as Seymour Hersh reports in the Jan. 24 edition of the New Yorker...

Read the full column.

Journalism Q&A

PR Week
January 17, 2005

SECTION: MEDIA, Pg. 12

HEADLINE: JOURNALIST Q&A - NORMAN SOLOMON

Name: Norman Solomon

Publication: Syndicated 'Media Beat' column and books

Title: Author and media critic

Norman Solomon's syndicated 'Media Beat' column has offered a critical view of media and politics since 1992. His upcoming book, War Made Easy, examines the long history of pro-war propaganda in the US.

PRWeek: What is one of the biggest misconceptions about the media today?

Norman Solomon: That quantity equals diversity. The notion that you can click the channels or go to the magazine rack, and you see a lot of choice - I think that's largely an illusion. A lot of this is niche
marketing, and the gatekeepers are often the same institutions and individuals. From a PR vantage point, it's about volume and quantity. (PR is) mainly concerned about the propaganda effects of mass media reach.

PRWeek: What do you think of PR's relationship to the media?

Solomon: Mass media is inseparable from PR. The driving engine of media coverage is largely PR. And, of course, adept PR work leaves no fingerprints. I think that whole sleight of hand/sleight of tongue
vision of advertising, PR, and media work in the political sphere is about the stealth-bomber approach. To blend into the scenery is just the ultimate. So much of what is in the A section (of newspapers) is a
result of PR that was consciously developed. PR often has little to do with democratic activity. Because money is such a big part of what PR can implement, I see it as an ominous trend.

PRWeek: What do you think of the coverage of the war in Iraq?

Solomon: The nicest thing we can say is that it's been spotty, and it's been routinely behind the available curve. You didn't have to be a genius before the Iraq invasion to discern and document that we were being taken for a ride, that the White House was scamming the public, including journalists. I think we have some good examples of very fine journalism by individual journalists that ran in some major outlets. But on the whole the major media outlets in this country, while they provided some forum for debate, basically helped the Rove/Cheney/Bush administration sell the invasion before it occurred.

PRWeek: Does the press deserve the bad rap it has gotten?

Solomon: Yes. But often the people who are hung high are not those who most deserve it. You think of names like Glass, Blair, and Dan Rather. Then you think of names like Judith Miller. You know, Judith Miller is still working at The New York Times. She helped get us into a war. I think the intensity of skepticism and criticism of the media is good, but often it's displaced.

PRWeek: How can media outlets change their image?

Solomon: It's a process of public discussion and open critique. One thing I really try to do is if I perceive something privately, I say it publicly. I think that's a process that offers some hope. The growth of media criticism offers some real possibilities. And it will make PR pros more honest because the more gross scams won't work so well. Many people who are experiencing cognitive dissonance within the industries of journalism and public relations will find their work more satisfying if media criticism becomes more acute. I'd like to get to a place where the most effective kind of media work is telling the truth. What a concept.

The Martin Luther King You Don't See On TV

By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon

It's become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around the time of Martin Luther King's birthday, we get perfunctory network news reports about "the slain civil rights leader."

The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life is that several years -- his last years -- are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.

Read the full column from 1995.

Far from Media Spotlights, the Shadows of "Losers"

A system glorifies its winners. The mass media and the rest of corporate America are enthralled with professionals scaling career ladders to new heights. Meanwhile, the people hanging onto bottom rungs are scarcely blips on screens.

Far from the media spotlights are countless lives beset with financial scarcity, often in tandem with chronic illness, monotony, adversity and despair. The same institutions and attitudes that lavish outsized respect on high achievers (the wealthier the better) are apt to convey ongoing disrespect for low achievers...

While reviews across the country are almost unanimous with praise for Sean Penn's superb acting in "The Assassination of Richard Nixon," their reactions to the overall film have ranged from acclaim to indifference. The discomfort of some reviewers seems to be intertwined with wariness about the movie's great empathy for someone who can't win...

Read the full column.

Acts of God, Acts of Media

 The new year has scarcely begun, but Americans watching television have already heard a lot about God.

When Larry King interviewed George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton the other night, CNN presented ample split-screen evidence that the Lord transcends political parties and backgrounds. The former presidents -- blue-blooded Yankee and hardscrabble Arkansan -- spoke eloquently about faith. By now, perhaps no subject has achieved more agreement in the USA's news media. Faith in God is a televised no-brainer.

"My faith is never shaken by a personal tragedy," said ex-President Bush, "or even a tragedy of this enormity." Clinton said: "It reminds us that we're not in control, that our faith is constantly tested by circumstances, but it should be deepened when we see the courageous response people are having, and the determination to endure." Both men praised the incumbent in the White House, presumptively a God-loving guy.

Read the full column.

Media Sense and Sensibilities

At a pair of British daily newspapers -- the Independent and the Guardian -- plus the Observer on Sunday, journalists are far more willing than their U.S. counterparts to repeatedly take on powerful interests. Tough questions get pursued at length and in depth. News coverage is often factually devastating. And commentaries don't mince words.

A recent essay in the Independent contended that Prime Minister Tony Blair "has, in short, proved himself a scoundrel and a hypocrite again and again and again." The column, by Matthew Norman, continued: "How he has survived at all is something for tomorrow's political historians to explain, but one thing is clear: without a press that has erred, if anything, towards over-indulging him, he'd have got clean away with the lot of it."

In other words, overall, media outlets in Britain haven't challenged Blair enough -- but if they'd challenged him less, then the situation would be even worse and Blair would have a freer hand. There's a lot of alarmed commentary about the ostensibly left-leaning Blair government's drift into authoritarian rule. Under such circumstances, in any country (nowhere more than in the USA), vigorous journalism is essential to prevent further erosion of civil liberties and other fundamental rights...

Read the full column.