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Danny Schechter
MediaChannel.org
NEW YORK, May 1,
2006 — May Day has many meanings. It was this new month
that the Temptations memorialized in a great song that highlights
how special many regard it. Remember the line from “My
Girl.”
"When it's cold outside I've got the month of May.”
May warms the body and the heart, but for many in the media,
it seems to dull the mind.
Supporters of justice for immigrants this year took what was
originally considered the International Workers Day and turned
into in a multi-city protest for rights and recognition. In
other parts of the world workers marched, although in America,
the day for workers had already been moved to September l, and
called Labor Day to strip it of any vibe of international solidarity
and anti-capitalism.
May Day has another meaning to, an international call of distress.
When ships came under fire, or planes fell from the sky, Morse
code and other communications devices signaled “MAY DAY,
MAY DAY.”
“MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” ANNIVERSARY
It was that “May Day” alert that I remembered three
years ago on the first of May when President Bush, who we now
know was less than a stellar pilot in training, took part in
a airplane stunt landing a S-3B Viking jet on to the deck of
the carrier "Abraham Lincoln" off San Diego. The ship,
“deployed” for a photo-op, was festooned out with
a White House ordered backdrop claiming “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.”
His headline / message for the day: "Major combat operations
in Iraq have ended."
Huh? At the time, most media outlets raved uncritically about
his audacity, recalls MediaMatters.org. "Despite ongoing
questions over the continued violence in Iraq, the failure to
find WMD, and the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein, many in the
media gushed at the pageantry. Media Matters has compiled some
of their more fawning commentary: “'Chief among the cheerleaders
was MSNBC's Chris Matthews. On the May 1, 2003, edition of Hardball,
Matthews was joined in his effusive praise of Bush by right-wing
pundit Ann Coulter and "Democrat" Pat Cad dell. Former
U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dorman (R-CA) also appeared on the program.
“MATTHEWS: What's the importance of the president's amazing
display of leadership tonight?
[...]
MATTHEWS: What do you make of the actual visual that people
will see on TV and probably, as you know, as well as I, will
remember a lot longer than words spoken tonight? And that's
the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying
jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when
he was younger, obviously. What does that image mean to the
American people, a guy who can actually get into a supersonic
plane and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin like an actual
jet pilot?
[...]
MATTHEWS: Do you think this role, and I want to talk politically
[...], the president deserves everything he's doing tonight
in terms of his leadership. He won the war. He was an effective
commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a
few critics. Do you think he is defining the office of the
presidency, at least for this time, as basically that of commander
in chief? That [...] if you're going to run against him, you'd
better be ready to take [that] away from him." After all the fighting and killing that continues in Iraq,
this all sounds now like a joke, a bad joke — and not
a very funny one.
HUMOR AND THE PRESS
Perhaps that’s why President Bush used this year’s
annual White House Correspondents dinner Saturday night, where
the often groveling press corpse shows up in tuxedos, to offer
up some self deprecating humor to try to show the press and
the country what a nice guy he is, and how willing he is to
laugh at himself.
The president and his loyal promoters in the press were less
amused by the comments from Comedy Channel’s Stephen Colbert:
“Let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president
makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary
announces those decisions, and you people of the press type
those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through
a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make
love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in
your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter
with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know--fiction." “He
claimed that the Secret Service name for Bush's new press secretary
is 'Snow Job.'" reports Editor & Publisher.
No wonder that Falun Gong’s Dr Wenyi Wang felt she had
to scream at a White House event to get the President’s
attention when he received China’s President. The White
House correspondents asked no questions that day; in fact, none
were permitted. Dr. Wang may be jailed for her passionate questioning.
DOWNPLAYING PROTESTS
On the day of the dinner, there was a massive march in New
York to end the war and promote social justice. The New York
Times website relied on an Associated Press dispatch of an event
in their own home. Clearly, it was not taken seriously as news.
Tens of Thousands in NYC Protest War
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
“NEW YORK (AP) -- Tens of thousands of protesters marched
Saturday through lower Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal
of U.S. troops from Iraq, just hours after this month's death
toll reached 70."
Notice how all the politics of the march were buried in the
reporting. AlJazeera.net ran the same AP story, but with a photo
of a protester with an Impeach Bush sign.
Unlike the Times whose office was just nine blocks north of
where the march began, Long Island based "Newsday"
managed to send its own reporter. Herbert Lowe reported what
the Times and AP missed:
“Billing it as the March for Peace, Justice and
Democracy, organizers said they had pulled together the broadest
cross-section of social movements in years for their massive
demonstration."
So it wasn’t just about the war. The March’s goals
of Justice and Democracy were given scant attention.
Are you surprised?
MAY DAY! MAY DAY!
— News Dissector Danny Schechter is “blogger-in-chief”
of Mediachannel.org. His latest books are “When
News Lies” and The
Death of Media and the Fight for Democracy” Comments
to Dissector@mediachannel.org
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