(By Ray D.)
This past New Years Day, an editorial from across the Alps caught our attention. It was published in “Der Standard,” Austria’s self-described “leading quality newspaper”: According to columnist Barbara Coudenhove-Kalergi, American journalism has been on the ropes ever since President Bush took office. And because of the President and his scheming corporate pals, American media have come under unparalleled “pressure” to censor themselves, refrain from criticizing the government, ignore topics involving the rest of the world and avoid domestic “social” issues such as single, homeless, oppressed, depressed, drug-addicted mothers. Coudenhove-Kalergi opens her commentary as follows:
“Media under Pressure
Since the Bush era, a further pillar of US democracy, American journalism, has begun to waver – Columns by Barbara Coudenhove-KalergiFor over a century, American journalism was and is the unattained model for all European media people – independent, unafraid, the motto of the venerable New York Times requires “all the news that’s fit to print.” But that’s how it used to be. Since the Bush era, a further pillar of US-democracy, American journalism, has begun to waver, according to a study from the New York Review of Books. Along with a hostile White House, increased political pressure from the right and media owners greedy for money, the study states that it is, above all, the self-censorship of journalists that is pressuring the standard. Experience teaches us that what happens today in the USA will happen tomorrow in Europe. At the beginning of a new year we all have reason to take this warning sign from America seriously.
The gravest defeat for the US media was naturally the gullibility with which they once believed the government lie on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. But media critics count an entire row of other failings. The most important: Reporting from abroad is growing ever thinner and the reporting on domestic social questions as well.”
A few initial observations. Throughout her editorial, Ms. Coudenhove-Kalergi fails to so much as mention the recent emergence of two significant new media fields in the United States: Blogs and talk radio. In fact, the only US media that she actually identifies by name are CBS, The New York Times and the New York Review of Books. This remarkably narrow understanding of “US media” may help to explain the author’s acutely limited viewpoint. Of course it may also be that the author believes that blogs and talk-radio are all just a part of the vast right-wing conspiracy that is supposedly putting pressure on “objective” and “independent” media outlets like CBS News and The New York Times. It could also be that she’s never heard of Daily Kos, Josh Marshall, AMERICAblog.com or Air America or any of the thousands of left-wing media outlets in the new American media landscape.
And perhaps Ms. Coudenhove-Kalergi has never considered the possibility that new media outlets, including blogs like this one, have dramatically increased overall coverage of foreign countries and domestic social issues for American news consumers. Perhaps that is because she is largely unaware of the shift taking place in the United States away from “traditional” media and towards “new” or “alternative” media. That may also be because the media landscape in German-speaking nations remains dominated by “traditional” forces and largely insulated from the dramatic changes taking place across the Atlantic.
Additionally, Ms. Coudenhove-Kalergi continues to assume, as many European journalists do, that the claim Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was an intentional lie fabricated by the Bush administration to justify the war in Iraq. And although the idea of a fabricated “government lie” perpetrated by a sinister cabal surrounding President Bush may be emotionally satisfying and comforting to the readers of “Der Standard”, it has precious little basis in fact or reality. What the author is conveniently forgetting to tell her readers is that many individuals, organizations and governments around the world, ranging from German and French intelligence to Bill Clinton to John Kerry, believed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction shortly before the outbreak of hostilities in 2003. So does Ms. Coudenhove-Kalergi believe that they, too, were all part of a massive “right-wing conspiracy” to dupe the American media into silence?
Later in her editorial, Coudenhove-Kalergi continues with the following:
“No wonder that the inhabitants of the only superpower know so little about the rest of the world. They know equally little about the growing poverty in their own country, about working conditions in the under-classes, about the constantly growing power of corporations.
Here too the numbers speak volumes: The New York Times has 60 reporters for the “business” section, one single reporter for labor (union) questions. And the media corporations themselves are a part of the “business” world. They know that with articles on successful managers they can acquire a lot of advertising, but with articles on unemployed single mothers none at all. The result: Large segments of reality, from the many civilian dead in Iraq to unemployment in many cities of the American Midwest whose industries are being outsourced remain omitted in the media landscape.
Certainly, optimists see signs that the pendulum has, in the meantime, begun to swing back in the other direction. Hurricane Katrina and the misery of the residents of New Orleans opened the eyes of many American media people to the fact that there is another world beyond Hollywood and Wall Street about which the citizens ought to be informed. Since then, government and civil authorities are again being more critically questioned and self-criticism is being exercised in some opinion sections. The famous American journalism isn’t going to die that quickly.”
Of course! How could we have all been so blind and ignorant! How could we have all missed the obvious for so long: The New York Times and other mainstream media have indeed stopped reporting on homelessness, unemployment and civilian deaths in Iraq or anything beyond “Wall Street” and “Hollywood.” How fortunate we are to have courageous, crusading journalists in Austria like Ms. Coudenhove-Kalergi to open all of our eyes for us! For three long years, no one in the media critically questioned the Bush administration and it took Hurricane Katrina and the brave European media elite to wake the American media from its long slumber! President Bush, corporate America and the vast “right-wing conspiracy” had the entire US media under their collective thumbs for far too long! Bush lied and people died! Drop Bush – not bombs! Make love – not war!
OK. Stop. Everyone take a deep breath. Let’s get serious for a moment. Here is the sad, disheartening truth: A lot of people in Austria, Germany and Europe actually believe what Ms. Coudenhove-Kalergi is editorializing here. They honestly believe that American mainstream media have stopped reporting on unemployment, homelessness, poverty and civilian deaths in Iraq. They honestly believe that American media have withheld criticism of the Bush administration for years on end because they are allegedly under so much “pressure.” They honestly believe that mainstream American media are being gravely threatened by corporate interests and a vast right-wing conspiracy. They honestly believe that American journalism and democracy are on the brink of collapse. They honestly believe the “gleichgeschaltet” lie to be true. They honestly believe that Americans are too ignorant and ill-informed to understand social problems in their own country. And, worst of all, they voraciously consume the steady diet of fallacious anti-American propaganda that journalists just like Ms. Coudenhove-Kalergi have been feeding them for years. Sadly, anti-Americanism has grown into a profitable industry with a sizable consumer base.
And then the same European “journalists” who write these cynical, mendacious propaganda pieces turn around and wonder why Americans and Europeans just can’t seem to understand each other anymore. Must be all Bush’s fault!
Addendum: Two More Postings on the Coudenhove-Kalergi Editorial
Stefan of Politically Incorrect deserves special thanks for bringing this piece to our attention. Stefan has his own write-up (in German) on the Coudenhove-Kalergi editorial in which he opines that mainstream media, including The New York Times and CBS News, are slowly losing market share because they have long been perceived by many as arrogant, elitist and biased towards the left, not because (as Ms. Coudenhove-Kalergi suggests) they have become too pro-Bush, too conservative or too self-censoring. Numerous studies conducted over the past few decades strongly support Stefan’s position. Be sure to check out his site.
We also received an outstanding commentary on Ms. Coudenhove-Kalergi’s editorial in the form of an email from our regular commenter Helian. (Please note that Helian has done his own translation work, which explains some minor differences with our article.) Here is his take:
“As regular readers of Medienkritik are aware, Germany’s mass media are not exactly paragons of disinterested objectivity. Compared to Austria’s however, they are as a great city of light to a provincial backwater. Anyone with doubts on that score need read no further than an article by Barbara Coudenhove-Kalergi (CK) entitled “Medien unter Druck,” which recently appeared in “Der Standard.”
The theme of the article appears to be…
