The sight of TV networks trading impartiality for gung-ho patriotism serves as a warning for Canadians.

Angus Reid
Vancouver Sun

Now that the anesthetic of the mind-numbing 24/7 coverage of the Iraq War is starting to wear off, it's becoming increasingly clear that, despite the hoopla over satellite cameras and embedded journalists, the invasion of Iraq saw American broadcasters enter a new and disturbing phase in which the lines between reporting and propaganda are blurred more than ever. This development—the rise of America's "imperial media"—has profound consequences for both the United States and its neighbours, especially Canada.

This shift, which has been under way since Sept. 11, 2001, moved into high gear during the three-week Gulf War when patriotism reigned across much of the U.S. broadcast media. Heading the cheerleading section was Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, which treated every pronouncement and move by the Bush administration with reverence while sneering at practically every critic whether in the U.S. or foreign lands.

Murdoch, who so successfully transformed his entertainment channels from fiction to "reality TV," has done precisely the opposite with cable TV news—replacing journalism with showbiz. The Fox formula relied heavily on a sanitized coverage of the war that gave short shrift to protest, avoided treatment of civilian casualties and stressed breathless accounts of U.S. technological superiority.

This might be harmless were it not for the disturbing movement of audiences towards this format. During the first week of the war, Fox easily beat out CNN and became the top-rated station in 36 of the top 40 U.S. time slots. For the first time ever, the three major networks actually lost audiences during a war.

One of Fox's top programs, The O'Reilly Factor, drew more audience than Good Morning America or The Tonight Show. Bill O'Reilly is typical of America's new right-wing celebrities who wrap themselves in the flag while they harangue and shout down as "unpatriotic" anyone who questions U.S. military policy.

The success of Fox has led to the predictable march of other broadcasters to its formula. The most notable has been NBC/MSNBC, which saw a marked improvement in its ratings as a result of the adoption of a more shrill patriotic style. In what many saw as outright theft of Fox's identity, MSNBC employed its own outrageous prime-time commentators—Joe Scarborough and Mike Savage—who together heaped scorn on anyone opposed to the war as anti-American and even traitors.

Now that the war is over the suppression of criticism has moved to a new level.

A week ago, Winnipeg native Ashleigh Banfield, NBC's gutsy correspondent and former MSNBC talk show host, condemned the networks for portraying the war as "glorious and wonderful." Her remarks were made at a speech she gave at Kansas State University on relations between America and the Arab world. Banfield was especially critical of Savage, who once called her a "slut" on air because of a feature she produced on the origins of Arab radicalism.

Within hours of her Kansas speech, Banfield was berated by NBC News president Neal Shapiro for her criticism of the networks. NBC/MSNBC issued a joint statement saying they were "deeply disappointed" by her remarks and stressing how "proud" they were of their war coverage.

But across the Atlantic other network executives weren't so sure.

The day before Banfield's speech, Greg Dyke, director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the government-owned broadcast outlet of America's most important coalition partner, expressed a similar note of alarm about the U.S. broadcast media's "gung-ho" coverage of the Iraqi conflict.

"Personally, I was shocked, while in the United States, by how unquestioning the broadcast media was during this war" he told an audience at London's Goldsmith College.

In addition to singling out television networks for swapping "impartiality for patriotism," Dyke was also critical of radio, especially the massive Texas-based Clear Channel Communications, which operates more than 1,000 stations across the U.S. and has close ties to the Bush family. In addition to featuring the usual gallery of right-wing hotheads, Clear Channel went one step further by actively organizing pro-war rallies, possibly contravening the rules of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is headed by Colin Powell's son.

It's hard not to be disturbed by what's happening in American broadcast media. Though I take some comfort that newspapers like the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have largely avoided the rush to hyper patriotism, the reality in America is that television more than print serves as the lens that shapes opinions.

What does this shift in the tone and content of U.S. broadcast media mean to Canada?

First, it serves as a cautionary tale for those who would rush headlong into losing foreign ownership rules and Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulations covering the broadcast industry in Canada. In late April, the Canadian government released a position paper on the telecommunications industry that called for the end of foreign ownership restrictions. There are many investors and media owners in Canada who would dearly love to see ownership restrictions lifted for broadcasters. There are others who would be happy to see less CRTC involvement in media content.

But at what cost? If it means a transformation in our media along the lines we are witnessing in the U.S.—no thanks.

But the second and even more important lesson for Canada—and indeed most other countries—is that the arrival of hyper patriotism in the American broadcast media signals a dangerous step towards an even more imperial U.S. foreign policy. America's media, perhaps as much as its constitution, serves as a daily check to the unbridled power of the administration. The new post 9/11 world of terrorists—real or imagined—lurking in the shadows, weapons of mass destruction carried in vials and nuclear weapons shipped in containers creates a fertile ground for the abuse of American power at home and around the world.

When the media fail to question the strategies and actions of the U.S. government and its military leaders or, even worse, actively stifle critical commentary, they create even greater potential for abuse. And for Canada the combination of a capricious U.S. government actively supported by a fanatical broadcast media spells big trouble ahead.

That's because fanaticism everywhere shares one common trait: a mistrust of all things foreign. Maybe it's just an isolated incident, but I got a shiver down my spine when I read New Jersey columnist Matt Zoller Seitz's recent account of why ABC's Peter Jennings was one of the big losers as a result of the shift in U.S. media during the war. The problem he says is that Jennings' neutral tone and Canadian accent are "out of fashion" in TV news.

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