The Media: Honesty and Accuracy In Reporting The Facts Please, Nothing But The Facts

 

The Media: Honesty and Accuracy
In Reporting

The Facts Please,
Nothing But The Facts

By Al Colombo
Copyright©1999

Some time ago, the author presented an editorial for public review entitled, "A Controlled Media?" In that paper, compelling reasons were presented that supports the premise that today's major news networks have been compromised by either money, specific special interest groups, the Washington political establishment, foreign governments, or, perhaps, all of the above.[1]

On June 16, 1999, Congress listened as Jeff Cohen, a columnist, commentator and the founder of the Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) organization, presented a glaring report on the accuracy and fairness of the media's reporting of NATO's military action against Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic. His remarks can be found on page E1282 of the Congressional Record.

According to Cohen, the U.S. media is routinely acting as a fourth branch of government, reporting on issues and events according to Washington's wishes and not in a manner that serves the public's best interest. One example, as cited by Cohen, involves the media's relunctance to call the Kosovo event a "war," rather than a "crisis."

Cohen says, "The White House and the State Department will not use the word `war'--and then the media adopt the euphemisms from the government, they're acting more as a fourth branch of government than they are as a fourth estate, and that's very dangerous."[2]

The truth is, the popular media that so many of us religiously follow, by way of the 6 o'clock and 10 o'clock news, newspapers, and magazines, are not reporting in an unadultrated, unbiased manner! This fact was easily discerned during the Kosovo Aggression by those who cared to open up their eyes and their minds.

For example, not one time did the author hear the politically-correct media discuss the fact that NATO, as a group, failed to gain U.N. (United Nations) approval for their aggression against Yugoslavia's leader. In fact, the Council on Global Governace (CGG), which is part of the U.N., is on public record calling NATO's actions illegal.

According to CGG Co-Chairmen Carlsson and Ramphal, "NATO air-strikes against Yugoslavia have not been authorised by the United Nations. That authority was not even sought. They are therefore acts of aggression against a sovereign country; and as such they strike at the heart of the rule of international law and the authority of the United Nations. Because they are acts undertaken by the world's most militarily powerful countries, that damage is incalculable."[3]

"The accusations levelled against the Serbs have escalated from `brutal repression' to `genocide', `atrocities' and `crimes against humanity', as Nato has sought to justify the bombing. Pointed parallels have been drawn with the Holocaust, yet no one seems to notice that putting people on a train to the border is not the same as putting them on a train to Auschwitz," said Philip Hammond from the Independent. "Several commentators have voiced their unease about the Nato action from the beginning. But press and TV have generally been careful to keep the debate within parameters of acceptable discussion, while politicians have stepped up the demonisation of the Serbs to try to drown out dissenting voices. The result is a confusingly schizophrenic style of reporting."[4]

The question that each of us must pose to ourselves at this juncture is whether the media can any longer be trusted. To the author, the facts are indisputable; the popular media has indeed been compromised in some manner and the establishment can no longer be trusted to impart truthful, unbiased news. Perhaps we, as a society, need to remember the opening line of Sgt. Friday when he was about to launch an police investigation:

"The facts please, nothing but the facts."