Media Hurricane

By Russ Baker, TomPaine.com. Posted September 7, 2005.

The magnitude of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and the media's astonished--and astonishingly vigorous-- response puts in perspective how hard it has generally become, in this country, to deliver the unadorned, unapologetic truth. Indeed, for at least as long as George Bush has been in office, the great unspoken challenge for mainstream journalists has been to do one's job while keeping one's job.

As the Bush organization has flipped one lever after another of  a vast and well-fueled propaganda machine, it is has become ever more difficult for reporters to render useful, accurate information to the public without neutering it in the cop-out "on the one hand, on the other" format. Constant pressure from the White House is one challenge. Another is from corporate bosses who must produce untenable profit growth while maintaining friendly relations with the federal government.

One of the most tricky work environments surely must be the Fox News Network, Rupert Murdoch's vehicle for dispensing highly opinionated, fact-light 'news' in the guise of helping provide Americans with "Fair and Balanced" journalism. And so it was with a sense of wonder that I viewed a clip of an exchange between two of Fox's stars, Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera, and hard-core propagandist talk show host Sean Hannity, who had morphed into the role of anchorman for a "Fox News Alert".

If you have broadband Internet access, you owe it to yourself to watch this exchange , which aired Friday night.  Smith, Fox's principal news anchor, and Rivera, its high-priced celebrity gunslinger, reported in from the scene of devastation in New Orleans. Smith and Rivera, both usually loyal to Fox's rigidly pro-administration line, yell, cry (Geraldo) and generally register disgust as Hannity seeks to gild the Bush administration's glacial response to the crisis. Here are a few choice excerpts [VIDEO]:

SMITH: They won't let them walk out of the...convention center. ..  they've locked them in there. The government said, "You go here, and you'll get help," or, "You go in that Superdome and you'll get help."  

And they didn't get help. They got locked in there. And they watched people being killed around them. And they watched people starving. And they watched elderly people not get any medicine...

And they've set up a checkpoint. And anyone who walks up out of that city now is turned around. You are not allowed to go to Gretna, Louisiana, from New Orleans, Louisiana. Over there, there's hope. Over there, there's electricity. Over there, there is food and water. But you cannot go from there to there. The government will not allow you to do it. It's a fact.

HANNITY: All right, Shep, I want to get some perspective here, because earlier today...

SMITH: That is perspective! That is all the perspective you need!

Soon, Hannity switches to Geraldo, where he finds no relief:

RIVERA (holding aloft a baby): Sean...I want everyone in the world to see, six days after Katrina swept through this city, five days after the levee collapsed, this baby--this baby--how old is this baby?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ten months old.....

RIVERA: Look in the face of the baby. This is it. This is it. No sugar coating, no political spin, no Republicans or Democrats. People suffering.

Let them go. Let them out of here. Let them go. Let them walk over this damn interstate, and let them out of here.

HANNITY: All right. Thanks, Geraldo. Appreciate it. We appreciate--and from New Orleans tonight.

For once, Hannity was nearly speechless. His mandate--and preferences--were clear: Keep Fox's viewers, Bush's vaunted base, steady, until the administration spin machine could be shoved on top of the volatile events that threatened to expose the horrible truth about the priorities and competencies of  this White House after an unprecedented, years-long free ride.

When Fox reporters are the most emphatically critical of the Bush administration, you know something is going on. Had Roger Ailes decided that it was simply impossible to ride out this storm with Bush? What of the defections of The New York Times' conservative columnist David Brooks and others in recent days?  Perhaps they figure that this is simply too enormous a screw-up to defend, and hope that by joining the ranks of the indignant they may escape a sinking ship. Or, maybe, maybe, even they have finally had enough.

Another remarkable breakthrough came Sunday, on Meet the Press , Tim Russert freshened his typical beltway bonhomie mix with a "real" person, Jefferson Parish President (i.e., county manager) Aaron Broussard. His guest, who, by the way, is white, delivered a startlingly blunt indictment of the federal response to the death and destruction facing the largely poor, black population that had been unable to get out [VIDEO]. 

Russ Baker is a freelance journalist and essayist. His web site is www.russbaker.com.

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