Nexus - 0401 - New Times Magazine-pages

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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS WHEN THE NAMELESS SHAPE THE NEWS by Norman Solomon administration officials" and other sources "speaking on condition of anonymity"? If you found an unsigned letter in your mailbox, you'd probably have doubts about the contents. But news stories often include statements by people who dodge identification—yet manage to get quoted and paraphrased with utmost respect. Those nameless sources are rarely whistleblowers trying to give suppressed facts to the public while avoiding retaliation from their bosses. No, the sources who routinely shape the news are officials eager to promote current policies—but unwilling to stand publicly behind their words. Early this month [September '96], Newsweek reported on "what a senior US official said was one of the largest Iraqi military buildups since 1991". The magazine quoted "a US official" who declared, "We have warned the Iraqis...". When spin doctors want to be anonymous, media outlets are glad to oblige. As long as government policy-makers can plant and slant news stories while hiding behind nameless fagades, they'll do so. And as long as journalists play along, they can claim that it's the only way to get officials to speak on sensitive topics. Sometimes, unnamed sources say the darnedest and most outrageous things. But, unlike you or I, they won't ever have to answer for what they say. So, there's still no way to identify the "high-ranking Western diplomat" who made light of political murders supervised by Gen. Augusto Pinochet during the Chilean dictator's 16-year rule. Last February 1996, a New York Times article quoted the diplomat's comment about charges that Pinochet had ordered the assassination of a pro- democracy commander in Chile's army: "It's one thing to kill a civilian whom you think is a Communist, but it's another to kill your own men." News articles from foreign capitals often recite the views of "Western diplomats". The phrase drips with authority and objectivity, but it should set off alarm bells. When officials don such masks, they're usually trying to obscure the specific agendas they're pushing. In fact, a "Western diplomat" cited in the American press is commonly a US government official posted overseas—an embassy staffer or perhaps the ambassador. We'll never know. The reporter knows but has promised not to tell. Meanwhile, journalists based in Washington are also in the habit of relying on anonymous sources. It was nothing out of the ordinary two weeks ago when the New York daily Newsday quoted "a senior US official" who condemned Iraqi attacks on Kurdish areas as "a very bold and very aggressive move that cannot be overlooked or ignored". The same American official supplied the last words in the article, proclaiming that Saddam Hussein "is as clever as he is ruthless". It would be difficult to quarrel with such an assertion. But why did it have to be made behind a nameless cloak? One of the main problems with media reliance on official sources—named and unnamed—is what they don't say. "Western diplomats" and "senior US officials" aren't likely to offer information that contradicts the government line. This month, hundreds of news stories have touted White House concern for the well- being of Kurds. Official sources are hardly inclined to remind reporters that President Clinton has been shrugging while the Turkish government repeatedly bombs Kurdish enclaves. With the help of massive US military aid, Turkey's fierce attacks on Kurds occur on both sides of the Turkey-Iraq border. News media are supposed to provide us with a window on the world, but much too often it's tinted red, white and blue—as if faraway events matter mostly because of how they affect US government strategists. That preoccupation was clear on PBS television the other night when NewsHour anchor Jim Lehrer read his script: "We focus next tonight on the Kurds," said Lehrer. "They are a people often forgotten by history but whose latest fighting is causing major problems for the United States in the Middle East." No doubt, many Kurds would be interested to learn that their suffering has significance when it causes "major problems" for Washington. That's how the world looks when journalists see it through the eyes of American officials. (This is Norman Solomon's "Media Beat" syndicated column for w/c 16 September 1996, distributed by Creators Syndicate to about 20 daily US newspapers and via CompuServe. For more information, send e-mail to: mediabeat-info @ igc.org) I ver wonder who all those "Western diplomats" are? How about the "senior of global proportions." Under current UK and European laws, genetically-manipulated food does not have to have labelling to state that it is, or con- tains, a genetically altered foodstuff. (Source: The Daily Telegraph [UK], 7 September 1996) POLIO VACCINE VIRUS LINKED TO LUNG CANCER A polio vaccine that was administered to millions of Britons in the 1950s and early 1960s is being linked to a virulent form of lung cancer, following the discovery that it was contaminated by a monkey virus. Doctors have expressed concern at the latest studies in America which show that the virus, SV40, was found in several tumours. It is estimated that between 10 million and 30 million Americans were given the contaminated polio vaccine. The vaccine, cultured from monkey kid- ney cells, was used in mass vaccinations until 1961. After that, a new vaccine using human cells was developed. (Sources: New Scientist, 24 August 1996; The Sunday Telegraph [UK], 1 September 1996) DOCTORS CLAIM FLU VACCINE CAN CAUSE DIABETES "After a presentation of our data, we were asked to evaluate the effect of a recent hepatitis B immunisation program in New Zealand on the development of insulin-dependant diabetes. We found a large epidemic of diabetes, 60% increase, occurred in New Zealand following this immunisation program, and believe the most likely explanation is that the immuni- sation program caused the diabetes epi- demic." These were the words of Dr J. Barthelow Classen, of Classen Immunotherapies Inc. in Baltimore, USA, in a letter to the New Zealand Medical Journal. Dr Classen also warned in his letter: "Based on this mechanism and our early finding that diabetes epidemics have fol- lowed the widespread use of the Haemophilus influenza B vaccine, we expect a second epidemic of diabetes to follow the Haemophilus influenza B immu- nisation program that was started in New Zealand in 1993/4." (Sources: The New Zealand Medical Journal, 24 May 1996; Vaccination Information Network, PO Box 149, Kaeo, Northland, New Zealand) NEXUS <9 DECEMBER 1996 - JANUARY 1997