Thought this might be of interest.
Ted M.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: FW: ZNet Commentary / Herman and Albert / Horowitz -- two
pieces / March 24
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 07:28:11 -0800
From: "Michael Albert" <sysop@zmag.org>
To: <znetcommentary@tao.ca>
Today we have two commentaries. Ed Herman on the Horowitz controversies
put in larger perspective and Michael Albert on the same controversies
viewed narrowly... and...
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THE MEDIA-RIGHTWING POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GAMBIT RENEWED: HOROWITZ AND
REPARATIONS
Edward S. Herman
The heavy media attention being given to rejections of David Horowitz's
ad on reparations for slavery is a throwback to the rightwing and
"liberal media" political correctness campaign of 1991. In that earlier
campaign, it was the alleged free speech threat of blacks, women, and
other non-establishment groups trying to influence curricula and
teaching appointments that aroused the media to a frenzy. Firings of
left academics didn't interest them at all, nor did the huge spread of
"free enterprise" chairs or virtual takeover of campuses by businesses
funding institutes servicing their manpower and technology needs.
With the Horowitz case we are back to this super-selectivity: it is an
ad that challenges a position supportive of black people by some of
their spokespersons, and it is a refusal to publish this ad that the
media latch on to. The ad is offered by a rightwing creep who is funded
by the same wealthy reactionaries, foundations, and corporations who
have underwritten Dinesh D'Souza, Lynne Cheney, Christina Hoff Sommers,
and the Thernstroms. Just as these individuals have great access to the
media, so now does Horowitz, in contrast with his earlier years of
non-access and invisibility when he was not so funded and offered less
welcome views.
A case similar to that of Horowitz occurred back in 1991- 1992, when
Holocaust denier Bradley Smith offered an ad to many college newspapers
in order to "stimulate discussion" on the claims of a holocaust. His ad
was widely rejected by college newspapers, but the case never made the
front page of the New York Times, and the Times not only gave Smith
modest attention, it made it very clear that "it is not a first
amendment issue" (ed., Jan. 15, 1992). In the Times and elsewhere in the
mainstream media Bradley Smith's historical errors and insults to the
heirs of the victims completely overpowered any thought that editors
rejecting the ad were suffering from the "political correctness"
sickness. This was an ad that could be rejected on some higher
principle, perhaps related to the political muscle of those who would be
upset by it.
The March-April 2001 issue of Utne Reader has an article by Karen Olson
entitled "Palestine Exhibition Denied," describing the problems faced by
Dan Walsh in trying to get exhibitions of his large collection of
Palestinian solidarity posters. Walsh has found that on rare occasions
such posters can be exhibited, if "balanced" by an exhibit of Israeli
posters, but they are never considered for exhibit on their own in this
country. But this constraint on free expression has been discussed only
in the Utne Reader, as the same forces that preclude such an exhibit
also rule out the media's considering this a free speech issue.
Similarly, when an America-Jewish journalist with the Kansas City Jewish
Chronicle was fired in January 2001, immediately after publishing "Quest
for Justice," an article by Judith Stone critical of Israeli policy,
this fact flowed through e-mail networks but was not a free speech issue
in the mainstream media. Neither is the incessant pressure that the
pro-Israel lobby and activists exert on the media, that make the press
in Israel itself notably more open and critical of Israeli policy than
the U.S. media. Neither was the firing of Michael Lopez-Calderon from
his job as an elementary school teacher at the Rabbi Alexander S. Gross
Hebrew School in Miami Beach, Florida in February 2001, which resulted
from outside complaints about his writings critical of Israel, despite
the absence of any claim of less than satisfactory teaching performance.
The idea of ad rejection on political grounds being a newsworthy "free
speech" matter is actually comical. Papers and TV stations regularly and
systematically reject ads they find objectionable, often because they
would offend advertisers, but also because they object to the content of
messages from peace groups, labor unions, and others. Adbusters has been
trying for years to get its "Advocacy Uncommercials" on the TV networks,
but without success. When the New York Times ran three major
advertorials in 1993 lauding the North American Free Trade Agreement, it
refused to accept critical ads that would disturb the hugely political
message. A full account of such politically- tainted or
advertiser-protective ad rejections would run to thousands of pages.
Consider also a major violation of freedom of expression such as the
exclusion of Ralph Nader from the national political debate during the
last presidential election. This was immensely important, with national
political significance, but the New York Times found it perfectly OK on
the ground that the differences between Bush and Gore were substantial,
and adequate, in the opinion of the editors (editorial, "Mr.Nader's
Misguided Candidacy," June 30, 2000)! This big time free speech
violation was also perfectly acceptable to the rest of the mainstream
media, so that all their musings and reflections on Horowitz's gambit
stand exposed as hypocritical horseshit.
At a deeper level, reflection on the virtually complete exclusion of
Noam Chomsky, the late Herb Schiller, Walden Bello, Stephen Steinberg
(author of Turning Back), and Samuel Epstein (author of The Politics of
Cancer), among many others, from debates on public policy issues, and
the media's sourcing and accommodation to corporate and state interests
and policy on many key issues, suggests that the problem of "freedom of
speech" in this country is structural and deeply rooted. This is why a
"propaganda model" can explain why the Horowitz gambit becomes a "free
expression" issue, but not the exclusion of Ralph Nader from the
presidential debates.
Not Free Speech
By Michael Albert
In today's other commentary, Ed Herman has laid waste the pretensions of
pundits bleating over the plight of poor abused David Horowitz that they
are sincerely concerned about free speech. But there is more to the
situation^so let^s address another aspect.
Setting aside mainstream media hypocrisy, what is our best response to
Horowitz^s ad entreaties? Should a periodical run his ad or not? And
what else ought to occur?
First, advertisements are not speech. They are a commercial service
wherein an audience is sold to a client. Debates about ads are therefore
miscast as a free speech issue.
Beyond free speech, however, media access is also very important. But
media access should not be a function of the money that one has, and
thus there should be no right to buy media access. That is, in any
desirable society human audiences should not be sold to anyone, in any
manner. There should be no paid ads at all. Nor should media have to
prioritize attracting audiences that advertisers will pay to ^buy.^ Nor
should media have to worry about including only content that paves the
way for successful advertising. But putting aside my preferences for the
future of media, in the current world what norms should apply to taking
and rejecting ads?
Imagine the New York Times rejecting an ad about ending a U.S. War on
the grounds that the Times didn^t like the ad^s content. Anti-war
activists would be outraged. But why? I think it is because the NY Times
and other mainstream newspapers purport to provide their audience with
objective and neutrally assessed news and analysis. They say they have
no ideological norms guiding their choices. In not taking the anti-war
ad, however, they would be violating that claim (as they do daily on
every page, though that^s another matter, of course). An intensifying
factor in our anger at the Times in such a case would be that even if
75% of the country was interested in the anti-war ad^s content and even
if the ad was demonstrably accurate, its critical viewpoint would likely
only be able to get into the Times, or into public visibility at all, by
being a paid ad. Thus, to cut off this option of media access would be
to close the last door to visibility.
Now suppose instead that we are talking about the same ad being
submitted to The Nation (I can^t use Z as an example, because we don^t
take paid ads, only free ones). The Nation would run such an ad, of
course. But suppose the ad submitted to The Nation favored the war.
Would it be incumbent on The Nation to run that ad too? It seems to me
the answer is no. And the reason is because The Nation has made no claim
to its readership to be a neutral delivery system. Rather, The Nation
claims to have a point of view, and since the ad isn^t within the
editorial scope of their stated point of view, it would be a disservice
to their readers to provide it. In other words, the same norms should
apply regarding ads as apply regarding content.
The point is there is no freedom of speech at stake in accepting or
rejecting paid ads. It is not incumbent on a periodical to take paid ads
that it editorially doesn^t like on free speech grounds. On the other
hand, there are journalistic norms having to do with access which may
make it proper to take an ad despite not liking it, whether we are
talking about our hypothetical anti-war ad or about the ad from
Horowitz. The Times should take such ads, period, and clean up their
editorial pages and news to be broad and encompassing of diverse
orientations, too. The Nation should make both its editorial and its
advertising choices in accord with its stated priorities and agenda,
accepting the anti-war ad and rejecting the Horowitz ad. The New
Republic might reasonably opt to do the reverse. But how do these
principles apply to a university newspaper?
Campus papers in most instances probably do claim to provide a neutral
and encompassing look at news and events, being more like the Times in
that respect, than like The Nation. If they instead have a clearly
stated editorial priority, that would be very relevant. But campus
papers also have limited space, skimpy resources, and are meant to serve
the campus community, and so have to make choices among competing
submissions. Solely at the level of journalistic principle, I wouldn^t
get too upset at a campus paper for rejecting Horowitz^s ad, or for
running it.
However, Horowitz is of course despicable and there is nothing that says
that if one runs his ad one can^t also run an editorial, or an article,
or articles that address the same topic. My own take is that the campus
papers should have run the ad, mostly to avoid the obvious trap that
Horowitz had set, but also because it is marginally the more principled
act if they describe themselves as disinterested news vehicles, and then
they should also have run an editorial and a sidebar and related
articles not only on the specific topic of the ad, with many viewpoints
and including a piece like Herman^s, but also articles about Horowitz
himself, properly critical and caustic. This would have been an
infinitely more instructive response to his shenanigans, in my view.
What about students on the campuses? I think pretty much the same thing
goes. A good protest is to demand of the papers that they run an
analysis thoroughly debunking Horowitz's pernicious arguments, not just
run the ad itself. Of course all this takes more work, but it is
worthwhile work.
So, I am a somewhat critical of the editors who refused the ad, thereby
falling into Horowitz^s trap and arguably minimally violating a
reasonable journalistic standard regarding ad access, and I would be
quite critical of any editor who accepted the ad but then didn^t give
space to the broader issues so as to debunk Horowitz and explore
important matters in constructive ways. All in all, though, I don^t
think this imbroglio was very significant compared to the infinite list
of violations of journalistic integrity, responsibility, and just plain
old honesty that are ubiquitous in mainstream journalism all over the
country.
There is, regrettably, however, one more thing to discuss. In the
(online version of) Progressive Magazine of March 18th, its editor,
Matthew Rothschild prominently writes that ads are indeed covered by
free speech norms. More, he tells us that periodicals shouldn^t
editorially judge ad content and that, referring to the editors who
rejected Horowitz^s ad and to the students who demonstrated against the
papers who accepted it, ^to resort to intimidation, to engage in gang
suppression of speech, is an old and discredited tactic of Brownshirts
everywhere.^ Even supposing that one thought that to reject Horowitz^s
ad or to demonstrate against a paper accepting it was wrong, this is
pretty amazing rhetoric. ^Brownshirts?^ That^s the kind of nasty
provocation and slander you^d expect from the likes of Horowitz himself,
surely not from Rothschild.
In any event, the reality is that in this country we very much need
massive and militant demonstrations designed precisely to compel new
mainstream media policies at the New York Times, the Washington Post,
all dailies, the TV networks, and so on and so forth. And these
demonstrations should precisely try to raise pressures and costs to the
people who run these institutions that not only intimidate them, but
that literally coerce them to alter their coverage of all manner of
events and issues. This doesn't mean we bomb the news outlets or
assassinate the reporters who we disagree with; but it does mean using
popular pressure to influence coverage. What is Rothschild talking about
when he tars demonstrating against the choices of a media institution as
being intrinsically tantamount to Nazi rejection of free press or free
speech? I hope he didn't really intend to communicate that because the
reality is that to pressure media in our society is not inherently
anti-free speech, but can instead propel free speech, especially
regarding mainstream media writ large.
Rothschild also says that a periodical should not see itself as making
choices on behalf of its readers. He says of the editors: ^It's not up
to them to shield their readers from ideas that may be `inflammatory` or
to set up shop as censors who are empowered to make decisions on which
ads are `appropriate` and which are `inappropriate^.^ ^They should not
discriminate against advertisers on the basis of their political
beliefs. This is fundamental.^
I am inclined to say how about rejecting crap?, and leaving it at that.
But I think I ought to clarify as well that a publisher is precisely an
institution which gathers or generates from among all possible material
a subset that it deems worthy of its readership. How does it decide what
subset is worthy and what subset isn^t? There will be various norms
involved, depending on the type of periodical and on its editorial
criteria. But shouldn^t the same norms apply inside each periodical for
both its articles and its ads? Why should money (the fee for ads)
somehow trump other norms? And so, would Rothschild publish the Horowitz
ad, or one against abortion, or one for the elimination of child labor
laws ^and even do so without comment^yet reject articles with the same
agenda? Or would Rothschild say, we have readers who expect from us a
progressive slant and approach to presenting news and analysis. They are
entitled to that same level of attention to their desires regarding who
we sell them too. But regardless of what Rothschild would himself say or
decide, to opt for the latter orientation is hardly to put on a Brown
shirt.
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