American Media vs.. European Media

A quick look at CNN news site today (December 22, 2010) shows exactly 2 stories regarding wikileaks out of more than 25 stories. A look at The Guardian of London carried 8 stories which centered on wikileaks revelations and related issues. Given that the wikileaks story is probably much more significant and has a larger impact on the US than on Britain, what are we to make of this? In general, it seems that European media is more likely to cover stories that thrust at the power structure than American media is. It would be foolish to claim that this means that Europeans never have to worry about whether they are getting the full story, it just means they are more likely to have a story covered for them than the average American does.

When we examine what types of correspondents are likely to be employed, we see that the US media does not welcome voices of dissent that challenge those in power. When Chris Hedges gave a commencement address at the start if the Iraq war and spoke about what we could expect, the New York Times took steps to see that he would be fired if he ever spoke out again. The Independent of the UK has employed Robert Fisk for quite some time as a Middle Eastern correspondent despite the fact that he frequently and vehemently makes it known that he does not consider himself “objective” when it comes to the wars that he covers. Fisk has written books openly attacking the power elites of both the US and the UK while maintaining a thriving career as a correspondent. These are very different results.

In his recent book “Death of the Liberal Class”, Chris Hedges describes the media here of being more concerned about spectacle than substance. We can assuredly say that media’s concern over objectivity has become an excuse to not take a stand. Howard Zinn said “Why should we cherish “objectivity”, as if ideas were innocent, as if they don’t serve one interest or another?” When we know that 1+1=2, and someone comes along and says it is actually 37, should we actually have a headline like “Disagreement over mathematics”? It would make more sense to state that one answer is correct and the other is wrong. There are many gray areas in the world, but when we talk about cutting Social Security so that we can give tax breaks to the uber-wealthy, reporters would be perfectly justified in calling the morality of that move into question.

European media is not perfect, it just has not as totally kowtowed to the interests of the powerful and wealthy as the US media has.