On Gatekeepers
I mentioned this in the comments section of the Nico Haupt News post a few below this one, but thought it was interesting enough to pull out to the front page.
One of the constant gripes of the 9-11 Deniers concerns "Lefty Gatekeepers". The theory here is that by barring the gates, famed Leftists like Noam Chomsky, George Monbiot and others, along with Leftist Magazines like The Nation, Counterpunch, etc., are preventing 9-11 Troof from reaching a larger audience. That these people and magazines are barring the gate is undeniable; the reasons are debatable. The nutbars believe that Alexander Cockburn and the Nation are in the pay of the CIA. Sensible people will say that the reason they are barring the gate is because they know that if they embrace 9-11 crackpottery, the mainstream media and conservatives will use any association with the "Truthers" to discredit their movement.
That this is so should pretty evident, because the "mainstream" 9-11 Denial Movement practices gatekeeping themselves. They bar the "no-planers" and the "Star Wars Beam Weapons" from their midst just as fiercely as the Lefty Gatekeepers bar them. And why? Because they know that the mainstream media and conservatives will use any association with the "no-planers" to discredit their movement.
Ironic, no?
Labels: 9-11 "Truth", Lefty Gatekeepers, No-Planers
posted by Pat @ 8:56 AM
27 comments
27 Comments:
Here's another viewpoint:
If there's an ounce of truth about 9/11 being more than the govt. story allows, it is only logical that steps would have been planned and those steps are taken daily to combat the truth coming out.
That there is the irony or craziness that you point toward is really not surprising in the least.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
By the way, that's the fake Nico commenting above.
BG said: If there's an ounce of truth about 9/11 being more than the govt. story allows, it is only logical that steps would have been planned and those steps are taken daily to combat the truth coming out.
I suspect you've worded this deliberately vaguely to give yourself a bit of wiggle room, BG, but do you really believe Monbiot and Chomsky's articles are part of these steps that have been planned?
That would require one of two possibilities. Either those two writers have had a sudden and dramatic change of heart concerning the American government, or their entire, lengthy careers have been the cover for this one operation. Neither, I sumbit, is even remotely plausible.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Der Bruno Stroszek said...
Fair question. I don't have an answer that will prove satisfactory to anyone.
I haven't followed Monbiot closely at all.
In Chomsky's case, he clearly has been coasting for years as a theoretician who needn't be held to account about whether his theories match a particular set of historical facts.
It's not that I think Chomsky or Monbiot are active participants in a conspiracy with overt communication or coordination. Rather, I think they can do their own cost/benefit analysis of taking certain positions, and have quite a bit to lose by taking up a case which is certainly not obvious or proven.
Barrie Zwicker discusses Chomsky in detail in his Book: Towers of Deception.
In terms of pinning down clear collusion in the name of suppressing the truth, I would hold up, as one example, the team behind Popular Mechcanics Mag and the 9/11 Book.
lol. Yes, Bg, Popular Mechanics was in fact founded to suppress truth wherever they may see it. Just like National Geographic. Everyone knows that the REAL purpose of these "scientific" magazines is to brainwash people! I hear Aled Jones say it, so it MUST be true!
Phil, that's a good point, but I think it goes deeper than that. The Lefty media has been pretty diligent about debunking because they see the possibility of this getting a foothold in their community. By contrast, the conservative media have mostly used it as an example of what the kooks are up to now. Kos bans 9-11 crackpottery, but I'm sure that he doesn't ban lots of other CTs, like about Mel Carnahan and Paul Wellstone.
Oh God, how retarded do you people get?
Now the government is running the insurgency? Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Really keeps the sheep in line.
Alex said...
lol. Yes, Bg, Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics is a Hearst owned Publication, acquired in 1958.
Look what Hearst has done in the past.
Durr hurr hurr ad hominem.
I think these people have functioning brains
Have you read Counterpunch lately?
Look what Hearst has done in the past.
More conspiricist claptrap.
Everything has been backed up with scientific facts not guesses and there were well over 300 experts in various fields. Now they say the National Geographic, Popular Mechanics and Scientific American who have been around for a hunderd years or so and have been some of the primere publications for decades, all of a sudden are liers as well as the NIST, the society of civil engineers.
Hey toofers. How a detailed explaination to back up your claims and back it up with real experts and scientific evidence that is equal to what has been put fourth by the real experts?
The conservatives do the same, deliberately "gate keeping" the extremists on the right at bay...for the same reasons.
I think the biggest step the twoof movement could make in a positive direction, would be a huge shift to the LIHOP camp...but it seems to be going the exact opposite.
Oh well, all the better to stamp you out with....
TAM
Popular Mechanics is a Hearst owned Publication, acquired in 1958.
Look what Hearst has done in the past.
lol. you're really something special Bill. Is there ANY conspiracy that's too crazy for you to believe in?
Regarding the "lefty gatekeeper" issue:
I don't think it even goes to the point of making a value judgment on the rightness/wrongness of the claims. I think this whole issue is about the difference of standards between conspiracy journalism and real journalism.
Conspiracy journalism fails to meet basic fact-checking standards that real journalists must do before they can run with a story.
How many times have we investigated some conspiracy claim only to find out that it's quote-mined, badly taken out of context, falsified, uncorroborated, or can be only found on other conspiracy websites?
I'll give you a perfect example, from an earlier discussion on this blog: The BG Mystery. The conspiracy journalist immediately jumped to the desired conclusion (which was speculation, anyway) and ran the story, when five minutes of Googling would have shown there was nothing to it. No professional media organization would have allowed this story to run. Because they're gatekeepers? No, because they're trying to do their job competently.
There's also the small matter of liability. The conspiracy crowd routinely makes all kinds of wild accusations that would get their asses sued off in the real world. If you're going to accuse major political figures of involvement in mass murder, you'd damn well better have some solid evidence. Analyses of grainy YouTube videos by third-rate philosophy professors and pot-smoking film school dropouts do not qualify.
Journalists come from all races, genders, ages, upbringings, and political views. To suggest that ALL of these incredibly diverse people are part of some massive conspiracy against you is light-years beyond asinine. And the "corporate ownership" complaint doesn't work either. Despite relaxed FCC rules on TV/radio station ownership, there's still an awful lot of different groups that have media holdings, and all kinds of people who have input into the process. And the Twoofers can't get one mainstream newspaper, one local TV news host, or one non-conspiracy radio station to take their claims seriously. Why is that, exactly?
One other thing: Even in a 9th grade journalism class, one of the first things they teach you is how to determine what's newsworthy and what is not. In other words, "Gatekeeping" is part of the job description. When the CTs complain about it, they're betraying their ignorance about the field of journalism.
That these people and magazines are barring the gate is undeniable; the reasons are debatable.
Which makes a truther's reason just
vaid as anyone elses.
What historical reference would justify claiming possible CIA/Govt. involvement in the media?
Well you all know the term! Operation Mockingbird! I suppose you could throw in COINTELPRO as well for that matter.
Hell even Bush said in a public address he was going to do something about conspiracy theories what better way than attempt to silence the outlets through a phone call here, a political favor there?
How pompus is it to claim to know why editors choose to allow or not allow articles and stories to be published online or in print anyway?
Conspiracy journalism fails to meet basic fact-checking standards that real journalists must do before they can run with a story.
That truly is amazing. If that is the case, how can so many books be published without a host of lawsuits following the publication??
Trite, who makes the final decision on a stories publication anyway?
Other examples of 'gate keeping'Fox affilliate story that was squashed by the higher ups at Fox about Monsanto and their antics with milk?
Or the Fox news story about the massive Israeli spy ring that was posted for a few days and then Orwelled?
Time magazine's editor delaying the story about the Cuban Missile Crisis per JFK's request.
Or the MSM glaring support for the War in Iraq without any critical reporting about the reasons.
There our numerous examples of press self-censorship(gate keeping) where the facts are correct, the media outlets legal review team certifies the material, but the end result is a silence of the story by the editors for political reasons.
That has been the case since writers had to seek permission by the editiors to run a story.
CHF said...
OK bg...let's pretend that explains PM's view on 9/11.
What about the world's engineers?
I agree that you have a strong point here. The lack of any significant truth telling in the engineering community is a puzzle I can't explain.
Triterope said.....the BG mystery
Here's what I posted in regard to this.
Lumping-in Alex Constantine with other 9/11 Truthers is not reasonable. Alex is clearly pulling stuff out of his butt.
Swing wrote: Blah blah blah CIA blah blah blah Operation Mockingbird blah blah blah COINTELPRO blah blah blah Bush has silenced the media.
Swing also wrote: How pompus [sic] is it to claim to know why editors choose to allow or not allow articles and stories to be published online or in print anyway?
Jesus wrote: Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Fox affilliate story that was squashed by the higher ups at Fox about Monsanto and their antics with milk?
Or the Fox news story about the massive Israeli spy ring that was posted for a few days and then Orwelled?
Time magazine's editor delaying the story about the Cuban Missile Crisis per JFK's request.
Or the MSM glaring support for the War in Iraq without any critical reporting about the reasons.
These are four completely different issues.
Fox/Monsanto: a case of an advertiser applying pressure to prevent a negative story from running. There have been several similar cases over the years. There is much discussion in the journalistic world about the relationship between business and media, and how (or even if) a corporate media can serve the public interest.
JFK/Cuba: News Embargo. Happens all the time.
Mainstream media "glaring support for Iraq war": Perceived bias on your part. It's funny, all the hawks I know are constantly whining about the the mainstream media's glaring opposition to the Iraq war. Why don't you guys get together and work out who the media is biased against, and get back to me.
Israeli Spy Ring: Hard to say, since I'm not familiar with the case, and I'm inclined not to believe what I read on the web about it, since it all comes from websites that are pro-Israel, anti-Israel, conspiracy, or governmental.
So I'll just say that yes, sometimes news stories are quashed after the fact if they are found to be incorrect, lacking adequate support, or otherwise wrong. See also, "Flight 93 landed in Cleveland." It doesn't always mean there's a conspiracy to suppress the subject matter, though that's how the CT crowd always interprets it.
I will say, however, that news media should own up to their mistakes rather than just making them disappear like this.
Hell, I watched ESPN "Orwell" a story about SMU (a college) joining Conference USA (a collegiate athletics conference) in 2000. It was on the front page of ESPN.com, but vanished without explanation when SMU did not, in fact, receive an invitation to join the conference at that time. If conspiracy theorists were concerned about such things, they would view this as an effort to conceal some secret truth, rather than a simple case of an unconfirmed story getting out when it shouldn't have.
What have we learned from all this? Well, I think we've learned that "gatekeeper" is a meaningless term, a perjorative that people use when their pet cause isn't getting the media coverage they think it deserves. The term implies a conspiratorial effort to keep certain news items out of mass media discussion.
Swing Dangler gave four examples of alleged gatekeeping, all four of which turned out to be common ethical situations in journalism: corporate pressure on news reporting; the practice of news embargos; perceived political bias in the media; and the handling of erroneous stories.
There is certainly much debate about how these matters should be handled. But it's simplistic, childish, and dismissive of reality to view all these scenarios as evidence of a massive media conspiracy.
I feel like going out on a pithy quote here, so here's the last line of the classic essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics":
"We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well."
Heh, I love Hofstadter. Surprising he doesn't get quoted around here more often - it's not as if we don't have excuses to, after all...
Thanks Trite, that was a breath of fresh air.
Trite that is an excellent analysis. Perhaps I have a different definition about what Gatekeeping is than you do.
I don't think there is an all pervasive media conspriacy surrouding 9/11 as some outlets have treated the issue in a somewhat fair and balanced manner.
The Israeli Spy Ring was published on FOX News home website by Carl Cameron. It wasn't a anti-Israeli/Zionist thing at all.
I actually saved all 5 pages of the story on my harddrive which was a good thing.
To dodge my post you left out political pressure on the media in your final assessment of my example.
Swing Dangler gave four examples of alleged gatekeeping, all four of which turned out to be common ethical situations in journalism: corporate pressure on news reporting; the practice of news embargos; perceived political bias in the media; and the handling of erroneous stories.
I do agree about the media biased issue as it will never be solved.
I'm more inclined to believe that the media sways with public opinion after that opinion is formed, but in the meantime will parrot the government.
However, in a historical study, I think you will find that the media serves as the Governments parrot, until the public's attitude shifts.
The case I gave was the Iraq War. I would love to be able to find a MSM outlet who actively critized the run-up to the war or lead an investigation into the war instead of repeating the Government's lies about the reasons.
If you have any links I would
greatly appreciate it.
Your definition of gatekeeper in media and it's ties to conspiracy is in accurate. Isn't Editor synomonous with gatekeeper? Doesn't the editor have the final say on what is read or broadcast?
Enterain if you will this story:
Confessions of a Media Gatekeeper
Five Days Left to Have Your Contribution Matched
By Bill Conroy
2004 Narco News Authentic Journalism Professor
June 17, 2004
I am part of the commercial media. I guard one of its many gates.
I can trace my journalism career over 22 years and across four states—Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arizona and now Texas.
Currently, I’m the editor of a weekly business journal in South Texas. That paper is part of a chain that is controlled by one of the largest media companies in the country.
Over the years, I have held down a number of mainstream jobs, working for an auto-racing newspaper, a daily newspaper, and several other business journals. I also have kept a hand in the alternative media market. In fact, I was part of a crew that helped launch two alternative newspapers in Milwaukee—including the weekly Shepherd-Express.
More recently, I have been a contributor to Narco News, which several weeks ago published the final installment of my book, Borderline Security: A Chronicle of Reprisal, Cronyism and Corruption in the U.S. Customs Service.
On the home front, I have a beautiful wife, four kids (ages 11 to 21), and a heart-felt family commitment.
I grew up in a blue-collar union home and was the first to graduate from college. Although my values are clearly working class, I’ve always felt between worlds, never quite fitting into the blue-collar or white-collar molds. So, pursuing a career in the media was attractive to me, because when I got out of school in the mid-1980s, journalism was still one of the last white-collar “trades” around.
True, nepotism was rife in the business, but if you had the skill and desire, you could still succeed — regardless of your pedigree. And hell, it was a writing job! Plus, the journalism trade, at the time, seemed to attract an eclectic mix of free-thinking misanthropes and hard-drinking iconoclasts—which meant I would fit right in.
Much has changed since then, of course. The past two decades have been marked by a super-charged consolidation of media ownership. You have to look long and hard today to find any media outlet that isn’t part of a large conglomerate. That has led to what I like to call the “Stalinization” of the media.
I wrote something a while back that put it this way:
“...Journalism as an institution is Stalin. Everyone who obeys Stalin gets to stay in, gets to work there, gets to make all their money and write all their garbage and use monosyllabic tongue and keep everything in the normal, in the status quo, so nothing gets ruffled, so Stalin can keep the government going.
“All the people who want to go against the grain and push at their words to make a point, or to get some feeling into their writing, are all ostracized or purged, just like Stalin would do.”
That’s a pretty grim assessment, I admit. But most mainstream journalists, if they are honest with themselves, would have to admit that the fast-track to success inside this business isn’t found by pursuing stories that threaten to rock the bottom-line, status-quo boat of the media conglomerates. (Al Giordano is not going to be editing the New York Times anytime soon is my guess.)
With that said, it must be stressed that there are still many talented and honest journalists working in the mainstream media. It’s just that the best of them have committed career suicide by choosing to follow the path of the authentic journalist.
But I also think those who are on that path would agree that it’s worth the price you pay. Because, like Martin Luther King Jr. said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
What is authentic journalism? More importantly, why should you care?
Well, consider the fact that what the commercial media offer you is an approximation of reality, or life in a frame. Mainstream news is filtered through people like me, a newspaper gatekeeper, who determine what you read, view and hear about the world around you.
If you read my newspaper, you read what I, and other gatekeepers like me, decide you should read. Of course, if you don’t like what I put in my newspaper, you can always choose to read another paper, or so the theory goes.
It could be argued that formula did work, to some degree, several decades ago, when there was far more diversity in media ownership and true competition. Unfortunately, with the hyper-consolidation of the media, every paper now works the same way—offering you a homogenous mix of news tailor-written for brand-driven market niches.
That milk-toast hegemony in the mainstream media is not the product of a conspiracy, liberal or otherwise. It is made possible through simple organizational dynamics.
Corporate-owned media are operated through an intricate system of gatekeepers who are aligned in a hierarchical order and who keep a close watch on the keys to the gates. And at the highest levels of this gate-keeping system, the line between doing good journalism and making lots of money is so thin that it is easily crossed over by those who put greed before honor.
This gate-keeping system also has another drawback. Gates are of no use without fences, and fences are built to keep people out. The best way for the media barons to shore up their fences is to get some hired guns to keep guard on the property. It’s even better if you can get the sheriff (FCC, etc.) to help out—never mind that a free press belongs to all, as do the airwaves.
That’s why the people have come to “hate” the media. They hate its empire of fences.
But where there are no fences, there’s no need for gatekeepers; more to the point, when the existing fences begin to fall, so, too, does the media barons’ empire.
Make no mistake about it. The current mainstream media structure is not likely to go away anytime soon; it’s too profitable. But businessmen aren’t journalists, and they shouldn’t be treated as such, nor should information vital to a functioning democracy be treated like a commodity, like so much beef to be bought and sold in a marketplace of fences.
In my mind, authentic journalism may be the last best hope to create a media landscape that is not based solely on fences, barons and gatekeepers.
This summer, Narco News is once again sponsoring the School of Authentic Journalism. The event brings together investigative journalists from all over the world who, like me, have agreed to donate their time and money to have the opportunity to both teach and learn about the “authentic” path of journalism.
For me, the school is a chance to spend a week or so with some of the most talented journalists in the world to help formulate a strategy for fostering a better kind of journalism, one not dependent on gatekeepers who have hitched their careers to the nearest conglomerate; one that truly serves the people—not the bottom line, niche audiences, or streams of advertising.
In order to pull this vision off, however, the people have to help make it happen. In part, this is a numbers game. The more people trained as authentic journalists, the more people there are to spread the people’s gospel, if you will.
In my case, I’m fortunate, in that I have a job that allows me to come up with the nearly $1,500 it will take to get me to Bolivia for a week or so. However, not everyone seeking to attend the Authentic School of Journalism has the ability to get there without a little financial assistance.
We journalists always keep the deadline in mind: To make sure that all the three-dozen scholars – chosen through a very intense application process (I know; in 2002 I applied for the 2003 session) will also arrive at this gathering, less than five days remain of the “matching grant” offer: the handful of hours left of today, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (deadline at midnight), to get your donation “matched” (doubling the amount) by the Tides Foundation’s Fund for Drug Policy Reform.http://www.narconews.com/Issue33/
article1001.html
Trite that is an excellent analysis.
Thank you.
Perhaps I have a different definition about what Gatekeeping is than you do.
Maybe. I just don't think it's a useful term. It's too vague. I think more specific criticisms, like "biased" or "uncritical" or "not serving the public interest" or "beholden to their corporate masters" are more useful.
I actually saved all 5 pages of the (Israeli Spy Ring) story on my harddrive which was a good thing.
I agree. Even if this was a simple mistake of Fox News letting an unverified story run, they should be held accountable for it.
To dodge my post you left out political pressure on the media in your final assessment of my example.
Two responses here:
First: alleging that the story was killed due to political pressure is jumping to conclusions on your part. My aim was to show how news stories can run and then be retracted for innocuous reasons, not the least of which is that the story is later disproven. Both the Flight 93/Cleveland and the SMU/C-USA story were examples of this.
I'm not saying that's the case with the Israeli Spy Story. I don't know. I'm just offering it as a possibility.
I don't necessarily agree with your view on this story, but I'm not going to butt heads with you on it because I understand your position. Given the nature of the story, I don't blame you for being suspicious about its disappearance. And as I said earlier, I don't like it when news organizations try to make stories disappear. If they made a mistake in releasing it, they should own up to it.
My second response to the above: Don't be so quick to assume that journalists will fold to "political pressure." They're not the type. In fact, many people get into the profession because they want to expose that sort of wrongdoing.
Journalistic history is replete with reporters who stood by their stories in the face of all kinds of pressure. Some have even gone to jail rather than reveal their sources. If all it took to kill a story was "political pressure", we wouldn't know about Watergate. Or Barry Bonds' steroid habits. Or countless other scandals. Check out the Pulitzer Prize winners for Investigative Reporting. Note how many of these news stories led to major reforms, to powerful men being removed from office, or had other important political impacts.
And there are countless small-scale examples. My college journalism professor told this story: one day he was in a diner, when two elected officials walked in and started talking about all kinds of embarassing things. Under state law, any meeting between two elected officials was considered a public meeting, which meant it could be observed or recorded by anyone. So he attended the "public meeting", wrote down everything they said, and put a shocking story in the paper the next day. The politicians sued my professor. They lost. The courts upheld the newspaper's right to run the story. And local politicians became a teensy bit more cautious about what they discussed in public. The public interest was served.
So don't be so quick to assume that "political pressure" can instantly get a news story deleted. It can happen, of course, but there are many other examples of news repoters bucking a corrupt system. That's their job, after all.
Isn't Editor synomonous with gatekeeper? Doesn't the editor have the final say on what is read or broadcast?
Not necessarily. You seem to be suggesting that editors are the ones with all the power, to decide what runs and what doesn't. Well, editors have bosses too, and I've seen stories that were 86ed from higher levels in the organization. As I said earlier, a lot of people are involved in the process.
I'm more inclined to believe that the media sways with public opinion after that opinion is formed, but in the meantime will parrot the government.
However, in a historical study, I think you will find that the media serves as the Governments parrot, until the public's attitude shifts.
The problem with an inquiry like this is that the bias you're testing for is hard to define. What constitutes "parroting the government"? Any study of this sort would have to have operational definitions, and those definitions would influence your final statistics. It's hard to nail down.
Believe me, I've tried. In a college course I did a big project on media bias. At the end, I realized that if I went back to the beginning and changed some of the definitions, the final statistics changed wildly.
Here's what I think: journalists are people too. They don't materialize here from another planet. They are part of the group of people that is represented in polls that say 83% support the Iraq war, or 27%, or whatever it is. So it shouldn't be surprising when newspaper opinion pieces tend to mirror nationwide feelings.
Enterain if you will this story:
I did entertain it, and I think there's a lot of truth to it. I discovered this in radio. Corporations prefer bland and inoffensive to brilliant and dangerous. They'd rather have Scott Lame than Howard Stern. Bland and inoffensive delivers a consistent number of readers/listeners/whatever. Brilliant and edgy could go either way. It's risky. Large companies like to manage risk. They prefer the sure thing. This is fine when we're talking about mutual funds, but media is supposed to serve the public interest is well. I fear that efforts to minimize offensiveness by minimizing controversial content have sadly blunted the power of radio. This is a legitimate criticism of mass media, and one I'm definitely on board with. "Empire of fences" is a good metaphor for it. When I worked in radio, I quickly became frustrated with all the levels of bureaucracy I had to answer to to do the tamest of comedy bits.
However...
New media remove a lot of these concerns. Anyone can have a website, anyone can have a blog, anyone can have a podcast without having to answer to Clear Channel or any such corporate giant.
Anybody can be media. And I think this power isn't being used as well as it could be. I know this "power of the Internet" talk sounds very 1995, but it's true. Many of the best and most famous Internet sites, from Fark to Daily Kos, are grassroots in nature. And that's a good thing. I'm a big-tent guy. I'm glad that something like Loose Change can exist, even if I disagree with its message.
P.S. I really hope someone gets the Scott Lame reference.
Bill Giltner: "Alex Constantine is clearly pulling things out of his butt."
This explains where you came from. You "debunk" me in a general way, I look at your public statement, and essentially, YOU AGREE WITH ME. I QUOTE BG: "... There may be QUESTIONS about the reports [a witness to the Comair crash] provided to media, e.g. whether they CONFLICT. There may be other QUESTIONABLE coincidences or cause of the crash."
In other words, the witness is "questionable," as I stated - the very reason that you have excoriated me.
You're full of it, Bill. Many on the Net do not consider you competent or trustworthy - you know the sort of statements that I could post - and now I have to agree with them.
I've even been good to you in the past. In return, you treat me to a false and unsupportable accusation - I sand by my words, asshole. You haven't shown them to be anything but accurate - you even confirmed them, dumbo.
- AC
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