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Media Matters
March 21, 2003
Which Anti-War Stories Is NPR Not Covering?
By Jeffrey A. Dvorkin
Ombudsman
National Public Radio
Last week's column looked at the apparent imbalance on NPR between pro- and anti-war commentators. In counting up the points of view of various commentators, NPR appeared to be allowing more voices to reflect anti-war sentiment. When the opinions expressed were pro-administration, it was often grudging support and not entirely without moral reservations.
But other listeners -- and there are a lot of them -- are concerned that the American media in general and NPR in particular are ignoring important stories... stories that may put the Bush administration in a bad light.
So in the spirit of evenhandedness, which stories do listeners from the anti-war side say NPR ignores?
First, it should be noted that many listeners also tune in to the BBC and read the European newspapers on their Web sites. They note that some of these stories get huge play in the European media, especially in the British press, compared to NPR and the other U.S. media.
Questioning the Evidence?
Eugene Schubert of Green Bay, Wisconsin, writes to ask about reports that the administration has given forged or unverified documents to Congress to justify an invasion of Iraq.
An investigation should at a minimum help to allay any concerns that the government was involved in the creation of the documents to build support for administration policies, (West Virginia Senator Jay) Rockefeller wrote in a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller. Rockefeller asked the FBI to determine the source of the documents, the sophistication of the forgeries, the motivation of those responsible, why intelligence agencies didn't recognize them as forgeries and whether they are part of a larger disinformation campaign.
Hearing the Skeptical Voices?
Marion Fraleigh writes to ask why we did not report the speech by Senator Robert Byrd -- also of West Virginia -- from February 12. Senator Byrd spoke passionately about the failure of the Senate even to debate whether the country should go to war. (Read Byrd's remarks).
Eugene Marner wondered why NPR did not report a speech given by former President Bush?
The Times of London reported today (March 10) that the first President Bush spoke at Tufts University and said that the United States should not go to war against Iraq unilaterally, and that it will be impossible to win the peace without multilateral and U.N. support.
Assessing All The Dangers?
Larry Stevens from Sitka, Alaska, writes that NPR has repeated the Pentagon position that the use of depleted uranium in artillery and other ordnance is not a danger to U.S. troops.
Science Friday, with Ira Flatow, dealt with this issue on March 14. The program interviewed Dr. Michael Kilpatrick from the Defense Department. He said that concerns about the effects of depleted uranium as a cause of "Gulf War syndrome" were unjustified. Science Friday also interviewed Dr. Stephen Hunt, director of the Gulf War Veterans Clinic in Washington State. Dr. Hunt spoke about what he believes to be the dangerous effects of depleted uranium on Gulf War veterans.
Interpreting the Polls
Some listeners are also concerned about how NPR reports opinion polls.
Specifically, many listeners object to Cokie Roberts' repeated references to broad national support for President Bush being validated by the polls as on Morning Edition on March 17:
EDWARDS: George Bush puts a premium on leadership as an important trait. Do you think Americans are willing to go into this war against Iraq because of his leadership?
ROBERTS: Basically yes. Today there is a Gallup Poll out that says, by a 2:1 ratio, Americans favor invading Iraq with U.S. ground troops to get Saddam Hussein out of power. And the president's approval rating in his handling of the Iraq situation is 56 percent. Now that's after all of these demonstrations. That's after the collapse of conversations in the United Nations Security Council. So what you have here is people rallying around behind the president. And when you ask why, the answer keeps coming back to terrorism; that there is a sense that Iraq really is a serious threat to this country because of the ability of Saddam Hussein to provide weapons to terrorists and that is straight from the president's mouth. So I think that it is -- what you are seeing here is people listening to President Bush and his advisers as they go out and talk to the American people via the airwaves and saying, `Yes, he's our leader. We agree.'
But many listeners such as J.P. Partland say they don't agree:
On Monday, March 17th's Morning Edition, Cokie Roberts stated that there is a Gallup Poll out that indicates strong support for invading Iraq. I found this rather hard to believe. While I couldn't find the Gallup Poll she mentioned, I found that Gallup had a press release indicating that support for the war wasn't terribly strong and that many were waiting for the U.N. to support the idea. (See the latest findings from Gallup)
Up To Their "Dirty Tricks"?
One story that has received enormous coverage in the U.K. and has been largely ignored in the United States, involves a supposedly leaked U.S. intelligence document. The document was published by the London Observer and is said to come from the National Security Agency. (Read The London Observer's story)
This NSA document says that many delegations at the United Nations are being bugged by U.S. intelligence. The Observer claims that this is done to know whether those delegations would support the United States in its (now abandoned) quest for a vote to invade Iraq.
Eric Kollenberg says:
I was surprised that I have heard no NPR coverage of this story. I'm curious as to why. That's not a rhetorical question, and I'm not trying to make any particular point; I'm honestly curious. Were you unaware of it? Is the story simply not true? Can it not be verified?
As far I can tell, only three U.S. journalistic organizations made mention of the story in the Observer: The Washington Post, Pacifica's Democracy Now and NPR's On The Media. Pacifica took the story at face value, while others dismissed the claims as an example of "dirty tricks." Some U.N.-based reporters shrugged it off with a "So what? Everyone bugs everyone else at the U.N." approach.
The story had a number of fascinating details to it: it purported to be a leaked document from one of American intelligence's most obscure agencies. It first appeared in the Observer written in "British" English (e.g., "-isation" endings, etc.). When this was pointed out to the paper, the story immediately appeared on its Web site in "American" English.
Matt Drudge denounced the story as a forgery, but other sources in the intelligence community said it was not. But the European media went crazy over this story. They say it proves that the U.S. media have lost the ability to function as a critic in wartime.
Other stories have been much more prominently reported in Europe than on NPR:
• Hans Blix's allegations that the United States' evidence about the presence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction appears forged.
• The administration's allegations of links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
• Vice President Cheney's insistence that Iraq is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons even though the director of the International Atomic Energy Commission, Mohammed El-Baradei, says "there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities."
• President Bush's statement that a "liberated Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region." But the same day that the President was delivering that message, the State Department released a research document that questions that theory because "history runs counter to it."
Journalistic Differences Between Europe and America?
David Greenberg, writing in The Washington Post on March 16, says that the journalistic and cultural gap between Europe and America is never greater than in times of national crisis. Greenberg is a visiting scholar at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His impressive article tends to see the side of the Europeans in this, claiming that our cultural blind spots are serious problems for American journalists. Greenberg says that American journalism has not successfully moved past what happened here on Sept. 11, 2001:
Overseas, however, events since Sept. 11 have led people in the opposite direction. Suspicion of US motives has escalated; willingness to cut the Bush Administration some slack has plunged. Where Americans' trust in their leaders seems distressingly, high as if the Nixon years have been forgotten, foreigners' faith in us is troublingly low. In that divide lie the roots of our irreconcilable takes on the news, and our contrary fears for the future.
NPR has done well in making sure that the debate over Iraq has been well informed. But NPR needs to do more to make sure that it is not perceived to be a news service of "missing information" (to paraphrase Bill McKibben). In times of national crisis, it may be just as valuable to recognize the concerns of listeners, even when the source of those concerns come from abroad or when some of the information remains obscure or even contradictory at best.
Listeners may contact me at 202-513-3246 or at ombudsman@npr.org.
Jeffrey Dvorkin
NPR Ombudsman
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