The Ayman Mohyeldin Thing at NBC

I was quite struck by Ayman Mohyeldin's reporting from Gaza for Al Jazzera during the horrid Cast Lead operation by Israel against Gaza; he was intrepid, obviously trying to true and accurate reporting, and he was clearly affected by the carnage he witnessed and the lies of the Israelis about it. All of this made for compelling news.

Later, he was assigned to the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo, and he appeared to be one of the only reporters on the scene who actually knew what was going on, who the major players were, and who could conduct his investigations in native Arabic and thus get closer to the truth than most other reporters. Richard Engel also speaks Arabic and has been widely respected for his reporting on events in the Middle East, but Ayman was able to get even closer to the principals and the action.

Ayman was on Democracy Now! in 2010 and gave a fairly comprehensive account of his background.

When Ayman joined NBC News, apparently at a huge increase in salary, his reports were somewhat less intense and frequent, but they were sometimes more informative and often quite personal, making the people he featured into real and very human, mostly victims, of the carnage unleashed upon them.

The other day, he was a witness to the slaughter of four children on a Gaza beach and the wounding of several more in front of his hotel. He helped to rescue and treat the survivors. He reported quite passionately what he saw and did during the incident, and his reports were widely considered outstanding first-hand accounts of a terrible tragedy.

Strangely, though, his reports were not featured on NBC Nightly News, in fact, there was not mention of him. Richard Engel, reporting from Tel Aviv was made the lead reporter on the story, a story which was covered extensively on the program, and during which Engel appeared to report accurately and pulled no punches, using footage shot by Ayman's team.

It was just that Ayman himself was missing from the story and the reporting. It seemed odd to say the least.

The next day, Glenn Greenwald reported that Ayman had been abruptly "pulled from Gaza" by an NBC executive and was not being permitted to report on the story any more. The story of the 4 children killed on the beach in Gaza was modified to include Israeli defenses of it, and eventually the story was all but scrubbed, or at least was no longer featured on news cycles.

Down the Memory Hole?

Or something even more sinister? Observers noted that as the story of the children killed on the beach faded, more and more Israel-centric stories appeared, often with no recognition of a Palestinian point of view, and featuring intense denunciations of Palestinians/Hamas to the exclusion of any reporting on the miseries and death the Palestinians -- especially in Gaza --  are enduring as a result of Israeli operations and bombardments. As the death toll rises, the victims more and more are being dehumanized and blamed.

As a rule, Engel has not engaged in that kind of reporting, and to the extent I know anything about it, Ayman never did.

Many are questioning Ayman's removal from Gaza reporting for NBC, but if I recall correctly, he was also expelled by the Israelis from Gaza during the Cast Lead operation and had to report from the border fence rather than from inside Gaza. Engel is widely respected in the field, so he's not the worst replacement for Ayman under the circumstances. The issue is that Ayman was replaced at all without explanation or reason given. He was just gone suddenly, completely and inexplicably.

Of course Greenwald is speculating on motives the way he does, but NBC is keeping mum, and apparently Mohyeldin has been successfully gagged.

Americans have fewer and fewer reliable sources of news from areas of conflict, and while he was reporting from Gaza, Ayman Mohyeldin was one of the few whose reports could be considered both informative and accurate. While I wouldn't consider Richard Engel to be a complete propagandist and tool, he does have a very different approach, one that is based in a certain viewpoint about the United States and its role in the Middle Eastern conflicts (not necessarily a positive one, but one that starts from the American viewpoint) and so his focus tends to be less involved with the realities of Palestinian life under siege and attack -- which was a specialty of Mohyeldin's -- and more how it all looks from an American perspective.

Some of Ayman's reports before he was pulled:

Innocent and Gone: Israeli Strike on Gaza Kills Four Children

All in with Chris Hayes

 Andrea Mitchell Reports

He also Tweeted extensively about the events he witnessed and provided numerous images on his Instagram account.

By now, we all know that commercial as well as much alternative news is very tightly controlled in the West and the United States in particular in order to promote a particular version of events; we could go into extraordinary detail about how our "news" is often intended not so much to inform as it is to shape opinion and promote propaganda, to set narratives, and to extend the power of elites. 

Ayman was not immune from the pressures to conform to those interests, but his reporting was a distinct contrast to those who saw their role as one to support rather than challenge or provide other insights than the dominant narrative (which we have notices is nearly universal throughout the media).

Ayman Mohyeldin's reporting was actually a small portion of a whole, and his removal doesn't affect that whole to any great extent. What it does is narrow the narrative NBC has been marketing. That's a business decision that will mean that the public which relies on NBC News will have less information by which to understand events in the Middle East, and the less information they have, the more closely the public opinion can be manipulated.

The more we see this happening, the fewer alternative points of view we have to consider. 

None of this is new, but to see it again, so starkly, is more than a little disturbing.

I'm sure we will see more examples as time goes by and the grip of the oligarchs tightens. 

----------------------------------------
UPDATE: According to word out of NBC, breathlessly announced and spread via internet outlets, Mohyeldin will be returning to Gaza this weekend. NBC's announcement is terse and uninformative, the way they tend to be, but Mohyeldin twitted thus:

 

Thanks for all the support. Im returning to #Gaza to report. Proud of NBC's continued commitment to cover the #Palestinian side of the story
— Ayman Mohyeldin (@AymanM) July 18, 2014

There is a good deal of high stepping blogger triumphalism at the moment, but exactly what happened is still as murky and mysterious as ever, and we will likely never know the full story.

1954

While I was rearranging some of the books here, I pulled out the Unicorn Book of 1954, a sort of yearbook of outstanding events of the year. It was a fairly significant year and all, what with H-bombs and Dienbienphu, the Army-McCarthy hearings, Brown v Board of Education, and endless crime.

Given yesterday's post about The Narrative and how news has to track The Narrative no matter what the facts show, I was fascinated by some of the items in this popular history tome from more than half a century ago, especially the strong parallels between the way, say, Eisenhower's approach to the Presidency was reported in almost identical terms to those used to describe Obama's approach.

For example:

In a series of messages to congress in January, 1954, Eisenhower proudly presented what he called a “dynamic, forward-looking program.” To his surprise, it was much criticized as well as much praised. “It was as dynamic as the dodo, “ said Democrat Sam Rayburn, House Minority Leader, “and as forward-looking as yesterday.”

Economically, the program was conservative, though it did urge the extension of unemployment insurance and social security. “In a modern industrial society, “ Eisenhower declared, “banishment of destitution and cushioning the shock of personal disaster on the individual are proper concerns of all levels of government.”

Democrats joked. “The Eisenhower administration, “ said Representative Richard Bolling of Missouri, “has just ratified the New Deal.”

“I thought we voted for a change,” cried Republican Senator John Marshall Butler of Maryland.

“If this is the policy of the Republican Party, “ said John W. Bricker of Ohio, “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

This was hardly the unity the President had expected on his middle-of-the-road program, which he thought would attract both liberals and conservatives. It was Eisenhower’s earnest desire to be considered “President of all the people” -- all 163 million of them -- regardless of party or faction. The ideal fetched up against one hard reality: people do not think alike. As Mr. Eisenhower discovered, no President could be above all controversy.

How very much this Narrative resembles the current one. To continue:

After enunciating his domestic policies early in the year, Eisenhower at first pursued a hands-off-Congress program. He felt it was his job as President to recommend legislation but the job of Congress to enact it. When reporters asked about specific bills, he referred them to recommendations made by Cabinet members, adding: "Now the job is up to Congress."

He sincerely believed he could get on with "the toughest job on Earth" by quiet behind-the-scenes patience. He believed that reasonable men in the executive departments and in Congress could and would work together to solve problems logically, on the basis of facts and in line with national welfare.

Indeed. It should be so simple, shouldn't it? Why isn't it?

His friend, General George ("Blood and Guts") Patton, a careful planner as well as a dashing military leader, once pointed to a piece of boiled spaghetti on a table top.

"Suppose," said Patton, "you want to move the spaghetti across the table. If you get behind and push, you'll get nowhere, no matter how much you huff and puff. But if you get in front of it and pull gently but firmly, the spaghetti is far more likely to slide across the table in an orderly manner."

Congress moved slowly. Reluctantly, Eisenhower began to act more like a practical politician, pulling as well as pushing. He was giving "spaghetti" leadership a whirl.

Eisenhower took office in January, 1953. So he'd been in office a year when these passages were written. The frustrations the chattering and political classes had with Eisenhower are very similar to the frustrations expressed by Republicans and Democrats -- and the chatterati -- about Barack Obama. The Narrative seems to be that Presidents who don't act boldly and decisively from the outset are to be criticized and/or dismissed as worthless occupants of the office.

George W. Bush was actually going through this period of criticism and dismissal for lack of decisiveness and bold action (remember his "agony" over stem cell research?) prior to the transformative event of the 9/11 attacks, after which, of course, he was hailed the hero.

Eisenhower never had a transformative event like that from which to "lead" the nation through crisis, though the threat of instant incineration and total annihilation was the constant social and political theme of the era. Yet many Americans believe the Eisenhower Era was something of a Golden Age.

And why not? The Narrative told us everything was fine. Getting better. What's to worry? Enjoy. Laugh.

Sunshine

Cloud formations during monsoon weather in Mountainair, NM, August 2008

Since I don't have teevee here and haven't picked up a paper for a while, and since my internet connection is a slow dialup, I'm kind of cut off from the concerns of The World. The News comes from the radio, primarily NPR, but over the weekend, there wasn't a lot of news on the radio. Instead, there were a lot of features, some of which were very interesting (such as the crypto-Jews of Bernalillo), but which didn't really touch on the Big Stories, like the earthquake in Chile.

I've noticed since the weekend that reporters are having to struggle with the difference between their Narrative of What Happened in Chile, and what they're finding on the ground. The First Narrative was that though the earthquake was far more severe in Chile, there was little damage, hardly any compared to Haiti, because the building standards were so much higher in Chile (subtext: they're White, you know). The Narrative insisted that these Chileans were so much calmer and so much better behaved than those dirty Negroes in Haiti, and they were so much better organized to provide the necessary assistance to the affected regions, they didn't really need international assistance. (subtext: so much better to be Chilean than Haitian, what luck, eh?)

The initial reports were coming from Santiago, where apparently some older buildings collapsed, but the newer ones were mostly fine, and everyone was very well behaved, even snarky, about the earthquake and its aftershocks, and this sanguinity was assumed to be the way things were throughout the country.

The major area of damage and disruption was in and around Concepcion, which of course was inaccessible. Nevertheless, because the Narrative said that things were mostly fine in Chile, reporters took their time getting to the region. Besides it was hard. The roads were impassable. Bridges were down. The airport was closed. They had to go through Argentina. It took a while.

But everything was fine.

They saw little damage, and they heard the death toll was modest, a few hundred. Nothing like the massive death toll in Haiti. So it was like sightseeing for the reporters.

Who finally got to Concepcion, and said: WTF?

Damage in some areas was severe. Hundreds of thousands were homeless. There were no services of any kind. The Government was not providing any food or water, no shelter, nothing, and big aftershocks were continuous. Looting had commenced, and some of the reporters were referring to the looters as "gang members," or "gang leaders." The people were angry and frightened.

The military was sent in to establish order and stop the looting. Most of which was food and water from the markets, but some of which was teevees and toaster ovens. Which can't be tolerated, not in a civilized society. The military arrived, and still provided nothing -- except a show of force to keep the people from salvaging food and water and teevees and toaster ovens from the debris.

The reporters were grateful, as they always are, for the military presence to keep the people at bay, but still they were confused, because their Narrative was that there were no serious problems and destruction was modest, and the people were behaving. And that isn't what they were seeing on the ground, and they didn't know how to report it.

Rather than abandon the Narrative, they tried to blend it with what they were seeing with their own eyes and with what they were hearing from the population. Often their reports were hesitant to say the least, as they groped for words to express their understanding of conditions and what was really going on without violating the Narrative they were supposed to be reinforcing.

There was a tsunami, for example, that did terrible damage along the coast, but there was nothing at all said about it for many days, in part, perhaps, because the Narrative said that the tsunami warning was cancelled and people around the Pacific were annoyed and upset that they had had to prepare for a tsunami that never came.

Of course, I understand that my news is filtered through many layers while I'm here, and much of it is fragmentary at best. And of course by now everyone should be aware of how dominant The Narrative is in the news business, for everything, not just major disasters.

But it's still something of a shock to see it so bare in the case of Chile, and to hear how hard it is for reporters to actually report what's going on when what is really going on diverges so much from The Narrative.

So my question is, what will it take to bring the Sunshine of Truth into the news business? Or is it hopeless? Is it necessary to report on the basis of a Received Narrative to begin any big story, and then adjust it as "more facts come in?" Is this the way it has to be? Has it always been this way?

We fret about the propagandistic nature of much of our news. Yet so far, there isn't really another model that has any traction. The alternative media, including the blogging media, provides a different perspective (sometimes) but it is often as locked into its own narrative, and struggles just as hard with the Truth and telling the Truth if the Truth diverges from the Alternative Narrative.

e.g.: The Media Narrative

Our major mass media functions as a propaganda organ as surely as Pravda and Tass once did in the Former Soviet Union. Their main propaganda tool is the Narratives, into which all political and social issues, and all candidates are first divided and then fit.

Jodi Kantor writes such a Narrative piece for the New York Times. In my local paper it was headlined: "Self-Discipline fuels Obama's image as aloof"

You know it is a Narrative piece because of the phrase "Obama's image as aloof." This "issue" does not arise from the People, not from Obama supporters, and not from Obama's critics. The "issue" of Obama's "aloofness" is entirely the media's Narrative about Obama, some of which is derived from Republican talking points, but most of which is adopted throughout the mass media coverage of Obama from a synthesis of pundit observations and reporters' reactions and gossip.

Thus: McCain is the Mavericky Man of the People, a Garrulous and Funny Old Man, Always Available to the Media Covering His Campaign on the Straight Talk Express. They like him.

Obama, on the other hand, is Distant, Aloof, and Presumptuous, Obsessed With Stagecraft and Message Discipline, Ascetic, Messianic, Arrogant and Uppity. Not only does he not know his Place, he's gotten so far Above Himself, ordinary people have no idea Who He Is.

To quote from Kantor:

In the way Mr. Obama has trained himself for competition, he can sometimes seem as much athlete as politician. Even before he entered public life, he began honing not only his political skills, but also his mental and emotional ones. He developed a self-discipline so complete, friends and aides say, that he has established dominion over not only what he does but also how he feels. He does not easily exult, despair or anger: to do so would be an indulgence, a distraction from his goals. Instead, they say, he separates himself from the moment and assesses.

“He doesn’t inhale,” said David Axelrod, his chief strategist.

Indeed. Here we have the Narrative that includes a possible allusion to Celebrity -- by referring to his training as much as an athlete as a politician. Refering to his self-discipline as so "complete ... that he has established dominion over not only what he does but also how he feels" feeds the Narrative of Obama's Messianism. He's an Ascetic because he shows no emotion, for that would be an indulgence and a distraction. He separates himself from the moment. And assesses, as if from On High.

He doesn't inhale? ?? Wuhhh??? (And this from Axelrod, who should know better...)

Or this:

There is little about him that feels spontaneous or unpolished, and even after two books, thousands of campaign events and countless hours on television, many Americans say they do not feel they know him. The accusations of elusiveness puzzle those closest to the candidate. Far more than most politicians, they say, he is the same in public as he is in private.

And somehow this is meant as a Bad Thing. Who are these many Americans who say they don't feel they "know" him? Well, if they exist at all, they are being fed their ignorance by a media that insists nobody really knows this uppity, alien, exotic. Nobody. Nobody can. He is too foreign.

Or here:

Last month, while visiting Jerusalem, Mr. Obama crammed a note in the Western Wall that was promptly fished out and posted on the Internet. The message was elegantly phrased, as if Mr. Obama, a Christian, had anticipated that his private words to the Almighty would soon be on public display.

Crammed, did he? As if in Disrespect for Where He Was? Ah. Of course. He is a, [spit], Christian, [spit], and his words, while "elegantly phrased", obviously were meant for public display. There is no sponteneity here, no private worship of the Lord as Scripture commands. But no. Obama is incapable. Too Full of Himself.

Kantor goes on:

Because he betrays little hint of struggle, Mr. Obama can seem far removed from the troubles of some voters. Older working-class whites may be uncomfortable with his race — he is the son of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya — and his age. But they may also find it hard to identify with him, even though he tries to assure them that they have much in common, mentioning that his mother relied on food stamps at times and that he worked as a community organizer in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. His command of crowds of 75,000, his unfailing eloquence and his comparing himself to Joshua and Lincoln can belie his point.

The point being? That his humble beginnings and his present Celebrity are too diametrically opposite one another. Joe Sixpack cannot relate? A black man who is unfailingly eloquent simply cannot have much in common with the white working class, whereas a bumbletongue like Bush (though born to the Purple) obviously is in his element on the factory floor? What is this crap?

She goes on:

Nearly a decade ago, Mr. Obama joined luminaries like George Stephanopoulos and Ralph Reed for regular seminars, organized by Robert Putnam, a professor at Harvard and the author of “Bowling Alone,” about the deterioration of American community ties. As a young state senator from Illinois, Mr. Obama was one of the less prominent members of the group. But soon everyone was referring to him as “the governor” — a friendly smack, said Mr. Putnam, at Mr. Obama’s precocity and drive.

From an early age, Mr. Obama was taught by his mother to think grandly about his potential to help others. Once he reached adulthood, admiring teachers and mentors reinforced the message, steadily directing his sights higher and higher. As a law student, he mused about wanting to be mayor of Chicago; as a law professor, he talked about running for governor of Illinois; not long after that, he was running for president.

Ah! So he gets it from his mother! I knew it! "Think grandly!" His sights always higher and higher. Wanting this, wanting that, wanting something else. Is there no end to this man's desires?

She's not done:

Both allies and critics sometimes concluded that Mr. Obama was too gifted, or in too much of a hurry, for the tasks that consumed others.

Too gifted, too good, too much of a hurry. Whereas the Former POW and plane crasher McCain is Old and Seasoned, eh? Awaiting his Turn like he should. Like Obama should, but he can't wait. Not him.

Kantor again:

The McCain campaign has seized on this pattern, mocking its opponent as a self-consumed star, even suggesting that he has a messianic complex.

Mr. Obama has heard the accusations before. Long before the presidential race, some around him seemed to resent his ability to galvanize a following. “Bluebooking is not important for celebrities,” fellow students joked about him in the law review parody, referring to the tedious process of checking citations.

As for the messiah accusation, Michael Madigan, the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives and a Democrat, once publicly called Mr. Obama the same thing.

You see! You see! They all say it!

Kantor continues:

If there is one quality that those closest to Mr. Obama marvel at, it is his emotional control. This is partly a matter of temperament, they say, partly an effort by Mr. Obama to step away from his own feelings so he can make dispassionate judgments. “He doesn’t allow himself the luxury of any distraction,” said Valerie Jarrett, a close adviser. “He is able to use his disciplined mind to not get caught up in the emotional swirl.”

As opposed to the towering temper of McCain (and some others we could name.) So we are supposed to infer than a disciplined character like that of Obama's is somehow inferior to the indifference and temper of someone like McCain? How things have been turned inside out.

But wait, there's more.

Kantor:

While he speeds along rope lines, Mr. Obama sometimes connects better one on one. In spare moments, he will surprise supporters — a doorman who scraped together a small contribution, an elderly woman he had heard enjoyed his memoir — with an out-of-the blue phone call. Waiting backstage to speak to 20,000 people in Seattle in February, Mr. Obama grew so absorbed in talking to a retired Michigan couple that he had to be reminded not to miss his entrance cue.

Once in a very long while, Mr. Obama will relax his guard completely. Two years ago at a party celebrating the publication of his second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” the new senator rose to say a few words, recalled Ms. Jarrett. As he talked about what his new job in Washington had cost his wife and two daughters, tears began to course down his face, leaving him unable to continue.

Michelle Obama rescued him with a kiss, and after a moment, everyone started to applaud.

But. But. But. She's just spent endless inches of column space describing his lack of emotion, discipline, aloofness, uppityness, and here -- at the very end of her story -- she belies all of it with a simple anecdote that shows the Candidate is not only human, but very much connected with his family, his supporters and the public, fully able to show emotion, deeply moved by his own good fortune.

In other words, practically everything she's written up to this point has flowed from the Narrative of Obama, not from the man, and when she gets to the point where she actually has to question the Narrative, she can't do it. Instead, she presents anecdotes that contradict the Narrative... without comment.

Kantor in summation:

Mr. Obama is often called a perpetual outsider — racially, geographically, politically. But his story is more complicated than that. “He’s been an outsider at Columbia and Harvard,” said Matthew McGuire, a friend. “He was an outsider but within the ultimate insider clubs.”

Within those and other powerful institutions, Mr. Obama has always appointed himself critic. After being elected the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, Mr. Obama gave a speech to black students and alumni that was rousing, some recall it nearly two decades later. “Don’t let Harvard change you,” went the refrain. As a community organizer, he led Chicago residents to challenge the local authorities. In the Illinois Senate, Mr. Obama was not only a reformer who pushed for tighter campaign finance rules, but also an everyday skeptic who often pointed out hilarities and hypocrisies to colleagues.

Despite the speed of his rise, Mr. Obama often talks of politics as a closed system, one stacked against outsiders who lack powerful patrons or fat donor bases.

These sorts of criticisms have become the cornerstone of his political identity. Changing government, making it more responsive to citizens’ needs, has been the promise of every campaign he has ever run. Today, despite the millions of people and dollars devoted to his election, Mr. Obama insists, improbably enough, that he is still the same advocate for the poor he was 20 years ago on the streets of Chicago.

“All the time, he says, let’s keep in mind that this is not about Barack Obama,” said Ms. Jarrett, an adviser. “He still sees himself as the community organizer.”

But after he accepts his party’s nomination on Thursday night, it will be hard to call Mr. Obama anything but the establishment. As head of his party, he will preside over everything he says he objects to about politics: the artifice, the influence of special interests, the partisanship. If he wins the presidency, there will be no more rungs on the ladder for Mr. Obama to climb, only re-election. The system he says is broken will become his.

Even those closest to him are not quite sure how he would make the transformation.

“That’s uncomfortable,” said Mr. Axelrod, about the prospect of Mr. Obama’s becoming the ultimate insider. “You need to accept that role to a degree if you’re the nominee or the president.”

And yet, Mr. Axelrod said, “I don’t think that’s a role he wants to play. His idea is that you should always be challenging the institution.”

And there you have it: the ultimate Outsider, becoming the head of the very institution he believes he should be challenging.

How drôle.

Perhaps it's the start of a New Narrative....

[Note: My August Hiatus is slowly ending, but posting may still be light for several weeks.]

The Mugabe Equation

As the political situation in Zimbabwe deteriorates further by the day, I've noticed that the way the mainstream in this country reports it is truly bizarre. It is all a matter of perception, of what the sides "say" is going on, and no one can really sort it out, it's all African after all, and who really understands those people?

Every report I hear on the radio or see on teevee or read in the papers claims that "critics" declare that (for example) some 85 "murders" have taken place, or that Mugabe's forces have done this or that "bad thing," or that "international observers" claim such and such nasty business is going on, or that "the opposition insists" thus and so. Reporters on the scene describe what they see in great and awful detail, and still the anchors of the Zimbabwe desk are skeptics.

"We'll just have to see how this shakes out, thank you."

This is the universal approach of American mass media to the Zimbabwe political crisis, so I think it is fair to assume that it is the result of an industry-wide narrative adoption.

And I've wondered if this will be the pattern for coverage of the American political scene: no truth, just narrative, a narrative that favors McCain -- or rather, favors Power in the abstract -- and is skeptical of his opposition, yet presents everything as what people "say," or "claim," not -- ever -- what actually IS.

An extreme example of Zimbabwe coverage on the NewsHour last night:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/africa/jan-june08/zimbabweun_06-24.html

[Note: the New Yorker cover illustration above is meant to convey an attitude in the media of detachment, it is not meant to imply that the New Yorker's coverage has been particularly faulty or that there is any particular New Yorker story being criticized here. In fact, the New Yorker has consistently been one of the better news operations on this and many other topics.]