(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
In the aftermath of 9/11 and the run up to the invasion of Iraq, the world was glued to television news, especially cable. Here in the US the news is dominated by three networks. CBS, ABC, and NBC and three major cable channels, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. Most of the them spewed the Bush administration spin that Sadaam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was building a nuclear weapon and had ties to Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and 9/11, all lies and they knew it. This war was about the control of the oil reserves in Iraq, it always from the moment that the neocons got their hooks into the White House with Ronald Reagan’s election. It was under Reagan that the free press started to die with the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the loosening of regulation that allowed the likes of Rupert Murdoch to gobble up the airways, Fox news, and print media. It culminated in the 90’s with the corporate acquisition of NBC by General Electric and CBS by Viacom and CNN by Time Warner.
During the lead up to Iraq there was one voice on the airways that stood out against the hype, Phil Donahue, whose liberal voice focused on issues that divide liberals and conservatives in the United States, such as abortion, consumer protection, civil rights and war issues. His feud with another MSNBC host, Chris Matthews over the Iraq War led to the cancellation of Donahue’s popular show. Matthew’s involvement in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame is never mentioned.
by Chris Hedges, Truthdig
I am not sure exactly when the death of television news took place. The descent was gradual-a slide into the tawdry, the trivial and the inane, into the charade on cable news channels such as Fox and MSNBC in which hosts hold up corporate political puppets to laud or ridicule, and treat celebrity foibles as legitimate news. But if I had to pick a date when commercial television decided amassing corporate money and providing entertainment were its central mission, when it consciously chose to become a carnival act, it would probably be Feb. 25, 2003, when MSNBC took Phil Donahue off the air because of his opposition to the calls for war in Iraq.
Donahue and Bill Moyers, the last honest men on national television, were the only two major TV news personalities who presented the viewpoints of those of us who challenged the rush to war in Iraq. General Electric and Microsoft-MSNBC’s founders and defense contractors that went on to make tremendous profits from the war-were not about to tolerate a dissenting voice. Donahue was fired, and at PBS Moyers was subjected to tremendous pressure. An internal MSNBC memo leaked to the press stated that Donahue was hurting the image of the network. He would be a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war,” the memo read. Donahue never returned to the airwaves.
In 2003, the legendary television host Phil Donahue was fired from his prime-time MSNBC talk show during the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The problem was not Donahue’s ratings, but rather his views: An internal MSNBC memo warned Donahue was a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war,” providing “a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.” Donahue joins us to look back on his firing 10 years later. “They were terrified of the antiwar voice,” Donahue says.
Transcript here
Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman confronted Matthews on Donahue’s firing outside NBC headquarters in New York City on the 10th anniversary of the invasion.
Buzzfeed unearthed the videos of the vitriolic exchanges between Matthew and Donahue revealing how much they despised each other. Matthews was the driving force that got Donahue fired and MSNBC was not eager to promote the anti-war point of view. Thank the internet for You Tube, here are the videos of the episode from Donahue’s show with guest Matthews:
4 comments
Skip to comment form
Author
for the Iraq propaganda. (Here’s a list of Who Owns What: Resources: Columbia Journalism Review)
I read this article “Have We Ever Gotten to the Bottom of Exactly ‘Why’ Bush and the Neocons Disastrously Invaded Iraq?” The true purpose of the Iraq invasion remains opaque. Here’s a theory why.
I was a little appalled by Robert Parry’s seeming naivete. He, apparently, was unaware that the PNAC had long had Iraq in its sight for invasion and so-called “regime change,” amongst other reasons as the neocons claimed necessary. And, to say the very least, the very first week that Bush and Cheney were in office, Cheney established an Energy Task Force, which was commissioned to map out every single oil well precisely, the dimensions, the capacity, etc. The U.S. drafted the Iraq Hydrocarbon Law a/k/a The Iraq Oil Revenue Sharing Law in 2006, which was considered a “benchmark” by the Bush Administration.
I remember following the signing progress or lack thereof of the U.S. drafted Iraq Oil Revenue Sharing Law very carefully. I firmly believe that we remained engaged in Iraq, as long as we did because of the determination to get that Iraq Oil Revenue Sharing Law signed, or else. And the “or else” was more and more death and destruction, pitting Sunnis against Shia and vice-versa.
To this day, the Iraq Revenue Sharing Law has not been signed, though contracts of sorts have been awarded several multi-national oil companies.
Here are some excerpts from a very good interview of exactly what went on. “The Unfinished Story of Iraq’s Oil Law: An Interview with Greg Muttitt”
The fact, too, that we built an enormous U.S. Embassy, in Baghdad, was telling, as well, as to our intentions. For what purpose would it have been built if not to ultimately house executives, engineers, etc.