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Lulling
Us Into Submission
Advertising,
Core Truths, And The Great Electronic Tranquilizer
by
David Edwards and Media Lens
Dissident Voice
October
11,2 003
“The
fateful slumber floats and flows
About
the tangle of the rose;
But
lo! the fated hand and heart
To
rend the slumberous curse apart!”
-- William Morris, For The Briar Rose
We
Don't Run Airline Ads Next To Stories About Airline Crashes
The
‘quality press’ doesn’t like to talk too openly about the fact that it depends
for 75% of its revenue on corporate advertising. Corporations, after all, are
strictly hierarchical, undemocratic institutions motivated by limitless greed
it’s hard to reconcile their needs with democracy, human rights and the
public’s right to know. Imagine how we would have reacted to the idea of a
‘quality’ Soviet paper 75% dependent on Communist Party funding.
Even
when writing solely for industry insiders in the media sections of newspapers,
journalists are cautious to avoid stating the dependence on advertising too
baldly. Ciar Byrne’s recent article in the Guardian on the arrival of a new
editor at the Daily Telegraph was titled, ‘Newland targets younger readers’,
rather than, ‘Newland targets advertisers’. Byrne writes:
“The
incoming editor of the Daily Telegraph, Martin Newland, wants to attract more
young readers to the paper while maintaining its core values...”
But
why young readers? Is the new editor just attracted to the idea of a livelier,
more youthful paper? Byrne reveals all:
“Appealing
to older readers in an increasingly ageing population is not necessarily a
disadvantage, however many advertisers prefer to give their business to
newspapers which appeal to affluent young professionals. Recruitment
advertising is another key source of income for broadsheet newspapers. However,
the NRS figures show that 32% of Telegraph readers are retired, compared to 20%
of Times readers.” (Byrne, ‘Newland targets younger readers’, The Guardian,
October 1, 2003)
It’s
worth reflecting on the fact that a paper is willing to radically reform itself
in order to attract business advertisers in its quest for profits. If we pose
the question, ‘Are Telegraph journalists free to criticise big business
domination of society?’ we are asking the question in relation to a paper which
is precisely restructuring itself to +accommodate+ big business domination of
society. The point being that the question is equally absurd for +all+
newspapers that are 75% dependent on advertising including the much-vaunted,
but in fact illusory, defenders of democracy like the Guardian, the Observer
and the Independent.
On
October 1, we wrote to Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian:
Dear
Alan
I
hope you're well. When I open pages 18-19 of today's Guardian I find a tiny box
in the bottom left-hand corner of page 18, titled, 'Global warming death toll'.
It reads:
"A
study by scientists at the World Health Organisation found that 160,000 people
die every year from side-effects of global warming, ranging from malaria to
malnutrition, and the numbers could almost double by 2020. - Reuters,
London"
Immediately
to the right of this box, spread across much of two pages, is a giant advert
for Lexus cars.
Why,
given the huge coverage afforded to the 3,000 deaths on September 11, do you
provide so little space for a highly credible report of 160,000 deaths from
climate change? And why, given your huge coverage on al-Qaeda and other sources
of murder and mayhem, do you have almost nothing to say about the activities of
the US National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce, and
other large business groups fiercely opposing even trivial action on lethal
climate change? Is it because these bodies are made up of the same big business
advertisers on which your paper depends for 75% oof its revenue?
The
former New York Times CEO, Arthur Sulzberger, once admitted that he had leaned
on his editors to present the car industry's position on various issues because
it "would affect advertising". Aren't you subject to similar
bottom-line pressures when reporting on global warming and the activities of
fossil fuel fundamentalists?
Best
wishes
David
Edwards
Media
Lens
Alas,
we received no answer from the editor of Britain’s “leading liberal newspaper”.
The
fact that the Guardian is heavily dependent on car advertising does not mean it
is somehow banned from telling the truth about the causes of climate change,
business obstruction of action on climate change, and so on. But in reality the
whole point about the Guardian is that its format, content and design are all
precisely shaped by the needs of big business advertisers. In other words, the
whole structure of the Guardian is shaped to serve, not as a conduit connecting
uninhibited “publish and be damned” journalism to society as a whole, but as a
conduit connecting corporate advertisers to wealthy target readers possessing
plenty of disposable cash.
In
a 2000 Pew Centre for the People & the Press poll of 287 US reporters,
editors and news executives, about one-third of respondents, said that news
that would "hurt the financial interests" of the media organisation
or an advertiser goes unreported. Forty-one percent said they themselves have
avoided stories, or softened their tone, to benefit their media company's
interests. (www.fair.org, ‘Fear & Favor
2000 How Power Shapes The News’, http://www.fair.org/ff2000.html)
In
an interview with Ralph Nader, David Barsamian asked:
“Wouldn’t
it be irrational for them [the media] to even discuss corporate power, since
their underwriting and sponsors come from very large corporations?”
Nader’s
reply:
“Very
irrational... [There are] a few instances almost every year where there’s some
sort of criticism of auto dealers, and the auto dealers just pull their ads
openly from radio and TV stations.” (Z Magazine, February 1995)
James
Twitchell explains why there is something about all newspapers that makes the
skin crawl and the mind cringe:
“You
name it: the appearance of ads throughout the pages, the ‘jump’ or continuation
of a story from page to page, the rise of sectionalisation (as with news,
cartoons, sports, financial, living, real estate), common page size, halftone
images, process engraving, the use of black-and-white photography, then colour,
sweepstakes, and finally discounted subscriptions were all forced on publishers
by advertisers hoping to find target audiences.” (Quoted, Sharon Beder, Global
Spin, Green Books, 1997, p.181)
According
to media analysts Michael Jacobson and Laurie Ann Mazur, a further result of
this kind of influence is:
“TV
programmes that flow seamlessly into commercials, avoiding controversy, lulling
us into submission, like an electronic tranquillizer.” (Jacobson and Mazur,
Marketing Madness, Westview Press, 1995, pp.43-44)
Advertisers
understand well that concern for others and greed are in profound psychological
opposition a mind filled with desire is likely to be indifferent to the
suffering of others in the same way that a mind filled with compassion is
likely to be indifferent to the latest ‘indulgence marketing’.
One
of the reasons Carlton TV broadcasts John
Pilger’s morally and intellectually barnstorming documentaries at the
ludicrous time of 10.45 in the evening when most people are shuffling about
in their pyjamas is because Pilger’s films generate outrage and critical
thought in the minds of viewers, not an advertiser-friendly ‘buying mode’. This
is unacceptable to US broadcasters, who do not show the films at all.
In
his latest documentary, Breaking The Silence, Pilger showed refugees from
Afghan villages attempting to survive among the lethally dangerous,
semi-collapsed hulks of multi-storey buildings in Kabul. One clip showed a
small child bravely struggling to haul home a large yellow container of
contaminated water. It was impossible to watch this depiction of human frailty
and courage without viewing the subsequent adverts, drooling with necrophilic
delight over some new car design, with contempt.
Likewise,
it would be fair to say that impassioned, sustained editorial campaigns
denouncing the destruction of our climate as a result of the business-inspired
obsession with cars and other luxuries, would not “flow seamlessly” into
two-page adverts for Lexus cars. Instead, we read of ‘measured’, ‘considered’
and ‘proportionate’ responses to the ultimate crime of this and any other
century by our old friends: The Masters Of Nuance.
When
a 2000 Time magazine series on environmental campaigners, sponsored by Ford
Motor Company, failed to mention anti-car campaigners, Time's international
editor admitted that mentioning them would be inappropriate because, after all,
"we don't run airline ads next to stories about airline crashes".
(FAIR, op.cit., 2000)
Killing For Cash Flow
Sometimes
the links between corporate influence and press reporting are simply obscene,
and so are hidden from public view. An international memo put out by tobacco
company Philip Morris in 1985 declared:
"The
media like the money they make from our advertisements and they are an ally
that we can and should exploit... We should make a concerted effort in our
principal markets to influence the media to write articles or editorials
positive to the industry position on the various aspects of the smoking
controversy." (Tobacco Explained, Action on Smoking and Health, June 25,
1998)
Writing
in October 2001 in the business section of the Observer where such candour is
normally buried - Peter Preston explained the rationale behind the Times’ and
other papers’ support for an immediate and decisive bombing campaign against
Afghanistan. The media propaganda began at a time when aid agencies were
pleading with the US to refrain from bombing to allow aid convoys to reach 7.5
million starving Afghan people as winter approached. But Preston wrote of how,
post-September 11, the media had their own problems:
“There
is the collapse in advertising - Rupert Murdoch saw £69 million vanish with the
twin towers. There are wage and hiring freezes in every newspaper, and
gathering redundancies to boot. One hundred and fifty went at the FT last
week... When the Times - and it is by no means alone - wants something decisive
done on the ground before 'the winter blizzards set in', something 'to show
that the US genuinely means to fight and win', it also wants a resolution that
will set advertising flowing again and slash the coverage costs. When it
excoriates the 'long-haul' thesis, it inevitably has the full price of 'waiting
till next spring' somewhere in mind.” (Peter Preston, ‘Too much jaw-jaw on
war-war - Colin Powell may be talking about a 'long haul', but the media has
neither the stomach nor finances for a protracted campaign,‘ the Observer,
October 21, 2001)
The
barbarism and cruelty of what Preston was describing is almost beyond belief.
Consider that while editors were fretting over revenue flows in comfortable
London offices, the mere threat of bombing forced the removal of international
aid workers from Afghanistan, instantly halting food supplies. As a result,
refugees were soon reaching Pakistan "after arduous journeys from
Afghanistan... describing scenes of desperation and fear at home as the threat
of American-led military attacks turns their long-running misery into a
potential catastrophe", Douglas Frantz reported in the New York Times.
(Frantz, ‘Fear and Misery for Afghan Refugees,’ The New York Times, September
30, 2001)
"The
country was on a lifeline," one evacuated aid worker reported, "and
we just cut the line." (Quoted, Noam Chomsky, excerpted from Lakdawala
lecture, New Delhi, online version prepared December 30, 2001, www.zmag.org)
If
there was great concern on the part of our media editors for the fate of the
human beings who paid the price for a “resolution” that would “set advertising
flowing again”, it didn’t show. Of the 3,000 direct victims, and unknown
thousands of indirect victims, of bombing, British historian Mark Curtis notes
“their deaths have received the barest of concern from political leaders and
the mainstream media, who have essentially deemed Afghan lives expendable to
avenge the attack on the US”. (Curtis, Web Of Deceit, Vintage, 2003, p.49)
Readers
might occasionally furrow a brow at the thought of just how the reluctance of
the corporate press to challenge New Labour’s lies over Iraq fits into this
picture. We can understand why the Guardian and Independent would of course not
want to seriously challenge corporate control of society, but why cover for
Blair’s support of US-driven foreign policy in the Middle East?
In
a recent Z Magazine article, Edward Herman quotes Professor Lance Bennett who
describes US media performance over the Iraq crisis as a “near-perfect
journalistic participation in government propaganda operations”. But why the
eager participation? Herman explains:
“The
large right-wing segment of the media have functioned as literal press agents
and cheerleaders for the Bush administration, setting the tone and helping cow
the ‘liberal’ sector of the corporate media into similar, if less vocal,
subservience to the government (although most of them didn’t need to be cowed).
"At
a deeper level, this reflects the fact that the corporate community is very
pleased with the Bush administration, which has been brazenly aggressive in
providing business tax breaks, resource giveaways, reductions in environmental
controls, cutbacks in the welfare state, and impediments to labor organization.
Such service to the needs of the powerful feeds into the performance of the
corporate and advertiser-funded media, which treats a Bush much differently
than a Clinton, Gore, or any other politician who may try hard to placate
business, but is not prepared for 100 percent corporate service.” (Edward
Herman, ‘George Bush versus national security’, Z Magazine, October 2003)
Much
the same applies in Britain where Blair and his “pragmatic” “Iron chancellor”
have long been City favourites. Indeed the corporate community and Blairite
media have for many years been deeply averse to criticizing their Downing
Street champion. It could be, however, that even they have recently been
alarmed by Blair’s worryingly erratic and totalitarian methods of government,
with hints at literal “insanity” in Number 10 from political and media
insiders.
The
business community is interested in control plausibly masquerading as
‘democracy’, not in transparent trampling of popular feeling and political
protocol in a way that threatens to wake the slumbering giant of public
opinion. The 2 million march in London on February 15, although casually
dismissed as ineffectual by the media, will undoubtedly have rung serious alarm
bells among the powers that be.
For
the people who would keep us in tranquilized ‘buying mode’, a “crisis of
democracy” of this kind that is, an outbreak of +real+ democracy is exactly
what they fear most.
SUGGESTED ACTION
The
goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for
others. In writing letters to journalists, we strongly urge readers to maintain
a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Write
to Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian:
Email:
alan.rusbridger@guardian.co.uk
Ask
Rusbridger why, given the huge coverage afforded to the 3,000 deaths on
September 11, he provided so little space for a highly credible report of
160,000 deaths from climate change on October 1.
The
former New York Times CEO, Arthur Sulzberger, once admitted that he had leaned
on his editors to present the car industry's position on various issues because
it "would affect advertising". Ask Rusbridger if he is subject to
similar bottom-line pressures when reporting on global warming and the
activities of fossil fuel fundamentalists.
David Edwards is the editor of Media Lens, and the author of Burning All
Illusions: A Guide to Personal and Political Freedom (South End
Press, 1996). Email: editor@medialens.org. Visit the Media
Lens website: http://www.MediaLens.org
Other Recent Articles by David Edwards
and Media Lens
* The
Importance of Being Nuanced: A Tragicomedy Of Media Manners
* What
Should I Do? Selfishness, Happiness And Benefiting Others
* The BBC,
Self-Glorification And Disaster
* Adventures
in Media Surreality – Part 2: Global Climate Catastrophe – Mustn’t Grumble
* Adventures
in Media Surreality – Part 1: Blair’s Serious and Current Lies
* Biting the
Hand That Feeds – Part 2
* Stenographers
to Power: "Saddam Loyalists" Or "Anti-Occupation Forces"?
Ask The BBC
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