Moyers’ Documentary Examines How the War on Iraq was Spun by Big Media

Bill Moyer’s powerful PBS documentary, “Buying the War,” affirms that there are courageous individuals who will fearlessly work to safeguard our democratic freedoms. By daring to speak truth to power, Mr. Moyers, you embolden our pursuit of Jacksonian ideals of journalistic integrity, including our right to question our government, its leaders, and its policies – a right that is crucial to maintaining an informed electorate. In 2002, I completed a Masters thesis that dealt with how American television’s reporting on 9/11 framed a war narrative. In the introduction I wrote, “Within the 24-hour period following the implosion of the Twin Towers, programming executives at CBS had devised an episodic theme: America Under Attack…America Rising…America Fights Back. Similar story lines were spun by the other major networks as well – variations included NBC’s America at War and CNN’s War Against Terror.

Over the ensuing five years, my thesis has been supported by a growing chorus of media analysts. Rather than report on the destruction of the World Trade Center as a despicable criminal act and, indeed, a national tragedy, the mainstream corporate media used words that fostered a national predisposition to preemptive war, conveniently opening the way for the Bush administration to prey upon the American public’s fears. They needed only to demonize an old nemesis – the tyrant Saddam Hussein, even though he had no connection to the WTC attack – to bolster their case for invading oil-rich Iraq.

Thank you, Bill Moyers, for giving us a healthy “speed bump” on the slippery slope to corporate media-enabled totalitarianism.
©2007 D-Day Media