Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in their book “Manufacturing Consent “ described five main ‘filters’ that occur in mainstream media to ensure that we only see the establishment message. One of these filters was the way that journalists themselves are either filtered out or knocked into shape to suit the needs of the establishment media. Essentially they either shape up or ship out.

New Zealand Media is no different to the US media described in Manufacturing Consent and we only need to look at the likes of Russel Brown, of Hard News and Media Watch fame to see how the filter works. Brown started out as a radical, longhaired rock journalist but these days is pretty much part of the establishment. How do you get from the radical youth to establishment figure? Well, there are a few lessons that need to be learnt about how you conduct yourself and also about where the boundaries of ‘reponsible’ journalism are. I presume that this article is going to cross them but please stick with me.

A few years ago I recall my father advising me (when I was having trouble with a difficult boss) ‘that I might have to accept certain realities in order to get ahead in my career and that I would have to be prepared to make some compromises from time to time’. This is the sort of advice that young people get all the time while the rough edges are being smoothed off them and it wouldn’t surpise me to learn that Russell’s Dad told him the same thing. Either way, young people with a bit of ‘attitude’ get plenty of signals about what they need to do to fit in and it’s apparent that Russell Brown learnt them well because he is now in the priveledged position of having his own show on National Radio.

Like the Listener, and unfortunately, most of bFM these days, Russel Brown is part of the ‘acceptable left’. Still despised by right wing reactionaries (to their satisfaction I’m sure) the acceptable left’s position represents the ‘allowable’ leftwing limit of debate in the mainstream media (The rightwing limit being somewhere between the Act party and Genghis Khan).

This limit became apparent when John Campbell overstepped it with his famous corn-gate interview of Helen Clark. Campbell was immediately attacked by others in the media for going too far. He had the facts on his side, but that paled into insignificance for most commentators beside their fear that pissing off the PM might limit their access to her. Its clear that our media knows the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and also that they will police it themselves.

If by some misfortune I hear Russell Brown’s opinion on this article he would probably tell me how he regularly butts heads with editors and how much he had to kick and struggle to get where he is. I wouldn’t doubt him for a second but it is this very proccess that ends up putting the boundaries in place (just ask your average 2 year old) and once a person accepts these ‘facts of life’ they begin to buy in to them and will ultimately enforcing them on others, as we will shortly see.

Needless to say the exact details of Russell Brown’s career are pure speculation on my behalf, I don’t know Russell, or many other journalists for that matter, but what I am trying to do is paint a picture that helps explain why the media in this country is so feeble. They couldn’t all have started out as lapdogs to the establishment so how else do you explain (as a ‘for instance’) why there is no mainstream journalist in New Zealand with a good grip on the GE issue. One only has to witness the appalling performance of Simon Collins in the Herald recently – having been sent all the way to a Biotech Industry Conference in the US recently he ended up filing up a series of articles that were little more than repetition of industry propraganda. Presumably he is one of the Herald’s senior journalists but his stories were peppered with astounding falsehoods. A cub reporter with a few minutes on the phone could have torn his articles to shreds but I’m sure the Herald is very happy with him.

Back to Russell Brown though – the fact of his rehabilitation into the mainstream has become apparent with a number of comments made by him in regard to Michael Moore. Here’s a couple:

“Salon has an interview with Eric 'Fast Food Nation' Schlosser, whose new book I'm about to review for The Listener. Short version of the review: another fascinating book, and just the tonic for lefties feeling alienated by Michael Moore's unfortunate liberties with the facts.”

And;

“Salon has an extract from Michael Moore's new book, Dude, Where's My Country?, and Spinsanity.org says the book tends to confirm Moore's rep as "a slipshod journalist who has trouble getting his facts right". Moore's tendency to spin to suit himself is outlined in a companion piece listing errors in the book. I heartily agree with some of what Moore says, but his willingness to mangle the facts makes him a liability.”

You can see that Brown’s heart is with Michael Moore but that his inner teacher’s pet is reining him in. Anyway, I did some research on the afirementioned list of errors myself.

The criticism by Spinsanity is written by a guy called Bryan Keefer who is known to be extremely critical of Michael Moore and also prone to exaggerating a few minor complaints into travesties of journalism. Let’s do what Brown didn’t do, and examine the 17 points of error Spinsanity suposedly found in ‘Dude Where’s My Country?’.

Typical of the points raised by Spinsanity is one where they point out that a timeline in “Dude where’s my Country” (about the relationship between the Carlyle group and the bin Laden family) is inaccurate. Apart from the fact that I think the writer has deliberately misread the phrasing of Moore’s book, a mistake on a timeline doesn’t change the fact that the US corporates and the bin Ladens are deep in each other’s pockets and desperate to cover that fact up.

Keefer also has Moore on for this phrase (in reference to Osama bin Ladens kidney condition); "how could [Bin Laden] have really pulled this off while his skin was turning green?". Readers of Moore’s books will be well aware that his writing style is one of mock anger and comic exaggeration but Keefer then goes on to very seriously explain that Bin Laden’s kindey condition is quite mild actually, all the time ignoring the main issue which is the question of how bin Laden is supposed to have master minded this whole 9-11 operation from one of the most technologically backward countries in the world whilst suffering from an illness.

Probably the most absurd criticism is of Moore posing a “what if?” type of question and Keefer accuses him of failing to provide any references for it. How could there be any when Moore is only proposing a theory for goodness sake!

Then there is the error where Moore quotes George Bush and fails to provide a reference - Oh no! Shock. Horror. Throw the book away! And in a moment of sublime irony Brown’s own Blog (May 23 3003) puts a lie to Keefer’s claims that Moore’s quoting of civilian casualty figures (10,000 at the time) in the Iraq war is wildly exaggerated. Keefer was relying on the notoriously biased US media for his ‘evidence’ and is, himself, wildly off the mark.

All in all, of the 17 ‘factual inaccuracies’ (in a book with literally thousands of facts in it) there appear to be at most 3 points that are justified, with a further 5 where the criticism is accurate but is of such a hair splitting nature that it doesn’t affect the issue that Moore is discussing (in fact none of the first 3 do either, but I do agree that they are over the top).

I happen to agree that Moore should be attempting to get all his facts right, but what I do not agree with is exagerating minor errors into a reason to trash the book. People like Bryan Keefer are, through their actions, helping to prop up the US power structure and Russel Brown is (I hope unwittingly) helping them to spread the word.

And don’t you love that “… makes him a liability’ phrase Brown used earlier? He knows that Moore has crossed the line of what is acceptable and he needs to distance himself from Moore’s position to maintain his own credibility (in the mainstream). And did you note the concerned adult tone? When doing these personality attacks it’s always important to adopt this tone so why don’t we try it on Russell – just for laughs though – I’m sure we don’t mean it.

“It’s such a shame when a person who is so desperately keen to make a difference in the world makes those little compromises that are needed to get themselves into a position where they can be effective. Those little compromises are begin to add up and by the time a young idealist arrives at that coveted position they’re been totally neutured by the belief sytem that they’ve had to internalise on the way up.”

Actually this isn’t supposed to be an attack on Brown. Believe it or not, I enjoy his writing and totally agree that he is a step ahead of the pack but unfortunately the pack is so far off the pace it’s not funny. Best to follow Robert Fisk’s advice and keep away from the pack altogether I should think.

Brown also refers us to some gun nut in the US whose deconstruction of ‘Bowling for Columbine’ merely shows it’s author up as someone who has no idea how documentaries get made. To explain; The gun nut has ‘discovered’ that Moore has deliberately spliced different parts of one of Charlton Heston’s Gun speeches together ‘to make him look worse’. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of how documentaries get made will know that you don’t break the narrative flow to stop and explain every edit in case it upsets someone. The only alternative to this ‘deliberate splicing’ is to replay the entire speech (which Moore has happily posted on his web site) and somehow I don’t think he would have won an Oscar if he had 15 minutes of Charlton Heston raving about gun rights in the middle of his documentary.

You’ve also got to wonder about people who ignore the very real and important points raised in Bowling for Columbine in favour of performing a character assination on it’s author. Of course it’s important that Moore gets his facts right but as well as diverting attention away from genuinely important issues Brown and his cohorts are so keen to run Moore down that they’ve gone and made the very same mistakes they accuse him of making!

Journalism’s not just about reporting ‘stuff' to the public, but that seems to be all that 99% of New Zealand journalists are capable of doing. Just listen to them spit tacks when someone like Nicky Hager actually does some proper research and shows them all up - they regularly dismiss him as a conspiracy theorist but he hasn’t been sued yet and I think I know why.

I can only assume that the antipathy directed toward Moore, Hager and (for a moment) John Campbell stems from the mainstream’s journo’s confrontation with the fact that they’ve sold out somewhere along the way and that they’re not really the investigative news hound they though they were going to be when they started out.

And just in case anyone has missed the point, the New York Times which is often refferred to as the ‘paper of record’ was forced to publish an apology for getting it wrong on the Iraq-WMD issue over the last 12 months but it is the anti-establishment guy with the facts on his side who gets labelled as sloppy. PR really is everything.