From the streets into the studio
Robert Jensen
School of Journalism
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
work: (512) 471-1990
fax: (512) 471-7979
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
copyright Robert Jensen 2003
posted at Outlookindia, ZNet, Counterpunch and Common Dreams web site, January 21, 2003.
by Robert Jensen
On a blustery Sunday morning outside
the CBS studio in Washington, D.C., I shared a moment with veteran television
journalist Bob Schieffer that spoke volumes about the sad state of democracy and
journalism in the United States.
Schieffer was inside, behind the glass
wall. I was outside on the sidewalk with an antiwar contingent organized by the
women’s peace group “Code Pink” (http://www.codepink4peace.org/)
waiting to ask one of Schieffer’s guests on “Face the Nation” that morning
-- Secretary of State Colin Powell -- questions about U.S. plans to invade Iraq.
For a brief moment, Schieffer
approached the window to get a look at us. He smiled. I smiled back and pointed
to my sign, “From the streets into the studio.” I gestured to him to come
outside to talk. “I'll explain my sign,” I said. He smiled, perhaps unable
to hear me through the thick glass wall. “C’mon out,” I said, waving and
smiling to reassure him we weren’t dangerous. “Let’s talk.”
Schieffer smiled again, waved, and
walked away. Shortly after that Powell arrived, ignoring our request that he
take a moment to talk with us. (At least Powell came in through the front door.
We had started the day at ABC, where the guest for “This Week,” Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, entered the studio in a car through the garage to avoid
us.) About 15 minutes later, Schieffer began his interview with Powell by
saying:
“Yesterday we saw tens of thousands
of demonstrators converge on Washington. A fairly large crowd, I would say, a
very large crowd considering that the weather was in the 20s. They say we should
not go to war against Iraq. I would just like to ask you this morning, what do
you say those people who say we shouldn’t?”
I couldn't help but chuckle. Schieffer
was invoking the antiwar movement and its sizable protest the day before, yet
evidently he couldn’t see a reason to take even a few seconds that morning to
talk with real live antiwar demonstrators outside his door.
If Schieffer had come out, I would have
told him that the phrase on my sign was a condensed argument for opening up the
dialogue on public-affairs shows such as “Face the Nation” to include more
than just the voices from the halls of power. No matter which network you tune
to on Sunday morning, these talk shows offer up a steady parade of government
officials, military officers, retired government officials, retired military
officers and the occasional academics or “experts” who mostly parrot the
official view.
The previous day (Jan. 18), those of us
on the sidewalk had been among the 200,000 protesters on the Washington mall,
with tens of thousands more in cities all over the country, exercising our
rights to assemble and speak. But if Schieffer -- and the other journalists
making choices about whose voices get amplified on television -- were doing
their job responsibly, they would bring antiwar voices from the streets into the
studios. In addition to news stories about our demonstrations, they would
include such critical voices in their shows.
But, one might counter, can’t
journalists -- who claim to function as watchdogs of power -- ask the tough
questions that opponents of the war might ask? Yes, they could, but most often
they don’t. Throughout the interview, Schieffer let Powell frame the issue and
avoid difficult questions. Perhaps the single biggest failure of the interview
(available online at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/20/ftn/main537194.shtml)
was that Schieffer focused entirely on inspections, which implicitly accepted
the Bush administration claim that a war against Iraq will be about the threat
from weapons of mass destruction. Schieffer never questioned Powell about the
desire of U.S. policymakers to consolidate control over the flow of oil and oil
profits in the Middle East. Might it not be relevant to ask the secretary if the
weapons issue could be merely a pretext for an invasion to establish a U.S.
client state in Iraq? It’s a question most of the world is asking.
At the antiwar rally on Saturday, that
analysis was explored in speeches from the stage and conversations all over the
mall. It was a grand display of democracy in action; people engaged in spirited
conversation about public policy. But in a society where the majority of people
get most of their information from television, it is crucial that such a more
expansive debate make it on the air, that critics are not just tolerated in the
streets but invited into the studio.
Not surprisingly, Powell responded to
Schieffer’s questions with the same pat answers that Bush administration
officials have been using for months as they try to explain why we need a war
that virtually the whole world opposes. And, also not surprisingly, Schieffer
never offered a serious challenge to Powell.
What might have happened if Schieffer
had stepped outside to talk to us on the street? What might have happened if he
had allowed a representative of the antiwar movement into the studio to
challenge Powell?
From my vantage point as a former
newspaper journalist, a professor of journalism, and a citizen, I think
Schieffer would have been doing his job more responsibly. And the American
public would have learned more from such a show than they did from Schieffer’s
polite, and mostly useless, interview with Powell.
Journalists often are willing to cover
antiwar protests, and that’s important. But, especially on television, those
stories almost never explore our evidence and arguments in sufficient depth.
Perhaps that is why much of America thinks our analysis is about as deep as the
slogans on a sign at a rally.
What if we were allowed routinely into
the television studios to speak for ourselves? Not only might the public’s
view of protesters and the antiwar movement change, but the debate over the war
would be enriched and the American people would be better informed.
My advice to Schieffer and his
colleagues: Next time you see a group of people willing to wait in the cold
outside your studio to make a political point, take a chance and open the door.
We don’t bite, and we’ve got a lot to say.
---------------
Robert Jensen, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas
at Austin, is the author of Writing
Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream and a
member of the Nowar Collective. He
can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.