Mum's the Word

There are topics in the shadows of the Main Stream Media, of which Alicia Shepard proudly proclaims NPR is a part. On topics such as (readers may suggest more)

• 9/11
• Israeli atrocities towards Palestinians
• US military atrocities towards Iraqis
• US military atrocities towards Afghanis
  
• US global empire
• CIA involvement in [fill in the blank]
• War on Drugs as a tool to oppress the poor
  
• Insurance industry control over government
• Fracking
  
• Oil pipelines
  

NPR is generally mum.

In his talk of March 3rd at the Treason in America Conference, Russ Baker addresses the issue of what happened on 9/11, "one of the greatest cataclysms in American and recent world history" and how "the media turned away from this."

Part of this was revulsion and shock to the system. To the individual system and to the body politic. It was so disturbing on every possible level that it simply doesn't compute. What happens with this kind of trauma is you just shut down. [..] It's the same for the media. It's not that the media is in cahoots or is bad or anything like that, it's just that the media is a whole lot of people trying to cope, trying to do their jobs, trying to keep their jobs, trying to stay focused and so on - you've heard the expression "too big to fail" about Goldman Sachs and these sorts of places, well this story was too big to cover.

Dramatic pause here. Which is well placed. "Too big to cover" is, in some sense, a new phrase for the "the big lie." Think of the sinking of The Maine, the attack on Pearl Harbor, Operation Gladio, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the crack cocaine epidemic, the Niger forgeries - all these events have been exploited by opportunistic government propagandists to incite war. The instinct for it in government seems to undeniable. So Baker's assessment is fairly benign. He continues,

What bothers me about that is that no serious journalist should fail to cover [] the big stories. Somebody at the Washington Post was telling me - do you remember the couple that got into the White House dinner? Apparently they put together a team of 30 people to cover that. And this reporter pointed out to me, they said, we never had more than 3 people covering Iraq.

Journalists should always cover the big stories, and no serious journalist should out of hand reject any scenario as completely impossible or implausible, where human nature and power are concerned. It is our job to consider the evidence and to dig in.

[]

When you look at the reporting on things that are not in dispute, it is inadequate. [] You don't have to have a position on 9/11 to want answers. And you don't have to be a kook to wonder if, when the co-chairmen of The 9/11 Commission, a commission that itself has no credibility, basically claim that they were lied to, that there might be something going on.

But, repeatedly, NPR has characterized people who want answers to these questions as kooks and conspiracy theorists. It's akin to believing in Martians and/or that the moon landing was staged in Hollywood.

One of the things you see [in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes] is that most people helped preserve the system, not because they were told to do it but simply because they were afraid. [] This exists in the most insidious form in our society where we bray about how free we are. Because if you're proud of yourself and how green your lawn is and how well you generally do investing and how cool NASCAR is [] you really don't want to hear that everything ain't hunky dory.

To what degree is NPR self-censoring? Do they know there is a cover up of some sort and so they know better than to interfere with it? Do they just not want to know what's being covered up? Or do they assume the same of their audience? Are there any dissenters? How do they justify their own lack of curiosity and failure to investigate unexplained facts like, oh, the collapse of building 7?

Exactly What Was Done

NPR's Depiction of Waterboarding - Click the graphic for Truthiness

I want to revisit NPR Ombudsman Shepard's tortuous and dishonest dance around NPR's refusal to call torture torture when it is committed by agents of the US government. She began her grotesque performance back on June 21, 2009 on her blog, and continued with an encore on June 30, 2009 (after getting schooled by Glenn Greenwald and 400+ commenters at her blog).

This may seem like rehashing old territory, but the subject came up as recently as last month when Shepard visited an unthreatening NPR station for an interview (something she's fond of doing). On WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi Show she reiterated core of her argument - which she has repeatedly stated in the past:

"I came down saying 'OK, try to avoid the word torture and try to describe exactly what was done and let the people decide'....I think that, again, that you describe it for what it is, and let people decide." [You can listen for yourself here. Her claim begins at the 39:50 mark and continues to about 42:00]

As morally and intellectually bankrupt as this argument is, let's hold it up to scrutiny. In other words, when it comes to waterboarding, has NPR ever tried to "describe exactly what was done" or "describe it for what it is"? An article just published by Mark Benjamin in Salon.com provides a glimpse into how powerful such a journalistic approach can be:

• "The slant of the gurney helped drive the water more directly into the prisoner's nose and mouth. But the gurney could also be tilted upright quickly, in the event the prisoner stopped breathing."
• "...according to the Bradbury memo, could produce 'spasms of the larynx' that might keep a prisoner from breathing..."
• "The agency placed detainees on liquid diets prior to the use of waterboarding. That's because during waterboarding, 'a detainee might vomit and then aspirate the emesis,...'"
• "...the CIA forced such massive quantities of water into the mouths and noses of detainees, prisoners inevitably swallowed huge amounts of liquid....hyponatremia could set in....a waterlogged, sodium-deprived prisoner might become confused and lethargic, slip into convulsions, enter a coma and die."

Searching the NPR archives for stories aired should make it very plain as to whether Shepard is basing her argument on an NPR practice of detailing what happens with waterboarding - or if she's just lying by claiming to favor a kind of reporting that she knows NPR does not - and probably will not ever do. Let's see:

• Searching "waterboarding" and "breathing" produces 2 stories, neither of which describes waterboarding in any detail whatsoever. Add the word "stopped" to the search and you get no stories.
• Searching "waterboarding" and "vomit" produces no stories.
• Searching "waterboarding" and "coma" produces no stories.

Recapping the results, NPR's on-air coverage of waterboarding reveals a determination to omit even the most basic and elemental details - stopped breathing, vomit, and coma - that are necessary to convey what waterboarding is.

Stripped of her already compromised argument, all that Shepard - and NPR - have to offer is a position that is remarkably friendly to torture braggarts Cheney and Rove: "the Bush administration felt this was something they needed to do to get information to protect the country..." [Shepard again on the Kojo Nnamdi show explaining why it's not professional to call it torture].