Institutional constraints or voluntary deference? Marginalized critical news content,spiked stories,series and careers subjected to the Buzzsaw

Abstract

This article focuses on all reported post-Cold War instances of several antidemocratic phenomena that occur within the US news media industry: the spiking of news stories and investigations with critical inclinations, demotions to enterprising journalists or editors, cancellations of TV programs due to critical content and forced resignations of journalists, independent and wire-based stories being overlooked by mainstream media, and investigative series whose story follow-ups are being marginalized out of existence or spiked. The reported occurrences are based on a plethora of evidence and documentation: testimony by journalists and/or their newsroom colleagues, audio-recorded conversations between editors and journalists, documented pressure by advertisers and powerful public officials, and documented meetings between editors and high-powered officials that led to spiked stories and/or follow-up reporting. This evidence shows a clear pattern of institutional constraints that result in varying forms of censorship. The focus on these repressive occurrences is of significant theoretical importance and is not only an attack on journalists but an attack on democracy as a whole. The most important theoretical tension between two models of media analysis – the indexing and propaganda models – is a conflicting attribution of culpability for poor media performance and the subsequent lack of news media independence. This article represents an attempt to unveil and subsequently address this underlying theoretical tension by criticizing the disproportionate fault attributed to journalists themselves by the indexing model as well as the underestimation by the propaganda model of the role of ‘crude intervention’ resulting from institutional constraints.

Keywords

Buzzsaw censorship Edward S. Herman false consciousness indexing model institutional constraints internalization Lance W. Bennett Noam Chomsky professional journalism standards propaganda model Robert W. McChesney spiking

Introduction

This study focuses on all reported post-Cold War instances of antidemocratic phenomena occurring within the US news media industry: the ‘spiking’ of news stories and investigations with critical inclinations, demotions to enterprising journalists or editors, cancellations of TV programs due to critical content and forced resignations of journalists, independent and wire-based stories overlooked by mainstream media, and investigative series whose follow-ups are either marginalized out of existence or simply spiked altogether. (For the purposes of this study, spiking is defined as preventing publication of a particular news story because of it containing critical content.) Examples were gathered through the Lexis-Nexis database and important work done by Börjesson (2004, 2005) and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) (Ackerman, 2000; Cohen and Solomon, 1998; FAIR, 1998; Hart, 2005, 2010; Hollar et al., 2006; Jackson, et al., 2003; Jackson and Hart, 2001, 2002). The reported occurrences are based on a plethora of evidence and documentation: testimony by journalists and/or their newsroom colleagues, audio-recorded conversations between editors and journalists, documented pressure by advertisers and/or powerful public officials, and documented meetings between editors and high-powered officials that led to spiked stories. This evidence shows a clear pattern of institutional constraints resulting in varying forms of censorship.

There are 28 reported examples of these types of content repressing occurrences in the United States since the end of the Cold War. Careers and enterprising journalistic projects being subjected to the buzzsaw and the spiking of stories are two major phenomena that negatively affect journalists and teach powerful lessons to their colleagues, but have been overlooked in scholarly works. Kristina Börjesson, an award-winning former producer and investigative reporter for CBS, defined the buzzsaw as ‘what can rip through you when you try to expose anything this country’s large institutions – be they corporate or government – want kept under wraps. The system fights back with official lies, disinformation and stonewalling’ (BuzzFlash, 2005). Stories can be subjected to spiking and also lead to one’s position or career altogether being subjected to the buzzsaw. This study focuses squarely on institutional censorship, demotions, and careers being ended because of critical work.

Theoretical importance for this study is derived from a fundamental disagreement between leading scholars in political communication and political economy. The disagreement is found in a conflicting attribution of culpability for poor media performance and the subsequent lack of news media independence as well as the role (or lack thereof) of ‘false consciousness’ on the part of journalists. As exemplified by Herman and Chomsky’s (1988, 2002, 2008) work on the topic and their propaganda model (PM), political economists point to institutional filters and focus on institutional responsibility for news content, arguing that journalists naturally internalize the institutional constraints of their employers (Herman, 2000). ‘Crude intervention’ rarely occurs, and instead ‘the selection of right-thinking personnel and by the editors’ and working journalists’ internalization of priorities and definitions of news-worthiness’ are what ‘conform to the institution’s’ interests and needs (Herman and Chomsky, 2002: xi). In contrast, as is exemplified by indexing theorists, political communication scholars emphasize professional standards of journalism (Hallin, 1986) and have stated that such standards are borne out by ‘self-imposed constraints’ or ‘limits’ carried out by ‘intrepid reporters and editors’ whose ‘journalistic deference to power is almost entirely voluntary’ (Bennett et al., 2007: 46, 70, 179).

These disagreements were made explicit in scholarship by Hallin (1994) and Herman (2000). While citing the PM, Hallin (1994) argued against the idea that the ‘professional ideology of journalism’ is ‘merely a false consciousness’ and instead argued that it ‘is central to understanding the way the media operate’ (pp. 4, 13). Furthermore, Hallin argued that ‘professionalism is surely part of the answer’ to news media failings. Herman (2000) conversely posited that ‘professionalism has internalized some of the commercial values that media owners hold most dear, like relying on inexpensive official sources as the credible news source’ (p. 106). According to Herman (2000), professionalism ‘arose in journalism in the years when the newspaper business was becoming less competitive and more dependent on advertising’, and thus it is a mere reflection of the structural and institutional necessities of the news media (p. 106). Herman (2000) reiterated his false consciousness argument by citing Bagidikian (1987: 180) and writing, ‘professionalism has made journalists oblivious to the compromises with authority they are constantly making’ (p. 106).

This study represents an effort to reveal this overlooked and underlying theoretical tension and to point to findings that posit criticism of the political communication and political economy camps; that is, for the disproportionate fault attributed to journalists, as well as the underestimation of the role of ‘crude intervention’ resulting from institutional constraints. Evidence revealing a significant level of consciousness, as opposed to being ‘oblivious’, of the institutional constraints upon which journalists work under is also revealed in the study. The study’s primary question boils down to whether there are more examples of censorship stemming at least in part from institutional constraints (rather than mere editorial decisions) than scholars were previously aware of or than they took into consideration in their theoretical arguments and by extension, measuring the general degree of news media independence from powerful governmental and corporate interests.

The indexing literature tends to disproportionately fault journalists, and this is shown in how their prescriptions to solve the lack of media independence often involve correcting journalistic behavior. As Mermin (1999) wrote,

If journalists endeavored to put into practice the changes suggested here, and corporate ownership vetoed the changes, we would have evidence that structural reform of the American media system is required before the problem of indexing can be addressed. But until there is evidence that journalists have in fact tried to get beyond the indexing rule in their foreign-policy reporting, the concern that change might not be possible within the existing media system remains a theoretical one. (pp. 149–150)

The results of this study, however, point to evidence of journalists going beyond the indexing rule only to have their efforts stopped, censored, sabotaged, or severely punished.

McChesney’s well-documented and widely accepted argument that we have entered a hyper-commercial era of concentrated corporate media ownership in the United States (McChesney, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2013) is the probable explanation for a climate in which crude interventions are more common; Herman and Chomsky (2002), however, suggested they were rare. Crude interventions have in fact become significant and are more common than in previous eras, including via managerial initiative at the expense of journalists (D. Chomsky, 2006), and especially considering the crisis with which the industry still contends (McChesney, 2013; McChesney and Nichols, 2009). In spite of this work, however, scholars have not specifically documented crude interventions over time or focused on the theoretical dispute to which this study calls attention.

Various polls and survey data indicate that journalists are aware of these phenomena. This suggests that internalization, although at work and very real, is not so much an example of false consciousness, as Herman and Chomsky have been criticized for implying (Goodwin, 1994; Hallin, 1994), as it is a result of journalists rationally and consciously limiting their reporting to comport with the institutional constraints they are subjected to and through which they are otherwise victimized (as uncovered and posited herein).

Internalization

Journalists’ internalization of the institutional necessities and constraints from corporate-owned and for-profit news outlets is a powerful phenomenon. High-profile journalists such as Judith Miller and Ted Koppel have candidly discussed operating within these constraints and acting more as stenographers of official sources than as critical purveyors of information. However, this phenomenon is not a voluntary one (as indexing and other political communication scholars have suggested), nor is it properly characterized by rare interventions and a subsequent false consciousness (as Herman and Chomsky have suggested). The institutional censorship of journalists is a result of actions that are more important than scholarly works would have us believe, and although such documented instances are correctly characterized as the exception rather than the rule, they are still numerous.

These interventions and examples of institutional influence over news content act as powerful lessons for the majority of mainstream news journalists who are forced to act within these constraints (or are forced to pay the consequences for resisting them). This is demonstrated by a significant awareness by working journalists of the institutional constraints that are at stake, which in turn also reveals either conscious restraint or even resistance to the constraints to which journalists are subjected (resistance, as duly shown in the instances of needed interventions). Polls and surveys dating back to 1997 demonstrate this awareness and show that the situation does not sit well with journalists.

Soley (1997) surveyed more than 100 investigative reporters and editors at commercial TV stations and received stark responses. Nearly 75 percent of respondents in small and large markets said advertisers ‘tried to influence the content of news stories’. In all, 60 percent reported instances in which advertisers attempted to kill stories altogether, and 56 percent said they had experienced pressure from their own employers to craft stories that were pleasing to advertisers.

Another survey reported that more than one-third of local TV news directors were pressured to stray from stories that contained negative information about advertisers. The researchers concluded that internal pressure might be higher due to external commercial pressure to produce positive stories and avoid negative ones, and they noted that both pressures were increasing (Just and Levine, 2001). In the following year, ‘more than half, 53%, reported that advertisers pressure them to kill negative stories or run positive ones’ (Just et al., 2001).

These polling results are not confined to television news. In 2000, a poll of 287 media professionals revealed that ‘about one-in-five local and national reporters say they have faced criticism or pressure from their bosses after producing or writing a piece that was seen as damaging to their company’s financial interests’ (Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 2000). In all, 61 percent of investigative reporters and 41 percent of non-investigative reporters indicated that significant influence was exerted by owners on news content. The study also revealed that news broadcasters viewed ‘market forces … as the primary reason why worthwhile stories are not pursued’.

A few years later, the numbers painted a starker picture that reflected a growing awareness of the increased external pressures indicative of the hyper-commercial era. A widespread survey of non-management media journalists and professionals found a high awareness of these pressures (Lauer Research, 2004). In all, 83 percent indicated that ‘the most serious problem facing the industry [is] too much emphasis on the bottom line’ (Lauer Research, 2004: 1); 86 percent reported feeling that, increasingly, ‘control of news and programming decisions will be concentrated in too few corporate hands’ (p. 2). Similarly, 79 percent reported a ‘growing corporate bias in the news’ (p. 2). These journalists’ sentiments were corroborated by veteran researchers who conducted a major survey for the Pew Center in 2004; they summarized the study by noting a growing and significant number of ‘cases of advertisers and owners breaching the independence of the newsroom’ (Kovach et al., 2004).

Rosenstiel and Mitchell found similar results in 2008 in having documented strong majorities of journalists surveyed, reflecting low morale in television and press outlets and also in Internet-based ones (most of whom were employed by the same media outlets as the TV/press journalists surveyed). In their report, which was subtitled ‘Financial Woes Now Overshadow All Other Concerns for Journalists’, the researchers describe how the operating climate and the actual content were negatively affected by outside commercial pressures: ‘two-thirds of internet (69%), national and local journalists (68% each) say that increased bottom-line pressure is seriously hurting the quality of news coverage, rather than just changing the way news organizations operate’ (Rosenstiel and Mitchell, 2008: 5). More than half of the journalists polled from all sectors said their management gave higher priority to the ‘organization’s financial performance’ than to the ‘public interest’ with regard to reporting (p. 8).

Alternative Critique of Indexing

One of the more interesting critiques that have surfaced of the indexing literature has been in respect to news coverage of U.S. foreign policy and related international affairs. One such study includes a content analysis by Livingston and Eachus of New York Times news coverage from 1980 to 1995 on paramilitary death squads operating in Guatemala and their connections to U.S. support. It was found that such connections were not revealed during the Cold War, but were noted afterward, in ways comparable to critical press accounts found in independent media (1996: 431). While Livingston and Eachus arguably did not demonstrate instances of press independence during a time when governmental positioning was current and thus mattered more, they still did show the ability of journalists to show autonomy when the latter institutional constraint is lifted. Such a finding is far from unimportant and related to this study.

Another important critique of the indexing literature comes from an exhaustive 4,000 newscast story content analysis (Althaus, 2003), covering television news coverage of the lead-up to the Gulf War (August 1990 – February 1991). Therein, Althaus found a number of examples of non-official sourcing. But in a study on the same topic undertaken by Mermin points to a framing context that marginalized “nonofficial” and “oppositional” voices to the possible point of their inclusion serving the role of administration support, as opposed to the basis for genuine criticism (1999: 110). Nevertheless, Althaus showed clearly that (this is him supportively quoting Cook here), “when authoritative sources are largely silent and no governmental process is involved, [the journalistic] storytelling imperative [and more autonomous press performance] can predominate” (2003: 404). In contrast to these scholarly critiques of indexing, however, this study seeks to spell out and learn more from the instances in which institutional constraints were at work.

Crude intervention

The most important question of this study is whether institutional constraints are more powerful than standardized journalistic norms and practices in determining news content and the general degree of news media independence from powerful government and corporate interests. As a modest step toward assessing this question, a detailed survey was taken of spiked and marginalized stories and career demotions and terminations as a result of enterprising journalistic work that challenged powerful interests. Because documentation of these instances is potentially damaging to the reputation of journalists and the news outlets for which they work, it is safe to assume that actual instances outnumber documented instances (similar to how rape and sexual abuse investigators assume the same within their own line of work). If institutional constraints go against the natural instincts of journalists, there should be examples of journalists pushing the envelope, contrary to assumptions made by many political communication scholars.

Methodology and occurrences

Twenty-eight documented instances of interventions were found through a variety of research means. Searches using the Lexis-Nexis database looked for all news reports noting occurrences of spiking, demotions, firings, investigative stories and series being killed, retractions by editors, and canceled TV programs. Some news reports reflected examples found in several volumes edited by Börjesson (2004, 2005). Many of these instances were also noted, documented, and duly criticized by the nonprofit media watchdog group FAIR (Ackerman, 2000; Cohen and Solomon, 1998; FAIR, 1998; Hart, 2005, 2010; Hollar et al., 2006; Jackson and Hart, 2002).

The examples in this study were carefully selected via the aforementioned research means, and the criteria for what qualified as institutional censorship were strict. Only the mainstream news media were evaluated in this study; all nonprofit public news media sources were excluded from consideration. All news media sources were commercial and for-profit, and they were based at various levels of distribution (local, national, and international). In the selected instances, the existence of at least one kind of institutional constraint was required: pressure exerted from advertisers, owners, or powerful official sources and subsequent related censoring practices (significant publishing delays, spiking, punitive measures). While news media outlets often did not admit to these punitive measures, the journalists in question or their colleagues claimed otherwise. In these instances, the claims had to have been documented within 1 week of the punitive action to be included in this study (with many instances amounting to a question of hours, as opposed to even days or a week). In some cases, however, the news media outlets did admit to punitive measures being taken for reasons that reflected institutional constraints (most often in relation to the spiking of material deemed to be too politically ‘sensitive’ to publish).

This list is not necessarily exhaustive, and other unreported instances of spiking and journalists being subjected to the buzzsaw probably do exist. The collective existence of these instances points to the distinct possibility that there are more unreported examples. Some of the spiked stories resulted in stories being published by other sources, and firings resulted in jobs being obtained at other outlets. For example, Gary Webb (2003) published a comprehensive book detailing his findings. Since virtually all of these instances were reported and well known within the industry, however, they serve as a potentially strong deterrent to other journalists who do the same type of work at the same and different news outlets, coupled with the resulting losses in enterprise reporting that innumerably occur because of the deterrent effect.

This Table (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxMolqL9velbV3g4ZE1wWjdfVVk/view?usp=sharing) provides a comprehensive picture of these 28 reported examples of institutional constraints that resulted in interventions that marginalized or eliminated news content. Nine of these 28 examples are detailed in the following three categories: (1) spiked stories or footage, (2) careers plunged into the buzzsaw because of critical reporting, and (3) marginalized or retracted stories that undermined key foreign policy positions. Many of the other 19 instances noted in the Table (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxMolqL9velbV3g4ZE1wWjdfVVk/view?usp=sharing) were crude interventions by owners or on behalf of advertisers. The ones detailed here were chosen because of the national and international reporting more often found in nationally and internationally distributed news sources and because multiple institutional constraints were at work in these instances.

Attributing blame in the social sciences is not an easy or definitive task. This study represents a modest effort to gain a greater theoretical understanding of the complicated forces at work when it comes to assessing culpability of the antidemocratic instances documented herein and found in press systems that are not directly controlled by the state. The effort is modest because it is acknowledged herein that the study does not negate other forces at work; a particular firing or demotion could be compounded by other factors, not the least of which may be animosity between the editor and journalist. A principal motivation behind this study, however, is to bring a greater focus to the role of institutional constraints and the influence they can have on news content (whether it be an exclusive or partial influence); highlighting these carefully documented, qualified, and publicly revealed (yet underemphasized) examples represents an attempt at accomplishing precisely that.

Spiked stories and footage

Stories or footage that undermines powerful US foreign policy initiatives and governmental interests are often prime targets for spiking, as the collected stories in this study reveal. As evidenced in the following section, examples of spiking occurred in the post-Cold War era as well as shortly before and after 9/11.

Reuters story on WikiLeaks Iraq video held up, most critical passages spiked

On 5 April 2010, a harrowing video was posted on the WikiLeaks website; it revealed a probable war crime in which at least 18 civilians were killed and two children were wounded in occupied Iraq. Video taken by one of the helicopters shows multiple air strikes from several US Apache helicopters. The strikes occurred on 12 July 2007. Two Reuters news staffers, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen, were among the civilians killed; their cameras were purportedly mistaken for weapons. In the video, soldiers can be heard mockingly commenting on the killings (McGreal, 2010).

On 7 April 2010, Reuters’ deputy bureau chief in Brussels, Luke Baker, wrote a bristling account of the video titled ‘Collateral Murder’. Baker’s original report quoted Clive Stafford-Smith, a human rights lawyer, saying ‘I don’t think there’s any question that this is a violation of the Geneva Conventions’. He also referred to a principle in the Geneva Conventions that requires protection be given to those wounded in war conflict and indicated that ‘lawyers said that principle appeared to have been abandoned in this case’. Baker’s original report also paraphrased Reuters lawyer Thomas Kim as having said that ‘further investigation may be required’. However, this version of the report was held up for several days, and the critical comments about war crimes were abandoned altogether – reportedly by Reuters editor-in-chief, David Schlesinger – including the direct accusation by Stafford-Smith as well as the Reuters lawyer calling for a possible investigation (Cook, 2010). Baker’s written report was never published; instead, portions of it were culled for a subsequent Washington-based report (Entous, 2010) that omitted the more critical parts of the original report.

CNN and Veteran War correspondent has footage spiked of Iraqi boy being fatally shot

Michael Ware covered the invasion and occupation of Iraq as much as any other Western journalist before returning to his home in Australia in 2010. As one military officer put it, Ware had completed the equivalent of ‘eight to nine combat tours, there is no soldier in our military that has done that’. During his extensive coverage of Iraq, Ware revealed his film of a possible war crime. Ware filmed a teenager being shot in the back of a head; the teen was provided with no medical assistance and ultimately died about 20 minutes later (Fitzgerald, 2010; Veis, 2008). Ware noted that the fatal shooting occurred after the insurgents had already fled and in the spring of 2007 in a village north of Baghdad in the Diyala province (Veis, 2008).

Ware and his colleague, John Martinkus, explained that because the footage was owned by CNN and was judged ‘too graphic’ (Tencer, 2010), the tape has ‘never seen the light of day’ and didn’t even garner a written report on CNN’s website. This helped prevent any watchdog pressure to open an official investigation (Dennehy, 2010).

The spiking occurred despite objections by Martinkus, who said ‘the footage should be shown so people know how callously U.S. soldiers treat the Iraqis’ (Dennehy, 2010). Ware has long echoed such sentiments, and he gave similar comments in a 2008 interview in which he explained why his work should not have been spiked and why work like his should be shown to many people: ‘It’s my firm belief that we need to constantly jar the sensitivities of the people back home’ (Veis, 2008). Ware’s footage was not spiked because of any sentiments against US foreign policy in Iraq; he made it clear that he supported the indefinite continuation of the US-led occupation (Veis, 2008). Instead, the content itself was reason enough for the footage to be censored by CNN.

Story by Veteran videographer detailing Iraqi civilian deaths spiked by NBC and CBS

Jon Alpert worked for 13 years as an NBC videographer filing stories from far-flung locations. His professional background did not prevent his footage of civilian killings in Iraq during the first Gulf War from being spiked off NBC and CBS nightly newscast programs in February 1991 (Börjesson, 2005: 495–505, personal communication, 22 September 2010). Furthermore, initial acceptances of his footage by network producers from both networks led to the producers’ dismissals (pp. 502, 503). The spiking was so dramatic that it garnered the attention of one radio program; however, because the story aired on NPR (a noncommercial public radio network), it was out of the scope of arguments by PM authors and political economists concerning commercial news media sources.

Alpert’s account of getting the footage is dramatic and eye-opening. While trying to leave Iraq with the footage intact, one insurgent tried to kill him; if the gun hadn’t malfunctioned, Alpert might not have survived. Alpert explained that he risked his life to deliver the footage because he felt that it showed that smart bombs were resulting in significant civilian casualties, and this was too important to be kept from the US viewing public during a war. Regarding the footage, Alpert said, ‘We were able to visit suburban neighborhoods in Baghdad and in Basra that had been leveled by American weaponry. We talked to people whose fathers and neighbors had been killed. We saw the bodies’ (Börjesson, 2005: 498).

Steve Friedman, a producer at NBC, lauded the videos shot by Alpert and said, ‘This is amazing. Nobody in the United States knows this is happening and this will be our lead story tomorrow night on NBC News’. Soon thereafter, however, Friedman informed Alpert that not only were the stories spiked, but Friedman’s contract with NBC was going to be terminated and he would be fired. Alpert then successfully pitched the videos to CBS, where the executive producer of CBS’s evening newscast, Tom Bettag, called the videos ‘astonishing’. At 2 o’clock the following morning, however, Bettag was fired and Alpert’s footage was once again spiked (Börjesson, 2005: 502–503). The only mass outlets to show Alpert’s tapes were in Japan and Europe; the footage earned Alpert the Italian Peace Prize and a meeting with the Italian President (p. 504).

Story spiked and Bloomberg China correspondent/reporter then fired

Michael Forsythe was a foreign correspondent for Bloomberg News based in China. For close to a year, Forsythe, his colleague Shai Oster, and several other Bloomberg journalists toiled over an investigation that exposed financial ties between the families of top Chinese governmental leaders and one of China’s wealthiest men (Wong, 2013). Another article by Bloomberg China tackled the issue of children of top Chinese officials being employed by foreign banks (Wong, 2013). Both articles were spiked; according to Bloomberg editors, the stories lacked documentary evidence and the decisions were purely journalistic (Rivlin-Nadler, 2013).

The foreign correspondents had a different perspective. They told New York Times editors that ‘Matt Winkler, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, spiked the story because he feared angering the Chinese government could get the company’s profitable data terminals kicked out of the country’ (Kelly, 2013). The spiking occurred after several senior editors in New York and the company lawyer vetted and approved the article; they even expressed enthusiasm about its publication (Sevastopulo, 2013). Forsythe was indefinitely suspended without pay and was eventually fired (Kelly, 2013; Wong and Haughney, 2013).

MSNBC report noting false statements by Bush spiked soon after publication

August to September 2002 was an intensive period of spin efforts in terms of charges being lobbied that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The Bush administration, UK prime minister Tony Blair, and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon were making frequent claims to this effect. On 7 September 2002, it was further asserted by both Bush and Blair that the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) report revealed that Iraq was within 6 months of developing a WMD (Office of the White House Press Secretary, 2002).

The problem with this claim was that it was verifiably false as confirmed by IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky (Curl, 2002). Börjesson (2004) pointed out that there was only one mainstream news story that initially checked Bush and Blair’s claims against the actual report; it was written by NBC’s Robert Windrem and titled ‘White House: Bush Misstated Report on Iraq’. The article was spiked within hours of its release (Krugman, 2003).

Careers plunged into the buzzsaw

Spiked stories are one way journalists are shown the institutional constraints in which mainstream news outlets operate. But when incisive news reporting is aired nationally on commercial networks or printed by dailies, serious consequences often follow. In a phenomenon that can be described as a backlash of sorts, Börjesson calls this the ‘buzzsaw’ (BuzzFlash, 2005). The backlash can consist of demotions, cancellations, forced resignations, retractions, editorial withdrawals of support, and firings also often occur. Several examples follow; these serve as further evidence that institutional constraints are powerful and can include position-ending consequences.

Investigative reporter forced to quit following ‘Dark Alliance’ series

Over the course of two decades, Gary Webb won various awards for his investigative journalism. Webb never lost the support of a paper for which he worked, and he only had one inconsequential piece spiked (Börjesson, 2004: 142–143). Webb professed that he previously held an unflinching faith in the US press, but he said that his faith was based on investigative pieces that weren’t ‘important enough to suppress’ (p. 143). After Webb wrote a series that was ‘important enough’, however, he was thrown into the buzzsaw.

In August 1996, Webb’s 3-day series in the San Jose Mercury News titled ‘Dark Alliance’ exposed connections between Los Angeles street gangs, Nicaraguan Contras, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and their responsibility for a significant amount of crack cocaine importation to Los Angeles in the 1980s. Webb backed up his pieces with a lot of investigative work and documentation. Working closely with a Nicaraguan-based journalist for over a year, Webb pieced together extensive documentation and supporting evidence:

Spanish-language undercover tapes, court records … [translated] newspaper articles … Interviews in foreign prisons … Documents pried from unwilling federal agencies or specially declassified by the National Archive … Ex-drug dealers and ex-cops persuaded to talk on the record … and Chronologies [based on] heavily censored government documents and old newspaper stories [coming from] archives [located in] Managua to Miami. (Börjesson, 2004: 144)

In spite of this, following significant pressure and backlash, the San Jose Mercury News apologized for its publication and eventually forced Webb to resign.

The initial reaction to the piece was one of virtual silence, as only a few Seattle-based newspapers and other local publications covered the expose. However, Webb’s piece received more than a million hits online (Börjesson, 2004), and public coast-to-coast pressure from media watchdogs and outraged community groups forced the national press to pay attention to the series. The attention was resoundingly negative. One analysis uncovered how the attacks by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times on Webb’s expose were mostly based on CIA ‘obligatory denials’ (Solomon, 1997). Webb later published a book that was based on the series (Webb, 2003); this followed an investigative book that criticized the press for its handling of this national affair (Cockburn and St. Clair, 1999).

The negative national press reaction was too much for Webb’s editors. In January 1997, follow-up articles by Webb were spiked (Osborn, 1998). In May, a column that significantly criticized the series was printed (Ceppos, 1997). The column earned editorial praise from the New York Times, and a month after it was run, Webb was demoted and was no longer an investigative reporter (Osborn, 1998). Later, a settlement between Webb and the paper led to his forced resignation (Osborn, 1998).

Several years later, the findings of a CIA internal investigation into the matter were declassified and released (CIA, 1997). The results vindicated Webb’s series because one of the main criticisms of his work was that he did not have enough proof that CIA officials knowingly overlooked the dark alliance and this investigation revealed otherwise. Nevertheless, one report noted how the released findings were not of significant interest to the same national sources that attacked Webb’s work (FAIR, 1998). Webb concluded that his work was an illustration of the relationship that exists between the national and regional press:

the San Jose Mercury News was not a member of the club that sets the national news agenda, the elite group of big newspapers that decides the important issues of the day, such as which stories get reported and which get ignored. Small regional newspapers aren’t invited. But the Merc had broken the rules and used the Internet to get in by the back door, leaving the big papers momentarily superfluous and embarrassed, and it forced them to readdress an issue they’d much rather have forgotten. By turning on the Mercury News, the big boys were reminding the rest of the flock who really runs the newspaper business, Internet or no Internet, and the extends to which they will go to protect that power, even if it meant rearranging reality to suit them. (Börjesson, 2004)

Lessons can be learned from Webb’s experience; his story is one of several instances in which the national press takes a much closer line to official positioning than regional papers (see WMD example, Börjesson, 2005). When those lines are crossed in regional papers and the national press and influential officials respond negatively, the consequences can be significant. As the title of one analysis reads, Webb’s experience forced other reporters to ask themselves ‘Are You Sure You Want to Ruin Your Career?’ (Osborn, 1998). Webb committed suicide in 2004; Webb’s ex-wife told the Sacramento News and Review that Webb ‘had been distraught for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper’ (Stanton, 2004).

CNN fires producers of ‘Valley of Death’ report following governmental flack

CNN producers April Oliver and Jack Smith spent months conducting research and interviews for a story that revealed how a mission called ‘Operation Tailwind’ undertaken by US special forces targeted US defectors during a then secret and illegal war in Laos in 1970. Based on the testimony of several Tailwind participants, it was reported that sarin nerve gas was used to kill the defectors (Oliver and Smith, 1998).

The evidence and revelations were clear, but there were some veterans and experts who disputed the account. Oliver and Smith included these disputes in their report, but higher ranking CNN executives axed one of the doubts raised in final editing. Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, and former CIA chief Richard Helm all attacked the report, and a large segment of the news media subsequently parroted much of the criticism, according to a news analysis done by FAIR (Cohen and Solomon, 1998). In the face of this pressure, CNN retracted the story and fired both Oliver and Smith (Bennett, 2004; Cohen and Solomon, 1998). CNN’s failure to support the story as well as the firings that ensued had strong reverberations and was pointed to as the main culprit for Bob Port’s story on the No Gun Ri massacre having been spiked for 14 months.

Marginalized or retracted stories that undermined key foreign policy positions

Political communication and political economy literature indicates that when stories surface in the press that undermine key US foreign policy positions, marginalization often occurs; the frequency of this matches (or surpasses) any other topic covered in journalism (Bennett, 1990; Livingston and Eachus, 1996; McChesney, 2004; Mermin, 1996). Many instances of this were blanked out by the US mainstream news media; this reflects institutional constraints to deter journalists from pressing on with reporting that significantly undermines key US foreign policy positions and initiatives.

Stories focusing on million dead Iraqis marginalized and passed up

In 2007, a reputable British polling firm released findings that more than a million Iraqis had violently died at the hands of US forces; in 2008, they updated those findings with a more extensive survey. McElwee (2008) found no mentions of the original findings ‘on any of the major TV networks or cable news channels’. Reuters ran a news brief on the latter findings (Baker, 2008). According to researchers at Project Censored (Stanton et al., 2010), however, no commercial news media outlet in the United States ran the wire story in a substantive fashion. This story exemplifies how critical reporting that lacks the support and attention of a powerful Washington official can completely escape the US mainstream news media radar regardless of its intrinsic importance.

Reports doubting existence of WMD in Iraq marginalized and relegated to back pages

Walter Pincus is a veteran reporter who has been covering the intelligence community for decades. His incisive reporting for the Washington Post from November 2002 up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 revealed a plethora of evidence undermining the Bush administration’s position on WMD and Iraq (Börjesson, 2005). This work, however, was consistently relegated to the back pages of the newspaper. This demonstrated to other reporters and journalists the marginalizing effect that institutional constraints have on the most critical reporting. Pincus identified the fact that ‘most newspapers are now in monopoly situations in most cities’ and ‘the growth of public relations’ as some of the problems plaguing journalism (Börjesson,2005: 241).

Pincus was not alone in his observations about this issue; several other mainstream news reporters reasoned that they could write incisively about WMD because they were not affiliated with nationally distributed outlets based in Washington. Veteran Knight-Ridder journalist Jonathan Landay explained why his own investigative and critical reporting on WMD ran:

I don’t think people really cared as long as it wasn’t being read in Washington. As long as it wasn’t having an impact here politically, then we could write what we wanted. If it had been in the New York Times or the Washington Post, then you would have seen a whole different reaction. (Börjesson, 2005: 373)

Warren Strobel, Landay’s writing partner, elaborated on the differences between their reporting and that of the most influential papers:

the New York Times and others were fed stuff to make the administration’s case, and they would present that at the top of their stories … we’re not just stenographers and this was a question of war and peace and lives and troops and everything else, and we felt that the way we should handle it was to put our emphasis on the critique. (Börjesson, 2005: 373)

Another example similar to the sidelined WMD story is a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece that detailed the No Gun Ri civilian massacre in Korea and was spiked by AP executives for well over a year, which led to the journalist and another AP staffer resigning in protest (Ackerman, 2000).

Findings and conclusion

This study was undertaken to expose and advance a key theoretical dispute between the political communication and political economy literature: whether institutional constraints (rather than voluntary deference by journalists) are the principal reason for content that lacks independence from Washington and Wall Street positioning on key issues.

Previous scholarship has argued that US foreign policy positions are among the most difficult to penetrate in exceptional and independent news reporting (Bennett, 1990: 122; Livingston and Eachus, 1996: 424; McChesney, 2004: 103; Mermin, 1996: 192), especially in the nation’s leading agenda-setting sources. Among the stories that were spiked, discontinued, or retracted, no topic attracted sharper reactions than potential war crimes and civilian killings by US troops. More research and studies are needed to verify this particular finding especially given its clear importance as a topic. In addition, local reporting resulted in more instances of advertiser- and ownership-led interventions and spikings. These are important insights that should be built on in further research.

This study provided support for the claim that institutional interests significantly affect media independence in mainstream US news outlets. Such a finding is important because scholarly inquiries on this topic are lacking. Furthermore, differing theoretical positions on the source of culpability for this lack of independence in news content is arguably the most important theoretical tension between political communication and political economy scholarship on news media. In light of the 28 examples of backlash against journalists uncovered herein, it is clear that institutional constraints are more crudely enforced than previously assumed by indexing theorists and the authors of the PM. Neither camp previously acknowledged, addressed, uncovered, or gave any prominence to these phenomena. This does not negate that standardized journalistic norms were not a factor in some of these cases, they may have been. However, contrary to the trapping of arguing one factor’s lone supremacy over the other, this study sought to reverse and document the important oversight of the impact of institutional constraints.

These findings validate the perceptions by journalists noted earlier in the study. In polls spanning over a decade, journalists complained of more direct influences and crude interventions by editors and news executives on behalf of the news outlet’s business and advertising interests. Thus, this study suggests that journalists largely do not have a false consciousness about these constraints; they simply implement the lessons they learn from experience or from others.

The most remarkable finding of this study is that there are many examples of journalists who deliberately go against the institutional constraints of their employers, even when their stories, their investigative series, their TV programs, and sometimes their very livelihoods suffer. This is far from Mermin (1999) and other indexing theorists’ characterizations of this as a hypothetical scenario (p. 150); this study provided many examples of journalists sacrificing much in search of the truth.

The idea that institutional constraints play a larger role than previously assumed in crafting news content found support in this study. Many examples noted in this study served as lessons to other journalists; these lessons are leading examples of how institutional constraints and crude interventions serve as important and previously overlooked factors for the restraints applied to subsequent news content.

This study contained empirical support for the PM’s renewed fifth filter on antiterrorism and also provided additional insight into how the fifth filter can operate in a more direct manner than what was previously assumed. Crude interventions occur, and their existence points to the validity of the postulate that institutional constraints are more often responsible for resulting news content lacking independence from official positioning than what has been previously assumed. This also stands in contrast to the idea of a voluntary self-deference by journalists being a lone factor in news media failings and strongly suggests that it may be a lesser factor than previous scholarship has assumed.

Crude interventions related to advertising appeared to happen with greater regularity than Herman and Chomsky assumed in their work, especially at the local level. Examples of this nature have included spiked stories and terminations of employees. Advertising and ownership interventions are also common in local-level enterprise reporting. At the national and international levels, interventions by editors are more common and are often related to foreign policy enterprise reporting in which revelations clash with US interests. These findings make sense given the local-level reporting tendency to shy away from national and international issues, which have become more the domain of internationally and nationally distributed sources.

It is easy to blame the victim and this is seen in many social phenomena. This study showed how journalists have been victims of deep-seated and omnipresent institutional necessities; however, evidence pointed strongly toward these victims not being at fault and instead revealed significant institutional constraints as culpable for spikings, firings, cancellations, demotions, and marginalization in general. This study will hopefully serve as further impetus for scholars to more closely document and further theorize occurrences in which crude interventions are made because of the institutional interests to which the news media are beholden. If more research of this sort is pursued, needed attention can be given to the structural problems that belie the news media.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author biography

Andrew Kennis is a visiting Assistant Professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City where he teaches graduate-level classes on media studies and analysis and undergraduate courses on journalism. He is in the midst of several scholarly book projects focusing on the media and social movements. He has also long practiced as an international and investigative journalist and has written from locations ranging across four continents.

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