Ohio’s Rob Portman introduced the bipartisan “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act” in May, and Barack Obama signed it Dec. 23.
Whether it nationalizes American news media or recreates American Cold War propaganda initiatives depends on who you hear/read. Starting with a kernel of truth, conspiracy-obsessed Alex Jones told his readers at infowars.com, “Breaking: Obama bans free speech in the dead of night.”
In Jones’ world, “American adopts Soviet-style media controls. By slipping through the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, President Obama has signed the ‘Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act’ into law, effectively putting all speech under federal control. POWER GRAB: Obama Signs Bill Federalizing All Media.”
Fear of federal control of social media — with their abundant, toxic and partisan false news stories — is a persistent theme on websites run by Jones and fellow travelers.
For Alex Jones and other conspiracy buffs, Portman’s bill stinks of George Orwell’s 1984 and Ministry of Truth. Portman’s bipartisan bill recalls U.S. efforts to combat anti-American media since World War II.
Here’s part of Portman’s statement on the Dec. 23 signing: The act “will improve the ability of the United States to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation from our enemies by establishing an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government. To support these efforts, the bill also creates a grant program for NGOs, think tanks, civil society and other experts outside government who are engaged in counter-propaganda-related work.”
Washington-sponsored or -supported scholars and publications here and abroad have long told America’s story in diverse ways. Some efforts were covert, like the Rome Daily American where I was journalist in the early 1960s. I learned of the CIA backing years later. We joked it might be CIA but were told it was the project of an American banker who’d hoped to be Nixon’s ambassador to the Vatican after the Republican won the 1960 election.
Other post-war efforts were overt: Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and the U.S. Information Agency. Their anti-communism involved our national narrative and rebuttals of Radio Moscow, the news service Tass in various languages and other Soviet propaganda efforts.
Eastern European Communists and Soviet-supported Third World countries did much the same.
Overt and covert propaganda weren’t limited to the media. There were efforts to induct Third World journalists in the beliefs of Cold War host country. In Central Africa, I worked with journalists who returned from Moscow or East Germany where they spent a year learning the trade as practiced by their hosts. We did the same.
Americans continue to bring over journalists for advanced training; I don’t know if Russia does, but given the awful experiences some black Africans have with violent xenophobia, it would take a brave journalist to accept an invitation to Moscow today.
• “Propaganda” is not an epithet in my experience. It’s storytelling and can be adversarial (above). Effective propaganda usually is close enough to verifiable facts that it can’t be dismissed or blow back on the source. “White” propaganda declares its source; i.e., Voice of America, Radio Moscow. “Black” propaganda disguises its source or secret funding.
• When NPR’s Morning Edition featured Hanukkah, it introduced an a cappella singing group, The Maccabeats.
Their name is a play on Maccabees, the Jewish rebels who defeated Syrian Greeks in 165 B.C. The Maccabees’ re-dedication of the Jerusalem temple gives us the Hanukkah celebration.
NPR played Maccabeat lyrics to the songs of Broadway hit Hamilton. What caught my attention was the promo for an NPR sponsor as the Maccbeats music played: “spiral-sliced ham.” I hope someone at NPR had the wits to laugh at that face plant. A more likely Jewish delicacy during the eight days of Hanukkah is pan/deep fried potato pancakes — latkes — that Izzy’s serves daily.
• Not content with the fascist stiff-armed salute and chant, “Hail victory!”(Real American for Sieg heil!), some Trump supporters adopted another Nazi-era expression to express the president-elect’s loathing of fact-obsessed critical journalists: Lugenpresse (“lying press”).
• New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s thirst for vengeance is larger than his belt line. He wants to screw adversarial state dailies by ending the requirement that New Jersey governments buy ads for legal notices of public contracts, hearings, sales, etc.
Municipalities would be free to post the notices on their web pages.
The Huffington Post cited a National Newspaper Association study, saying legal notices averaged 5 to 10 percent of newspaper revenues. With readership and ad revenues decline, public notices have provided a valued and comparatively reliable income.
• Diane Rehm concluded her career as a public radio host last month. Her show kept me abreast of conventional wisdom in the nation’s capitol.
Rehm picked Joshua Johnson as her successor. A 37-year-old radio journalist, he calls his show 1A for the First Amendment and tradition of putting major stories on the first page of daily papers, Page 1A. I hope his producers will venture beyond the Beltway for ideas, expertise and voices.
• Canadian Broadcasting Corp. columnist Saada Branker ridiculed British press handling of Prince Harry’s latest squeeze.
“You gotta hand it to the British tabloids: they resisted the urge to go completely brazen with their coverage of Prince Harry’s relationship with Suits actress Meghan Markle. I mean, they could have run with headlines such as ‘Prince introduces woman of colour to royal family’ or ‘Half-black actress infiltrates blue blood pedigree.’ ”
Instead, tabloids stuck with “a wink-wink, nudge-nudge approach in letting their readers know that Markle doesn’t quite fall in line with the fair-skinned, English-bred ladies previously escorted into Buckingham Palace on Harry’s arm.”
Not surprisingly, the reactionary Daily Mail carried a headline, “Harry’s girl is (almost) straight outta Compton: Gang-scarred home of her mother revealed — so will she be dropping by for tea?”
Not to be outdone, Daily Mail columnist Rachel Johnson said Markle has a superior pedigree. “Genetically, she is blessed. If there is issue from her alleged union with Prince Harry, the Windsors will thicken their watery, thin blue blood and Spencer-pale skin and ginger hair with some rich and exotic DNA.’
Added CBC’s Branker: “Perhaps the (British) media should just go big — ‘White Prince dates Interracial Commoner’ — to just get it out of their system.”
• New Yorker copy editing was the gold standard. Even to catch a typo was memorable. That’s why I blinked when I read a book review with an inexplicable, egregious error. The essay referred to the golden Dome of the Rock that dominates most Jerusalem tourist images. According to the New Yorker, the Dome covers the rock where Abraham “sacrificed” his son, Isaac.
Wrong. Read Gen. 22. It’s an odd story, but God, satisfied with Abraham’s faith, sent an angel to prevent the slaughter of the bound youth. That’s why Hebrew Scripture calls it the “Akedah” or “binding” of Isaac. There was no sacrifice.
Both men came down from the mountain.
• I couldn’t avoid cynicism when Mylan announced a half-price version of its $600 life-saving EpiPen.
Disgusting as Mylan and its owner are, news media accounts weren’t much better. Too many treated the $300 EpiPen as a triumph of popular resistance and congressional shaming.
Wrong. The drug — epinephrine — is old, and Mylan had no role in its development. Moreover, the $300 retail price is many times what the branded EpiPen sold for a few years ago.
That’s still gouging, even if Mylan public relations efforts succeed.
CONTACT BEN L. KAUFMAN: letters@citybeat.com
This article appears in Jan 11-18, 2017.