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Media Censorship
US Media fails to report that Vice-President Dick Cheney may be indicted in France for Bribery by Sophia Barkat Vice-President Dick Cheney is being investigated in France for paying off $180 million in bribes to foreign governments while he was CEO of Halliburton. Yet, not one word of this was mentioned in US Media. So what's going on? Ask the French Press: "The investigations concern 180 million dollars of commissions paid on the occasion of a gas complex bid in Nigeria. The hypothesis of an eventual indictment of Dick Cheney is officially contemplated by French justice. According to projections of the case, he could be charged with "eventual complicity in supplying the means or the orders or the reception (of stolen goods)", for the misappropriation of public property," reports Eric Decouty of "Lefigaro", a French Newspaper. (Dec. 20, 2003 globalpolicy.org) Initiated by French law enforcement authorities, the case would be prosecuted under an international treaty making bribery of foreign public officials a criminal offense. The treaty has been signed by the United States, France, and over 30 other countries. Alarmed by the US Media's failure to report the news, MoveOn.org sent out an activist alert on Jan. 12th 2004, urging people to write their newspapers in protest of this negligence and that's how many came to know about it in the US. After that it was pretty hard for the US newspapers to completely keep quiet. Needless to say, the Bush Administration has been bothered by the news too. Troubled by the possibility of bad publicity that could brew from a massive news outbreak the U.S. Treasury decided to contact Halliburton about the issue, but made no public statement about it. "The U.S. Treasury is looking into whether Halliburton the oil services firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney broke any U.S. laws in its business dealings with Iran via a foreign subsidiary," reports Sue Pleming, Reuters, (Feb. 11th, 2004, Yahoo!News). "Halliburton, which was run by Cheney between 1995-2000, is being investigated for a range of other business dealings by several U.S. government departments." It should be reported that John Snow, Paul O'Neill's replacement at the US Treasury, was handpicked by none other than Dick Cheney himself, and is "a champion of deregulation" and a great financier of political campaigns for the Republican Party, though he also admires Clinton's views on deregulation and balanced budgets, and so may not be a die-hard Republican after-all: (See pww.org) The news became public only after Halliburton acknowledged the U.S Treasury's concern in it's recent February 9th filing. "We are making further investigations based on questions raised in the most recent (Treasury) letter," said the report. The New York Times finally reports it New York Times which boasts subscribers in millions only ran one story since the news on the Cheney Investigation in France -- Nigeria Orders an Investigation of Halliburton Gas Payments -- and that too was a story by the Associated Press on February 7th, 2004, a whole month after MoveOn.org sent out an activism alert to hundreds of thousands of Americans to write and protest to newspapers for not covering this earlier. Could it be the news directors and editors finally decided to run the story to protect their credibility? The Associated Press covered it in late January 2004 Matt Kelley, Reporter for the Associated Press ran the story as early as Jan 24, 2004 titled, "Halliburton Pledges to Repay Pentagon", covering Cheney's case in France. (See ap.org) "Defense Department investigators already probing whether Halliburton overcharged for gasoline delivered in Iraq now will look into the new charges - the first direct allegations of corruption involving the billions of dollars of private work in Iraq," reports Matt Kelley, adding more perspective to why the Bush Administration may have been pressuring the US Media to keep quiet. Eventually the news would break out but while the Bush Administration was already under scrutiny for the Defense Spending even in an Republican Majority Congress, they were probably hoping to avoid a snowballing of bad publicity. The Dallas Morning News is the largest newspaper to break the news On Saturday Jan. 10th, 2004, the Dallas Morning News became the first major U.S. newspaper to cover the story -- with a front page article, no less. The other 11 of America's 12 highest-circulation daily papers had not covered Cheney's inclusion in the investigation up to that point, this while newspapers all around the world have been covering this news for over three weeks. The Nation.com covers it in December 2003 Though not one of the top 12 newspapers, Nation.com reports the news of Cheney being investigated in France as early as Dec. 29 2003 -- two weeks ahead of the major newspapers. And yet, in his article, "Will the French Indict Cheney?", Doug Ireland, the Nation's reporter, spends most of his time reporting Halliburton's over-billing of the Pentagon and does not bring up the fact that Halliburton is also being investigated in France for bribing Nigerian officials -- the caption news -- until the very end. "Halliburton disclosed last year that another KBR employee paid more than $2 million in bribes to a Nigerian official to get favorable tax treatment. A French judge investigating a KBR joint venture in Nigeria with a French firm has reportedly warned that Cheney, who headed Halliburton from 1995 until 2000, could be subject to criminal charges in France. Cheney has denied wrongdoing," he says to wraps up the report making one wonder in retrospect why he titled his article that way. Is the media under pressure to not make a splash? If so by whom and why? The Nation after all is regarded by many as one of the bolder newspapers in the country. Is it all just censorship by the Bush Administration? No. A good example that the New York Times censors itself, for e.g. is the time NYT did not publish news implicating Cheney in a Halliburton bribery case, as told by David Walsh of the World Socialist Web Site. On a Jan. 10th 2002 report Walsh shows how the New York Times editors came to the aid of the Bush Administration when stories of Bush being connected to Enron's financial scandals first started to surface: A January 4th 2002 Times editorial, "The Enron Post-Mortem," noted: "No company has more generously backed President Bush throughout his political career than Enron," adding that company Chairman Kenneth Lay, "was among the influential advisers to Vice President Dick Cheney’s secretive energy task force last spring," writes Walsh. Then the Times arrives at its central theme: "Democrats ... should resist the temptation to use the Enron saga for cheap political gain. Talk of a ‘cancer on the presidency’ [a reference to the Watergate scandal] and of a ‘Bush Whitewater’ is unwarranted at this point, and threatens to trivialize and unduly politicize an inquiry vital to the health of the American economy." This, despite the fact that Enron Chief Ken Lay is one of the biggest fundraisers for the Bush 2000 campaign and the finance chairman of the Bush inaugural ceremony . Is De-regulation the reason why? Just on Feb 13th, 2004 Bill Moyer did a story about Right-Wing Talk Radio on his TV Show, NOW in which one of the guests of the show brought up the fact that the media industry as a whole, already run by ten big names, is still pushing the envelop on media de-regulation. So much so, that they will be nice to any government that comes to power, not just Republican. According to Opensecrets.org, the Communications and Electronics lobbies, to which TV, newspapers and radio belong, are one of the top three campaign finance contributors. In 2000, an election year, the Communications and Electronics lobbies spent over $200 million on financing political parties -- right after the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate lobbies and the Health Industry lobbies. And yet, of these lobbies, the Book, Newspaper & Periodical Publishing lobbies spent only $13 million, while the TV/Movie/Music lobby spent only $29 million. The bulk of the money was spent by the Computer Products and Services Lobbies ($57 million) and the Telephone lobbies ($42 million). And yet, since deregulation has allowed companies like Microsoft to be both software providers and owners of cable companies, and allowed Time Warner to own movie, TV, and Internet provider services there is practically much overlapping within the entire sector. Hence, the lobby groups are tied to common goals -- more deregulation being one of them . ((See Opensecrets.org) In 1999, which was a near-election year, the Communications and Electronics lobbies spent $192 million out of $1.45 billion in lobby givings to campaign finance. In 1997 and 1998 the Communications and Electronics lobbies also gave $154 million and $186 million respectively. Opensecrets.org also showed that the Movie/TV/Music industry directly gave more to Democrats than the Republicans between 1990-2002, the numbers climbing from $5.7 million in 1990 to $39.9 million, two-thirds of which always went to Democrats. President Bill Clinton signed several deregulation Bills that the Republics, and perhaps for this reason the lobbies gave so much to the Democratic Party and continue to give more to them than to Republicans. (See opensecrets.org) So why support the current Bush Administration all of a sudden? Fact is, the Media is concerned about the Federal Consumer Commission pushing through more deregulation in the industry and the Bush Administration appointee to FCC Chairman, Michael Powell has promised that, even though both the House and Senate of the US Congress have said they would block it. As FCC Chairman, Powell enforced a 45% ownership ceiling, such that the largest company can now own 10% more than before. The regulation approved in June by the FCC has been on hold pending legal challenges and frequently, decisions take several months. So perhaps till then we will not see much active reporting of any news anti-Bush in the US Media, particularly the big name companies. Corporate Advertisers giving more to Bush Last but not least, the Bush Administration has been very generous in tax-cuts to the rich in the past four years. In the name of giving tax-cuts to the small companies, Bush aides have listed Halliburton, Bechtel etc. as small companies, showing clearly where their allegiances are. The fact that large corporations will return the favor by any means possible is nothing difficult to understand. Even before the Democratic Primaries were over, George Bush had raised $130 million for his 2004 Presidential campaign, with 98% coming from individual contributions and 73% of that from donations of $2,000 or more -- not from blue collar workers, obviously (See opensecrets.org). Corporate givings also lean more towards Republicans than Democrats. To keep Bush in power the large advertisers will use their muscle power where ever they have to. The end of Bill Mahers celebrated show on ABC, "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher" is one such example where too much criticism of the Bush Administration had serious repercussions on the media. These pressures also prevent the Media from doing their job, as far as Press responsibilities go. About the Author(s): See under Our Contributors to find out about the Author(s) of this article. |
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