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Fired by MSNBC for Giving Voice to Iraq War Opposition, Phil Donahue (1935-2024) Was Courage Personified
The journalist and TV show host, who died Sunday at the age of 88, made his mark on our society. He fought for the underdog. He did it with style and grace and a wonderful sense of humor. He changed my life and the lives of so many others.
Aug 19, 2024
Phil Donahue passed away Sunday night, after a long illness. He was beloved by those who knew him and by many who didn’t.
He started as a local reporter in Ohio, was a trailblazer in bringing social issues to a national audience as a daytime broadcast TV host, and then he was pretty-much banished from TV by MSNBC because he—accurately, correctly, and morally—questioned the horrific U.S. invasion of Iraq.
In the 1970s, Phil took progressive issues and mainstreamed them to millions through his syndicated daytime show. He was a pioneer in syndication. He also pioneered on the issues; his most frequent guests on his daytime show were Ralph Nader, Gloria Steinem, and Rev. Jesse Jackson. They appeared dozens of times as Phil boosted civil rights, women’s rights, and consumer rights. He regularly hosted Dr. Sidney Wolfe warning of the greedy pharmaceutical industry and unsafe drugs. Raised a Catholic, he also featured advocates for atheism.
Mainstream media obits will likely focus on his daytime TV episodes that included male strippers or other titillation, but Phil was serious about the issues—and did far more than most mainstream TV journalists to address the biggest issues.
I was a senior producer on Phil’s short-lived MSNBC primetime show in 2002 and 2003. It was frustrating for us to have to deal with the men Phil called “the suits”—NBC and MSNBC executives who were intimidated by the Bush administration and resisted any efforts by NBC/MSNBC to practice journalism and ask tough questions of Washington before our young people were sent to Iraq to kill or be killed. Ultimately, Phil was fired because—as the leaked internal memo said—Donahue represented “a difficult public face for NBC at a time of war.”
But before we were terminated, we put guests on the screen who were not commonly on mainstream TV. We offered a full hour with Barbara Ehrenreich on Labor Day in 2002; a full hour with veteran journalist Studs Terkel; interviews with progressive members of Congress, including Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich; and segments with the "maverick" Texas Observer columnist Molly Ivins; and offered platforms to foreign policy experts like Phyllis Bennis and Laura Flanders as well as Palestinian advocates, including Hanan Ashrawi.
No one on American television cross-examined Israeli leaders like Phil did when he interviewed then-Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and later, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. They seemed stunned—never having faced such questioning from a U.S. journalist.
But “the suits” ruined our show when they took control and actually mandated a quota system favoring the right wing: If we had booked one guest who was antiwar, we needed to book two that were pro-war. If we had one guest on the left, we needed two on the right. When a producer suggested booking Michael Moore—known to oppose the pending Iraq war—she was told she’d need to book three rightwingers for political balance.
Three weeks before the Iraq war started, and after some of the biggest antiwar mobilizations the world had ever seen (which were barely covered on mainstream TV), the suits at NBC/MSNBC terminated our show.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
Phil was a giant. A huge celebrity who supported uncelebrated indy media outlets. He loved and supported the progressive media watch group FAIR (which I founded in the mid-1980s.)
Phil put Noam Chomsky on mainstream TV. He fought for Ralph Nader to be included in the 2000 presidential debates. He went on any TV show right after 9/11 that would have him to urge caution and to resist the calls for vengeful, endless warfare that would pointlessly kill large numbers of civilians in other countries. He opposed active wars and the Cold War with the Soviet Union. He supported war veterans and produced an important documentary on the topic: “Body of War,” on the life and death of Tomas Young.
Phil Donahue made his mark on our society. He fought for the underdog. He did it with style and grace and a wonderful sense of humor. He changed my life. And others’ lives.
He was inspired by the consciousness-raising groups he saw in the feminist movement and he sought to do consciousness-raising on a mass scale . . . using mainstream corporate TV. He did an amazing job of it.
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To Protect Democracy, Newsrooms Must Choose Op-Eds Responsibly
Editors owe a duty to the public to avoid hyperbolic opinion writing and “doom looping” that advance the interests of a privileged few.
Apr 09, 2024
On September 21, 1970, The New York Times ran its first “op-ed” page. Short for “opposite the editorial,” this new feature provided space for writers with no relationship to the newspaper’s editorial board to express their views. Before long, other newspapers followed suit. More than 50 years later, in order to compete with electronic media news, traditional newspapers have come to utilize opinion pages as a means to attract and keep readers.
Newspaper editors understood the power of opinion pieces as early as 1921 when editor Herbert Bayard Swope of the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Worldsaid: “Nothing is more interesting than opinion when opinion is interesting, so I devised a method of cleaning off the page opposite the editorial… and thereon I decided to print opinions, ignoring facts.”
The pioneering opinion pieces Swope published were written by newspaper staff; and, while he may have ignored some facts in the opinions he published, contemporary newspapers claim to aspire to journalistic integrity. In its op-ed guidelines, The Washington Post, for example, notes that all op-eds are fact-checked. Post guidelines explain that authors with “important titles,” like “senators, business leaders, heads of state,” are held “to a particularly high standard when considering whether to publish them in the Post.”
Too often, however, the aims of consolidated, corporatized media, owned and operated by megarich individuals, supersede Fourth Estate journalistic ethics and democratic duties.
As competition for the public’s attention stiffens in a social media and online communications-saturated environment, it’s perhaps not surprising that conflicts of interest arise in the op-ed pages. In 2011, more than 50 journalists and academics urged greater transparency about conflicts of interest among New York Times op-ed page contributors. In an October 6, 2011 letter to Arthur Brisbane, the Times’s public editor, they criticized the practice of “special interests surreptitiously funding ‘experts’ to push industry talking points in the nation’s major media outlets,” absent reporting of those writers’ vested interests.
In their letter to the Times, the signatories called out the unreported bias of Manhattan Institute senior fellow Robert Bryce. The Institute received millions of dollars in funding from the fossil fuel industry. Bryce’s promotion of fossil fuels rather than renewable energy, they wrote, flew in the face of his “masquerading as an unbiased expert.”
Corporate media consolidation has strategically limited the diversity of perspectives and the quality of journalism and unduly influenced audience opinion. With a handful of large corporations controlling a majority of media outlets, content homogenization and profit prioritization often replace journalistic integrity. For instance, the acquisition of hundreds of weekly and daily newspapers by conglomerates like Gannett has led to a reduction in independent voices, an increase in editorial uniformity, biased editorials and op-eds, and news deserts.
The Sinclair Broadcast Group’s ownership of approximately 200 television stations has been criticized for mandating the airing of politically slanted content, including editorials and op-eds, across its network. This centralized control over broadcasting allows for the dissemination of partisan perspectives, undermining public access to balanced, impartial news coverage. Instead, viewers are fed one-sided opinions aligned with corporate agendas, rather than presented with a diverse array of viewpoints.
Editorials and op-eds can and often do have a greater influence on public consciousness than news articles. In best-case scenarios, they express a broad spectrum of opinions, provide in-depth analysis, advocate for specific viewpoints, and connect with audiences through emotion and ethos. Publications adhering to journalistic ethics feature opinions written in the public’s best interest and offer a range of well-reasoned perspectives that enhance good-faith debate.
Because the importance of an issue is often equated with the type and amount of media coverage it gets, high-profile publishers bear a greater responsibility in curating opinion pieces. When premier newspapers publish op-eds that are irresponsibly written—whether echoing government propaganda and political biases or corporate interests, lacking fundamental facts or historical context, or wielding accusatory or derogatory language and sensationalized headlines—they “signal boost” for a particular viewpoint or agenda.
This type of writing is irresponsible and counter-democratic for several reasons. Many news consumers skim headlines, only reading articles with gripping titles and subtitles. Reckless opining is equally irresponsible because many Americans have difficulty distinguishing fact from opinion. News consumers do not always make the necessary distinction between what’s published in the “news” section versus “opinion,” according to Marist College journalism professor Kevin M. Lerner.
When established reporters and purported experts voice their views as authoritative, their opinions are often perceived as news rather than opinion. Readers give them greater weight because of their credentials. Editors thus bear a greater responsibility to ensure that their opinion pieces adhere to the highest standards of journalistic ethics. Failure to do so can amount to a form of reader manipulation. Such lapses not only compromise journalistic credibility but do a disservice to the public and the democratic process.
Daniel Macy, senior associate in the Office of the Public Editor at PBS,wrote a defense of news editorial decisions. Too often, he complained, news audiences incorrectly believe that the media shape the news agenda. Macy claimed that the news media merely mirror the agenda. If audiences believe there’s bias, he continued, that’s due to the ever-present prioritizing system that each news consumer keeps in their head. At the end of the day, he affirmed, the editor decides what makes the news. “That sounds a little bit agenda-setting, but it’s not.”
Macy’s denial notwithstanding, establishment media has an agenda-setting function, and editorial decisions factor into the formation of public opinion and individuals’ voting decisions. Although the media cannot necessarily tell audiences what to think, they certainly have the power to inform what and who audiences think about. Take the 2024 report by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) that investigated biased articles on economic topics, such as inflation, recession, and government debt and spending.
Searches of the 2023 New York Times and Washington Post archives revealed excessive prognosticating about a recession that never materialized and simultaneously correlated this to companies’ unjustifiably inflating prices. This sort of signal-boosting whipped up “fears of recession, a fantasy problem,” and directed attention away from the facts. In March 2024, writing on the strength of the U.S. economy, Louis Jacobson explored why so many Americans believe otherwise. The “self-reinforcing doom loops of media coverage and partisan biases” are at least partly, if not wholly, to blame, he wrote.
Opinion pieces that serve corporate or political agendas exemplify irresponsible editorializing. Editors owe a duty to the public to avoid hyperbolic opinion writing and “doom looping” that advance the interests of a privileged few. Too often, however, the aims of consolidated, corporatized media, owned and operated by megarich individuals, supersede Fourth Estate journalistic ethics and democratic duties. Manufacturing Consent (1988), the seminal work of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, shattered the illusion that the establishment media serve as a reliable check on power. Rather, media empires prop up the status quo and repeatedly display an unwillingness to challenge the power structures from which they profit.
Case in Point: Genocide Perpetrators Portrayed as Victims
A brief survey of opinion pieces related to 2023 headline news stories illustrates how unenforced editorial standards turned op-eds into forms of political propaganda. In the case of Israel’s genocidal acts against Palestinians in 2023 to 2024, editorials and op-eds in U.S. newspapers largely portrayed Israel as a victim, despite overwhelming evidence to support South Africa’s charge in the International Court of Justice that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
The Interceptpublished an analysis of media coverage during the first six weeks of the Israeli assault on Gaza, which helps to quantify the misuse of op-eds. The open-source inquiry into more than 1,000 articles revealed coverage that regularly favored the Israeli narrative. Consistent bias against Palestinians in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times disproportionately described Israeli losses in emotional, humanizing language.
By contrast, Palestinian deaths were downplayed, as were the devastating impacts of the unprecedented bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip. The killing of journalists and children was similarly minimized. Harking back to Manufacturing Consent, Herman and Chomsky demonstrated the notion of “worthy and unworthy victims.” Victims of enemies of the United States and its client states are “worthy victims.” Correspondingly, in MintPress News (February 27, 2024) Alan Macleod wrote that deaths will only be covered extensively and compassionately in the establishment press if there’s political and economic capital to be gained.
Time and again, Western establishment news media showcase Israeli government and military officials and “authoritative voices” sympathetic to Israeli and U.S. policies to comment on the conflict.
The Intercept’s analysis detailed asymmetrical reporting on acts of antisemitism versus anti-Arab and anti-Muslim actions, and concluded that “[a]nalysis of both print media and cable news make[s] clear that, if any cohort of media consumers is getting a slanted picture, it’s those who get their news from established mass media in the U.S.”
In February 2024, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting released the results of its analysis of opinion pieces in The New York Times and Washington Post that mentioned Israel or Gaza, as published from October 7 to December 6, 2023. FAIR determined that, although both papers included a few strong pro-Palestinian voices, opinions weighed heavily toward Israeli interests.
That was largely due to reliance on regular columnists sympathetic to Israel. Guest opinion editorials in both papers primarily featured the same old government officials (domestic and foreign, past and present) and attendant think tank experts uncritical of Israel.
To give an example of “op-ed abuse” that advantages U.S. pro-war policies, a study by the Quincy Institute found that the majority of think tank experts featured in the establishment press supportive of Ukraine were paid by the U.S. Department of Defense. Conflating national and international security issues with a feigned need for expert opinion is nothing new—newspapers of record have a track record of employing op-eds to justify war.
Caitlin Johnstone has written that “a jarring number of media executives and influential journalists” belong to the Council on Foreign Relations. The Washington Post’s former managing editor, Richard Harwood, reportedly commented that media involvement in the council aids the United States in formulating and promoting its policies and positions.
Indeed, who does the reporting and opining is as instrumental to a story as its subject and how a story is told, as media analyst Sana Saeed of Al-Jazeera+ has analyzed. Time and again, Western establishment news media showcase Israeli government and military officials and “authoritative voices” sympathetic to Israeli and U.S. policies to comment on the conflict. To state the obvious, stenography—that is, uncritically quoting think tank executives and government bureaucrats—is not journalism. Nor does it carry weight in constructive opinion writing unless, perhaps, it’s contextualized to validate an argument.
Modern Media’s Duty to the Public
Traditional media have long served as sources for citizens to learn about their political leaders, policies, and government. Citizens should be able to trust their nation’s premier newspapers to maintain professed standards of professional ethics and to offer a plurality of newsworthy viewpoints.
Biased reporting is a breach of journalistic ethics. The preamble to the Society for Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, widely considered the gold standard of ethical journalism, states the belief “that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy,” and appeals to the integrity of every journalist, beginning with guidelines for seeking and reporting truth. A breach of ethics interferes with the public’s right to, and need for, accurate information.
Biased and propagandized publications may be thought of as a human rights issue too. According to Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression, which includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference, and to seek and receive… information… through any media regardless of frontiers.” Thinking in those terms, reporting that’s biased, lacks transparency, or presents decontextualized information impedes Article 19’s contention that information seekers have the right to obtain facts and bias-free information.
Even in the digital age, America’s legacy media bear a consequential responsibility to the public. At a time when democracy is under strain, opinion pieces in our premier newspapers run the risk of abusing their status to steer public debate against the public welfare—especially when written by influential individuals with vested conflicts of interest.
Considering the blurred lines between legacy media and social media and between news and opinion, editorial decisions do more than undermine the role and reputation of journalism in a democracy; they jeopardize democracy itself.
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US Corporate Media Outlets Allow IDF to Vet 'All Materials' From Embedded Reporters in Gaza
"Israel is killing the journalists that expose their crimes, then bribing the journalists that cover for them," said one critic.
Nov 06, 2023
U.S. corporate media outlets have granted Israeli military commanders pre-publication review rights for "all materials and footage" recorded by their correspondents embedded with the Israel Defense Forces during the invasion of Gaza, a precondition condemned by press freedom advocates.
"Journalists embedded with the IDF in Gaza operate under the observation of Israeli commanders in the field, and are not permitted to move unaccompanied within the Gaza Strip," Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," explained in a segment on Sunday.
"As a condition to enter Gaza under IDF escort, outlets have to submit all materials and footage to the Israeli military for review prior to publication," he added. "CNN has agreed to these terms in order to provide a limited window into Israel's operations in Gaza."
In a clip featuring correspondent Raf Sanchez—who is embedded with an IDF unit tasked with finding and destroying Hamas tunnels in Gaza—NBC News also acknowledged that it has "agreed to share raw footage" as "an operational security requirement."
Responding to Zakaria's admission, U.S. journalist Dan Cohen asserted that "CNN is explicitly acting as a propaganda mouthpiece for the genocidal Zionist regime."
U.S. photojournalist Zach D. Roberts said on social media that "what CNN is doing here is creating ad b-roll for the IDF. It's nothing resembling news and the CNN employees that participated in it aren't anything resembling journalists."
Omar Suleiman, founder and president of the Texas-based Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, said Sunday on social media that "Israel is killing the journalists that expose their crimes, then bribing the journalists that cover for them."
Israel does not allow foreign journalists into Gaza unless they're embedded with IDF units under the aforementioned preconditions, placing almost all of the responsibility—and danger—of reporting on Palestinian correspondents.
As Common Dreams reported Friday, at least 31 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza since Israel began bombarding the densely populated strip in response to the October 7 Hamas-led attacks that left more than 1,400 Israelis and others dead in southern Israel, with another 240 or so people taken hostage.
One Lebanese journalist was also killed in Gaza, while four Israeli media professionals were slain during the Hamas attacks.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the past month has been the deadliest four-week period for media professionals since the U.S.-based group started keeping records in 1992. CPJ has also documented at least eight injuries, three missing people, eight arrests, and "multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and killings of family members."
Suleiman said that the world can "expect more coverage humanizing IDF soldiers while they murder thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians in cold blood."
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said Monday that Israeli forces have killed at least 10,022 people in Gaza, including 2,550 women and more than 4,100 children, while wounding over 25,000 others.
During the eight-year U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, embedded journalists were used by American officials in an attempt to control the war's public narrative. Research has shown that embedding "channeled reporters toward producing war coverage from the soldier's point of view," while minimizing civilian casualties and other negative consequences.
U.S. and other Western mainstream media have long been accused of one-sided coverage in favor of Israel. During the current war, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and other media monitors have noted how numerous outlets have broadcast unverified Israeli and U.S. claims of babies beheaded by Hamas, of Gaza-based militants operating from beneath hospitals, of Hamas using human shields, and other unsubstantiated reports.
Lara Witt and Tina Vásquez of Prism Reports recently wrote that the U.S. media "is evading its responsibility to acknowledge the Gaza genocide."
"The American media is failing," they wrote. "Through journalistic sleight of hand—including the use of passive language, ever-shifting headlines, bothsidesism, and the myth of objectivity—reporters across the U.S. are fueling the genocide their newsrooms are refusing to acknowledge is taking place," Witt and Vásquez added.
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