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FEMA's False Press Conference: Are Fox News and MSNBC at Fault? |
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| Oct 31 2007, 5:29 PM EDT (current) | brm237 | 2 words added, 1 word deleted |
| Oct 31 2007, 5:28 PM EDT | brm237 | 63 words added, 12 words deleted |
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by Ben Muessig
On Tuesday, October 23, 2007, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) hosted a press conference to discuss the agency's response to the wildfires that were devastating California. Unfortunately, the press did not attend this conference.
Abandoning standard press conference protocol, FEMA alerted the media of the conference 15 minutes before the event began. No journalists arrived, so FEMA spokespersons portrayed both the interviewers and the interviewee. During the conference, FEMA Deputy Administrator, Vice Admiral Harvey Johnson answered questions posed by his coworkers who pretended to be reporters. There was no mention that those involved were not journalists. The questions were softballs that Johnson easily knocked out of the park. Prompts included:
-What type of commodities are you pledging to California?
-Can you address a little bit what it means to have the president issue an emergency declaration, as opposed to a major disaster declaration? What does that mean for FEMA?
-Are you happy with FEMA's response, so far?
The 24-hour news stations MSNBC and Fox News broadcast parts of the conference live, unaware that they were airing a false news event. MSNBC and Fox News did not respond to interview requests. Link to video on MSNBC. Link to video on Fox News.
Although no journalists attended the conference, several caught it via a special "listen only" line. The Washington Post Columnist Al Kamen broke the story on October 26, resulting in widespread coverage of the event. Kamen did not respond to interview requests.
On October 26, FEMA apologized for the event. "FEMA's goal is to get information out as soon as possible, and in trying to do so we made an error in judgment. Our intent was to provide useful information and be responsive to the many questions we have received," Johnson said.
While FEMA has already become the brunt of much criticism since the conference, few have analyzed the decision made by MSNBC and Fox News to air portions of the event live. Instead of highlighting the fake news, this analysis seeks to discuss the reasons why television news organizations disseminated this information.
According to Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky's "Propaganda Model," from their book Manufacturing Consent, there are five filters through which "[t]he raw material of news must pass…leaving only the cleansed residual fit to print" (pg 2). Chomsky and Herman's first filter is the size, ownership, and profit orientation of the media company involved (pg 3). Both MSNBC and FOX News are parts of huge media corporations. MSNBC is a joint project owned by Microsoft and NBC (which General Electric owns). Fox News belongs to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. As branches of massive corporations, both MSNBC and Fox News are what Chomsky and Herman deem "profit-seeking companies" (pg 5). To minimize costs and maximize profits, news organizations cut as many corners as possible. Perhaps if the stations were not driven by financial motives, they would be able to focus more closely on their content, or employ fact checkers who could investigate the validity of their stories.
If Chomsky and Herman's first filter declares that media corporations aim to make money, then the second filter – a media system based on advertising revenues – explains how these companies make money. Viewers do not pay television stations to watch programming. Instead, as Leslie Savan writes in the introduction to The Sponsored Life, "TV doesn't deliver products to viewers…viewers themselves are the real product, one that TV delivers to advertisers" (pg 3). Stations fight to for higher ratings because ratings prove that their channel draws more viewers than the competition. Advertisers give their money to the stations that capture the largest numbers of the viewers whom they hope to reach. By drawing additional viewers, news stations can increase the likelihood of landing advertisements. The California wildfires were a popular story. The three-day averages of television ratings during the California wildfires rose to 1,000,000 viewers for Fox News and 324,000 for MSNBC, compared with 264,000 for Fox News and 125,000 for MSNBC on October 19, the day before the fires began.Assuming that the stations were aware that the wildfire story drew elevated ratings, it is safe to surmise that they aimed to broadcast as much information about the wildfires as possible. Thusly, when the fake press conference arose, the stations were not pondering whether it was a legitimate news event – they were pondering whether it would get good ratings, which would bring good money.
The third filter is a reliance on official sources.
"[The broadcast of the faux news conference] illustrates a problem with journalists not treating official sources with enough scrutiny," said Isabel MacDonald, of the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. "This is why press conferences are the method of choice for government agencies to deliver their messages to the media – it's because they're very staged, and they know [that the press conference] will get covered." MacDonald reflects the common belief that the mainstream media relies upon, and trusts "official" sources. If a group that was not a government agency or a major corporation organized a similar conference, it likely would come under greater scrutiny – if it would receive coverage at all. Had MSNBC or FOX News employees been more critical of the conference itself, these stations wouldn't have aired the conference in the first place.
"[R]esponsible journalists must revisit Journalism 101 -- that is, to consider the source from which they are receiving quotes and verify the basic facts of each story with second and third source verification," said former Newark Star Ledger reporter and current Washington Square News Director of Operations David CosgroveThisCosgrove. "This should go without saying, but the current "playing field" for journalists is such that it should be mandatory to look further."
The fourth filter is flak. In this case, I do not believe that flak was a deciding factor in airing the faux news conference. The news stations seemed to believe that it was credible, and they aired it to gain ratings, not avoid criticism. FEMA has been heavily criticized since the conference, however neither MSNBC nor Fox News have received much flak for their decision to broadcast the event.
The fifth filter is a policy of anti-communism, which does not relate to this event. Even by extending the filter to include anti-terrorist rhetoric, FEMA's broadcast of the pseudo-event is not relevant.
Edward, Herman S. and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Vintage, 2006.
Savan, Leslie. The Sponsored Life. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994.
On Tuesday, October 23, 2007, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) hosted a press conference to discuss the agency's response to the wildfires that were devastating California. Unfortunately, the press did not attend this conference.
Abandoning standard press conference protocol, FEMA alerted the media of the conference 15 minutes before the event began. No journalists arrived, so FEMA spokespersons portrayed both the interviewers and the interviewee. During the conference, FEMA Deputy Administrator, Vice Admiral Harvey Johnson answered questions posed by his coworkers who pretended to be reporters. There was no mention that those involved were not journalists. The questions were softballs that Johnson easily knocked out of the park. Prompts included:
-What type of commodities are you pledging to California?
-Can you address a little bit what it means to have the president issue an emergency declaration, as opposed to a major disaster declaration? What does that mean for FEMA?
-Are you happy with FEMA's response, so far?
The 24-hour news stations MSNBC and Fox News broadcast parts of the conference live, unaware that they were airing a false news event. MSNBC and Fox News did not respond to interview requests. Link to video on MSNBC. Link to video on Fox News.
Although no journalists attended the conference, several caught it via a special "listen only" line. The Washington Post Columnist Al Kamen broke the story on October 26, resulting in widespread coverage of the event. Kamen did not respond to interview requests.
On October 26, FEMA apologized for the event. "FEMA's goal is to get information out as soon as possible, and in trying to do so we made an error in judgment. Our intent was to provide useful information and be responsive to the many questions we have received," Johnson said.
While FEMA has already become the brunt of much criticism since the conference, few have analyzed the decision made by MSNBC and Fox News to air portions of the event live. Instead of highlighting the fake news, this analysis seeks to discuss the reasons why television news organizations disseminated this information.
According to Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky's "Propaganda Model," from their book Manufacturing Consent, there are five filters through which "[t]he raw material of news must pass…leaving only the cleansed residual fit to print" (pg 2). Chomsky and Herman's first filter is the size, ownership, and profit orientation of the media company involved (pg 3). Both MSNBC and FOX News are parts of huge media corporations. MSNBC is a joint project owned by Microsoft and NBC (which General Electric owns). Fox News belongs to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. As branches of massive corporations, both MSNBC and Fox News are what Chomsky and Herman deem "profit-seeking companies" (pg 5). To minimize costs and maximize profits, news organizations cut as many corners as possible. Perhaps if the stations were not driven by financial motives, they would be able to focus more closely on their content, or employ fact checkers who could investigate the validity of their stories.
If Chomsky and Herman's first filter declares that media corporations aim to make money, then the second filter – a media system based on advertising revenues – explains how these companies make money. Viewers do not pay television stations to watch programming. Instead, as Leslie Savan writes in the introduction to The Sponsored Life, "TV doesn't deliver products to viewers…viewers themselves are the real product, one that TV delivers to advertisers" (pg 3). Stations fight to for higher ratings because ratings prove that their channel draws more viewers than the competition. Advertisers give their money to the stations that capture the largest numbers of the viewers whom they hope to reach. By drawing additional viewers, news stations can increase the likelihood of landing advertisements. The California wildfires were a popular story. The three-day averages of television ratings during the California wildfires rose to 1,000,000 viewers for Fox News and 324,000 for MSNBC, compared with 264,000 for Fox News and 125,000 for MSNBC on October 19, the day before the fires began.Assuming that the stations were aware that the wildfire story drew elevated ratings, it is safe to surmise that they aimed to broadcast as much information about the wildfires as possible. Thusly, when the fake press conference arose, the stations were not pondering whether it was a legitimate news event – they were pondering whether it would get good ratings, which would bring good money.
The third filter is a reliance on official sources.
"[The broadcast of the faux news conference] illustrates a problem with journalists not treating official sources with enough scrutiny," said Isabel MacDonald, of the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. "This is why press conferences are the method of choice for government agencies to deliver their messages to the media – it's because they're very staged, and they know [that the press conference] will get covered." MacDonald reflects the common belief that the mainstream media relies upon, and trusts "official" sources. If a group that was not a government agency or a major corporation organized a similar conference, it likely would come under greater scrutiny – if it would receive coverage at all. Had MSNBC or FOX News employees been more critical of the conference itself, these stations wouldn't have aired the conference in the first place.
"[R]esponsible journalists must revisit Journalism 101 -- that is, to consider the source from which they are receiving quotes and verify the basic facts of each story with second and third source verification," said former Newark Star Ledger reporter and current Washington Square News Director of Operations David CosgroveThisCosgrove. "This should go without saying, but the current "playing field" for journalists is such that it should be mandatory to look further."
The fourth filter is flak. In this case, I do not believe that flak was a deciding factor in airing the faux news conference. The news stations seemed to believe that it was credible, and they aired it to gain ratings, not avoid criticism. FEMA has been heavily criticized since the conference, however neither MSNBC nor Fox News have received much flak for their decision to broadcast the event.
The fifth filter is a policy of anti-communism, which does not relate to this event. Even by extending the filter to include anti-terrorist rhetoric, FEMA's broadcast of the pseudo-event is not relevant.
Edward, Herman S. and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Vintage, 2006.
Savan, Leslie. The Sponsored Life. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994.
