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Senator Mike Gravel vs. MSNBC! Live from Philadelphia!
by Jaclyn Sakow, October 31, 2007
"We've rented out the Philadelphia venue and are ready to go, hopefully people will turn out," said Mike Gravel’s campaign field organizer, Jose Rodriguez, in a phone interview. There was a tinge of excitement and uncertainty in Rodriguez’s voice as he uttered those words. These emotions are understandable, since Rodriguez was about to embark on a trip to Philadelphia where Gravel was planning a very unorthodox presidential debate.
Last night, presidential hopeful Mike Gravel streamed live coverage of the MSNBC Democratic Debate, periodically using TiVo to pause the debate and insert his own thoughts. Because he was not invited to the MSNBC debate, Gravel staged his own in a Philadelphia cafe rented by his campaign. The cafe was located mere blocks away from the site of the official debate at Drexel University.
Mike Gravel is convinced, or at least wants the public to be convinced, that the reason he did not receive an invitation to the October 30 debate lie in the profit that GE (MSNBC’s corporate owner) makes from the war Gravel is opposing. In his blog on HuffingtonPost.com, Gravel writes, “The fact that NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the world’s leading military contractors, is frightening and certainly smacks of censorship directed at the most outspoken critic of the influence that the military-industrial complex holds over this great nation.”
This idea of corporate censorship and profit motivation aligns nicely with the first filter news is put through before being consumed, in the theory Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s put forth in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. The authors discuss the NBC/GE relationship within the text and noted that during most of media’s history close relationships between corporations and the media were looked down upon, yet there was a lack of response at the time GE purchased NBC because of the general “laissez-faire environment of the Reagan era” (13). Herman and Chomsky criticize the relationship between NBC and GE through the claim that these bedfellows are one of the reasons that the news we consume is near propaganda.
Additonally, the case that Gravel makes against General Electric is not completely unsubstantiated. In their book Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media, Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon make a strong case suggesting a history of situations where NBC’s relationship with GE presented a conflict of interest for the media company. According to Lee and Solomon, during the Reagan administration’s term, “Star Wars research was a veritable cash cow for GE and other high-tech weapons manufactures”(Lee and Solomon, 80). It seemed that the Star Wars research started by Reagan would not continue if a Democrat got elected during the 1988 presidential election. Subsequently, NBC President Robert Wright and GE chief Welsh donated to the Bush campaign probably because his victory would protect their vested interest. As a news organization, NBC was obliged to cover the 1988 election which presented a conflict of interest, “NBC News employees didn’t have to be told that a Dukakis victory – or tough, critical reporting on Star Wars – could cost GE millions of dollars”( Lee and Solomon, 81).
And there have been other cases where GE’s influence has manifested itself in NBC broadcasts. Lee and Solomon mention an incident where “a reference to the General Electric Company was surgically removed from a report on substandard products before it aired on NBC’s Today show on November 30, 1989”(77). Another example is a nuclear power documentary on NBC which ignored many of the problems associated with radioactive waste and also ignored the fact that GE is one of the largest owners of nuclear reactors in the United States (78). Other instances involve the masking of environmental hazards created by GE and insider trading scandals.
Yet, even with insight into General Electric’s lurid past, there are many reasons to cast a skeptical eye on Mike Gravel’s provocative accusation.
As the Democratic primary grows closer and given the relatively large number of candidates still participating, the need for an elimination process makes sense. In a seemingly generic email response, NBC news’ political director, Chuck Todd, wrote, “But we believed it was necessary to have some minimum standards… Unfortunately, Sen. Gravel did not meet those minimum requirements. The standards we used included measuring the amount of time the senator spent campaigning as well as poll standing and financial resources”.
Gravel is well under 5% in the polls right now and was under $1 million in campaign fundraising. Well, he was under $1 million until yesterday, when Gregory Chase, a 27-year-old hedge fund manager, spent several thousand on newspaper ads promoting Gravel and then offered NBC $1 million dollars to allow Gravel’s participation in the debate. An offer they presumably refused.
Sarah Wheaton, a political blogger on The New York Times’ website, also interviewed Todd, who stated that “There are plenty of other candidates on that stage who have similar views, on both Iran and Iraq,” a truth which casts doubt on Gravel’s charge of corporate censorship.
“That sounds pretty far fetched,” was associate director at Project for Excellence in Journalism, Mark Jurkowitz’s reaction when told Mike Gravel’s claim during a phone interview. When discussing the financial and polling requirements NBC imposed on Gravel, he added, “Frankly, as long as an organization has made these standards clear and made them public, it is fair to eliminate people from the debate on these grounds.”
In the first sentence of his blog entry on Huffington Post, Gravel writes “In the past year, I have attended 11 national Democratic debates of which two were sponsored by corporate media giant NBC.” Mike Gravel’s anti-war stance has not changed much in the past year, so there doesn’t seem to be a reason why NBC would have changed its stance on Gravel in the name of profit orientation - another indicator that Gravel’s theory seems flawed.
Whether or not you lend credence to Mike Gravel’s claim that MSNBC has counted him out of this debate due to his anti-war views, the Senator brings up many thought provoking ideas questioning the nature of the Democratic election in today’s media climate. These themes extend beyond corporate censorship and into the world of campaign finances, where huge amounts of money are spent on advertisements and candidates with little money accumulated are thrown to the margins.
Other works cited:
Chomsky, Noam and Herman S. Edwards. Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
Lee, Martin A. and Norman Solomon. Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1990.
"We've rented out the Philadelphia venue and are ready to go, hopefully people will turn out," said Mike Gravel’s campaign field organizer, Jose Rodriguez, in a phone interview. There was a tinge of excitement and uncertainty in Rodriguez’s voice as he uttered those words. These emotions are understandable, since Rodriguez was about to embark on a trip to Philadelphia where Gravel was planning a very unorthodox presidential debate.
Last night, presidential hopeful Mike Gravel streamed live coverage of the MSNBC Democratic Debate, periodically using TiVo to pause the debate and insert his own thoughts. Because he was not invited to the MSNBC debate, Gravel staged his own in a Philadelphia cafe rented by his campaign. The cafe was located mere blocks away from the site of the official debate at Drexel University.
Mike Gravel is convinced, or at least wants the public to be convinced, that the reason he did not receive an invitation to the October 30 debate lie in the profit that GE (MSNBC’s corporate owner) makes from the war Gravel is opposing. In his blog on HuffingtonPost.com, Gravel writes, “The fact that NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the world’s leading military contractors, is frightening and certainly smacks of censorship directed at the most outspoken critic of the influence that the military-industrial complex holds over this great nation.”
This idea of corporate censorship and profit motivation aligns nicely with the first filter news is put through before being consumed, in the theory Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s put forth in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. The authors discuss the NBC/GE relationship within the text and noted that during most of media’s history close relationships between corporations and the media were looked down upon, yet there was a lack of response at the time GE purchased NBC because of the general “laissez-faire environment of the Reagan era” (13). Herman and Chomsky criticize the relationship between NBC and GE through the claim that these bedfellows are one of the reasons that the news we consume is near propaganda.
Additonally, the case that Gravel makes against General Electric is not completely unsubstantiated. In their book Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media, Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon make a strong case suggesting a history of situations where NBC’s relationship with GE presented a conflict of interest for the media company. According to Lee and Solomon, during the Reagan administration’s term, “Star Wars research was a veritable cash cow for GE and other high-tech weapons manufactures”(Lee and Solomon, 80). It seemed that the Star Wars research started by Reagan would not continue if a Democrat got elected during the 1988 presidential election. Subsequently, NBC President Robert Wright and GE chief Welsh donated to the Bush campaign probably because his victory would protect their vested interest. As a news organization, NBC was obliged to cover the 1988 election which presented a conflict of interest, “NBC News employees didn’t have to be told that a Dukakis victory – or tough, critical reporting on Star Wars – could cost GE millions of dollars”( Lee and Solomon, 81).
And there have been other cases where GE’s influence has manifested itself in NBC broadcasts. Lee and Solomon mention an incident where “a reference to the General Electric Company was surgically removed from a report on substandard products before it aired on NBC’s Today show on November 30, 1989”(77). Another example is a nuclear power documentary on NBC which ignored many of the problems associated with radioactive waste and also ignored the fact that GE is one of the largest owners of nuclear reactors in the United States (78). Other instances involve the masking of environmental hazards created by GE and insider trading scandals.
Yet, even with insight into General Electric’s lurid past, there are many reasons to cast a skeptical eye on Mike Gravel’s provocative accusation.
As the Democratic primary grows closer and given the relatively large number of candidates still participating, the need for an elimination process makes sense. In a seemingly generic email response, NBC news’ political director, Chuck Todd, wrote, “But we believed it was necessary to have some minimum standards… Unfortunately, Sen. Gravel did not meet those minimum requirements. The standards we used included measuring the amount of time the senator spent campaigning as well as poll standing and financial resources”.
Gravel is well under 5% in the polls right now and was under $1 million in campaign fundraising. Well, he was under $1 million until yesterday, when Gregory Chase, a 27-year-old hedge fund manager, spent several thousand on newspaper ads promoting Gravel and then offered NBC $1 million dollars to allow Gravel’s participation in the debate. An offer they presumably refused.
Sarah Wheaton, a political blogger on The New York Times’ website, also interviewed Todd, who stated that “There are plenty of other candidates on that stage who have similar views, on both Iran and Iraq,” a truth which casts doubt on Gravel’s charge of corporate censorship.
“That sounds pretty far fetched,” was associate director at Project for Excellence in Journalism, Mark Jurkowitz’s reaction when told Mike Gravel’s claim during a phone interview. When discussing the financial and polling requirements NBC imposed on Gravel, he added, “Frankly, as long as an organization has made these standards clear and made them public, it is fair to eliminate people from the debate on these grounds.”
In the first sentence of his blog entry on Huffington Post, Gravel writes “In the past year, I have attended 11 national Democratic debates of which two were sponsored by corporate media giant NBC.” Mike Gravel’s anti-war stance has not changed much in the past year, so there doesn’t seem to be a reason why NBC would have changed its stance on Gravel in the name of profit orientation - another indicator that Gravel’s theory seems flawed.
Whether or not you lend credence to Mike Gravel’s claim that MSNBC has counted him out of this debate due to his anti-war views, the Senator brings up many thought provoking ideas questioning the nature of the Democratic election in today’s media climate. These themes extend beyond corporate censorship and into the world of campaign finances, where huge amounts of money are spent on advertisements and candidates with little money accumulated are thrown to the margins.
Other works cited:
Chomsky, Noam and Herman S. Edwards. Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
Lee, Martin A. and Norman Solomon. Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1990.
Latest page update: made by JaclynSakow
, Oct 31 2007, 11:47 AM EDT
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