NO CUMSTAIN: NO COVERAGE

RATPREC's

Media rejets ‘Smoking Gun' on Iraq as ‘not sexy enough’

Chicago, WPI - Adjourning their annual meeting this weekend in Chicago, America’s top news editors and publishers dismissed the historic disclosure that President Bush planned the invasion of Iraq as early as 2002 and sought British help to “fix the facts” to fit the policy as, “just not sexy enough.”

The Radio and Television Print Editors Club (RATPREC), the nation’s premier association of news editors from print and electronic media, meet annually to discuss the issues and challenges facing coverage and distribution of news in the US and abroad.

Topics discussed this year include “Digging for Details- Qualifing and Conditioning “Friends of the Victim” for broadcast; Checking for Facts- Extending the Definition of “Anonymous;” and The FCC and You - Free Broadband vs.Federal Scrutiny - How 'rockin the boat' results in onerous regulation."

The meeting, usually unnoticed outside the trade press, was itself the center of a media storm as thousands of protesters gathered to harass the jaded press corp demanding an explanation for why the media has ignored recent revelations in the UK regarding the origins of the war in Iraq.

On May 1, the prestigious London Times revealed the minutes of a confidential cabinet meeting of the Blair government which showed that the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq as early as 2002 and sought British help to doctor data to invent a threat from Saddam Hussien.

The secret document labeled as, “Secret and Strictly Personal — UK eyes only” were minutes from a July 23, 2003 meeting attended by Blair, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, Geoff Hoon, the defense secretary, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, and military and intelligence chiefs. Also listed on the minutes are Alastair Campbell, then Blair’s director of strategy, Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff, and Sally Morgan, director of government relations.

In addition, a briefing paper specifically prepared for the July meeting reported that Blair had made his decision on Saddam when he met President George W Bush in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. “When the prime minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford in April,” states the paper, “he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change.”

Luther Patriotis, Director of Responsible Reporting, a media watchdog group and organizer of the protest said, “This document is the ‘smoking gun’ in the record on Iraq. It proves, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that Bush planned to invade Iraq as early as six months after September 11th.

The US, Britian and a few other third world countries launched a military invasion of Iraq in March of 2003 with the purpose of deposing Saddam Hussien using the pretext of Hussien’s possession of Weapons of Mass Destriuction, a claim that has been proven false.

Patriotis added, “It proves, unequivocally, that the US and British intelligence communities invented the justification for war and that these events went uninspected and unreported by both national and international western media. Instead, the press acted like a cheerleading squad for the thin and tenuous data used to justify the invasion.”

The RATPREC meeting, famous for its raucous carousing, was no exception this year. Billy Babley, a free lance bartender hired to work the conference said, “Jesus, those people can drink. They poured down martians like the Rapture was tomorrow. I suppose it’s because they were on an expense account.” He confirmed another RATPREC characteristic, “But they are cheap SOB’s, I got crap for tips.”

Jack Hawkis, chairman of this year’s meeting and Opinion/Editorial Page Editor at the Washingtom Times said, “In our defense, because those guys (Responsible Reporting protesters) are probably right, we just don’t have the resources for real reporting anymore.

Mr. Hawkis, speaking informally in the Motown Bar in the Chicago Radission Hotel where the meeting was being held said, “Look, there is no such thing as an ‘independent’ newspaper or network anymore. We’re all owned by one or another media giant. Powell at the FCC holds a carrot in one hand, free broadband wavelength, and a stick, FCC censorship and fines, in the other. Who is going to do anything to piss of Powell’s boss, Bush? Rupert Murdoch? Sumner Redstone? Michael Eisner? Come on.”

Seconding that opinion was Nicki Marshall editor of News Media and Marketing magazine and owner of The Wild Grape Group, a news marketing consulting firm used by most major networks. “You must understand, the public doesn’t really want news anymore. They want action, drama, excitement. That’s why lottery numbers are more important to a news cast than the lead story.”

She continued, “The audience doesn’t want bad news, so what should we do? Give it to ‘em anyway? We are in business, remember?. What the public wants is ‘sex, drugs and rock & roll.’ That’s why the tabloids are successful. There aren’t any depressing stories about the president lying about starting a war, just stuff about JayLo getting knocked up.”

“This British Cabinet meeting thing is just not sexy,” Hawkis added. “If a couple of whores like Lewinsky and Tripp bring the memo in stuck to a cumstained dress then I’ll run the story. Otherwise, who cares?”