Editors, or propagandists?

Last month, the San Francisco Chronicle published a fawning endorsement of House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. 

Last week, Australian publisher Julian Assange won at least a reprieve in his legal appeal in London over whether or not he will be extradited to the U.S. despite the concerns of British judges that the American justice system fails to respect human rights. 

Each of these events are important to observe, even in isolation. Together, they indicate everything that is wrong with news media in the United States.

Journalism as propaganda: transparency and accountability

The San Francisco Chronicle’s endorsement of Pelosi was written, edited, and published by the newspaper’s editorial board. It is striking for several reasons, starting with the fact that the Chronicle published it at all.

As far as I know, this is the first time that the Chronicle has published an endorsement of San Francisco’s representative in Congress after actually interviewing her challengers. Even so, the change might reinforce the bias apparent in its previous outright exclusions: because Pelosi has four challengers among Republicans, and at least three among Democrats, naming them all, if anything, effectively diminished the challenge any one of them might conceivably present. 

In the past, the Chronicle has generally declined to even name Pelosi’s challengers when publishing its endorsements. In fact, the Chronicle has long taken pains to avoid mentioning Pelosi’s opponents at all, except when either smearing us, or once reflecting on mounting calls for Pelosi to finally debate an opponent, which she has never done since first going to Washington 1987.

The mere fact that Pelosi has ducked debates for 37 years should be enough, in itself, for editors to display some modicum of independence and call for a replacement. Journalists in the United States, however, can’t recognize failures of public transparency even when staring them in the face.

The trial of Julian Assange offers an even more compelling example of that pattern, to which we will return in a moment.

Beyond giving Pelosi a free pass for evading informed public scrutiny for over 30 years, the Chronicle’s endorsement also covered up her record in public office, both as it relates to policy and ethics.

Journalism as propaganda: corruption

Nowhere in its endorsement does the Chronicle note that Pelosi has grown fantastically rich in office by engaging in insider trading practices that would be illegal if Congress allowed itself to be governed by the same laws that constrain other people wielding access to information not available to the public.

Yet neither this widely documented corruption—nor the conflicts of interest it introduces across every policy arena, from energy and transportation to foreign policy and militarism—appear among the concerns of the Chronicle’s oblivious editors.

Pelosi’s conflicts of interest have not merely been circumstantial. While profiting handsomely from her political career, she also played a critical role in engineering the continuing upward transfer of wealth that has left millions of Americans around the country in desperate straits.

Journalism as propaganda: healthcare

Pelosi’s most enduring legacy might be suppressing calls—and even mere debates and public votes—for universal healthcare. Yet, despite the mounting millions of medical debt choking working families across the United States, the Chronicle could not be bothered to observe the observable impacts of Pelosi’s policy decisions as a legislator and congressional leader.

(To be fair, neither could activists who dedicated their lives—and deaths—to goals that Pelosi unapologetically impeded only to ironically support her, but that’s a reflection of their own confusion and the limits of their influence, more than the co-optation of journalism)

Journalism as propaganda: authoritarianism

Pelosi’s most devastating legacy, which frankly no one in professional journalism has displayed the independence to observe, is bipartisan support for authoritarianism in the United States. Journalists tend to ignore the pattern entirely, and few have demonstrated the insight to pin the tail on the donkey responsible.

Pelosi was no mere member of Congress over the last generation. Before becoming a Speaker of the House for two different periods, she chaired the House Intelligence Committee. That makes her far more responsible than most policymakers for the emergence of mass surveillance, the insulation of torturers from accountability, and the pattern of belligerent war for profit to which Washington is committed across each of the corporate political parties.

As Speaker of the House, Pelosi also made decisions that undermined human rights both in the United States and around the world. Most significantly, she authorized—and funded—the creation of mass detention camps at our nation’s borders. She critically enabled the immigration policy of former President Donald Trump, without insisting at any point on basic protections for human rights.

Just this year, Pelosi also mounted direct attacks on the right to dissent by smearing her constituents who support international human rights.

Most recently, Pelosi played a critical role in determining the results of California’s Senate primary, in which a committed warmonger from Los Angeles beat out progressive women from both Southern and Northern California. Most voters, however, had no idea about Pelosi’s machinations favoring Adam Schiff until reports published only after the election.

Journalism as propaganda: fascism

Stepping back from discrete issues, Pelosi’s broadest legacy is the co-optation of the Democratic Party by Wall Street. She has not only played a key role in effectuating that process as a congressional leader, but also profited from it as a prolific investor.

Yet, despite the internal debates gripping the Democratic Party around the country, the widespread disillusion with a corporate center that has proved repeatedly incapable of responding to social crises from pandemics to preventable climate catastrophes, and the disturbing prospect of fascism in America being not only a fact of life but also a bold declaration from the next president, the Chronicle could not be bothered to observe Pelosi’s longstanding  support for corporate interests and derogation of populist concerns about human rights.

The relationship between corporate influence and fascism is one that most Americans tend to overlook. They reduce fascism to its most heinous aspects, failing to recognize its established foundations in our own country. The fusion of power between government and unaccountable private industry is a defining aspect of fascism that has played a critical role in encouraging human rights violations everywhere it has emerged—including here, in the United States.

Pelosi has not only embraced fascism by supporting business interests over human rights. In the weeks before the Chronicle published its endorsement, Pelosi publicly invited FBI investigations of U.S. citizens who support a ceasefire in Gaza, smearing us as agents of foreign powers because we support human rights. The Chronicle editors did observe Pelosi’s call for investigations into thought crimes, and even noted that she “doubled down” on her authoritarian stance during their interview—while absurdly dismissing the issue by tepidly noting that her arguments merely “felt questionable.”

Journalism as propaganda: institutional self-defense

One particular bone I’d pick with the Chronicle’s editorial is its description of one of Pelosi’s challengers, who in 2020 issued a public death threat that the Chronicle declined to observe either then or now. Of course, the Chronicle also failed to mention that it currently faces a federal appeal challenging its attack on election integrity by publishing racist disinformation orchestrated to silence me when I emerged as the only viable challenger who Pelosi has ever faced in her career.

Perhaps it should be no surprise that journalists actively employ their publications to cover up their own violations of public trust and failures of press ethics.

But to return to an earlier point—even setting aside policy, preferences and political legacies—Pelosi should be rejected by any editorial board with any political independence, if only because she refuses to debate opponents.

Because editors lack the critical lens to effectively interrogate her record, they effectively serve as rubes laundering her public reputation, suppressing the reality of her record to instead construct a cult of personality entirely divorced from the facts.

That might seem objectionable enough. For better or worse, the pattern infects the American press broadly, well beyond the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Real journalists face prosecution

While writers and editors across the United States dutifully published misinformation serving the Pentagon over the past 75 years, a few voices have stood out as critics of American imperialism. One of them was Daniel Ellsberg. His death last year was a loss for the world.

Another is an Australian publisher who revealed to the world a video proving that the US military had assassinated multiple Reuters journalists in Iraq, and then lied about it to evade responsibility. The “collateral murder” video should disturb anyone, particularly journalists who are themselves implicated in what is at least an incident, and perhaps a disturbing pattern, revealing violent attacks on the press by unaccountable military actors.

Yet most editors in the United States could not be bothered to observe even attacks on their own rights and independence.

To their credit, many joined a joint letter warning that Assange’s indictment “sets a dangerous precedent” that could chill reporting about national security issues.

Yet editors across American news media continue to defer to official sources when ignoring critical stories, while also inflating others at the behest of the same official sources. And rather than reflect in their editorials on areas where their stated concerns are implicated—like when opining on the re-election campaigns of oligarchs on whom the bipartisan military industrial complex has historically relied—they parrot thoughtless endorsements instead.

“Journalism” degrading democracy

Effective democracy relies on public transparency and accountability. Despite the theoretical role of the press in ensuring both values, however, editors have dramatically failed their constitutional mission. In the face of escalating crises screaming out for public accountability, they have instead become levers enabling mounting social control. 

When news editors reflect on the continuing collapse of democracy in America, one hopes they might eventually muster the insight and independence to recognize the crucial role they have played. By promoting public ignorance and constructing cults of personality, they have ultimately enabled bipartisan corruption and abandoned democracy themselves.

Paid subscribers can access a first-hand account from an Arab-American journalist about the bias he encountered while working at a major U.S. newspaper. What he reflects on offers another example of the disturbing pattern enabling bipartisan militarism in Washington...