TV Networks on Torture: “Just Do It!”

After the December 9 release of the Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, widely known as the torture report, it became the #1 story on the weekly television news programs. Since journalists seldom express opinions on such matters as whether “rectal hydration” constitutes torture or whether politicians who approved such methods should be prosecuted, the best measure of the corporate media's position on these issues is to examine the guests who are invited to their programs to express their views.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) surveyed the guests on nine TV news programs during the week of December 7 through 14: ABC's This Week, CBS's Face the Nation, CNN's State of the Union and Situation Room, Fox's Fox News Sunday and Special Report, MSNBC's Hardball, NBC's Meet the Press, and PBS's News Hour.

Of the 104 guests on these programs, 53 of them indicated whether they supported or opposed the “enhanced interrogation techniques” described in the report. Thirty-five of them (66%) supported the CIA's actions, while the remaining 18 (34%) were opposed. While some progressive critics worried that the networks would give equal time to torturers, they probably didn't anticipate that the “liberal” media would present more advocates of torture than opponents by a two-to-one margin. (Of course, most of those who supported the CIA's actions usually also claimed that they did not constitute “torture.”)

Sixty-five of the 104 guests were journalists, most of whom remained neutral. The second largest group was 35 current and former government officials. Nine CIA officers were among them, seven of whom defended their agency's practices. Of those who were political partisans, 19 were Republicans and 7 were Democrats. Four of the Democrats spoke against torture while the others had no opinion. Sixteen of the Republicans favored the CIA's actions and three opposed them. For more details on what was actually said, see this report.)

Of course, the most prominent Republican guest was former VP Dick Cheney, who said the report was “full of crap.” As Glenn Greenwald noted, Dick Cheney should be in prison rather than having his ass kissed by the Sabbath gasbags (my language, not his). So far, the only person to be jailed over the CIA torture program is John Kiriakou, a whistleblower who helped to expose it.

While the perpetrators of torture had many opportunities to defend themselves, torture victims were seldom heard from. Their only voice was indirect. Two lawyers representing torture victims, Joseph Margulies and Meg Satterthwaite, were invited to participate in the discussions.

Given this kind of media coverage, it's not surprising that in a Pew Research Center survey of 1001 Americans conducted December 11-14, 51% said the “CIA's interrogation methods” were justified, 29% said they were not justified, and 20% had no opinion. Were they effective in preventing terrorist attacks? The Senate Report concluded they were not, but 56% of respondents thought they were effective, 21% said they were not, and 16% didn't know. The public was almost evenly divided on whether the Senate Report should have been made public. Forty-three percent thought releasing the report was the wrong decision, 42% thought it was the right decision, and 15% had no opinion.

It seems that a lot of Americans are O. K. with torture. They just don't want to know about it.

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