Adding Empathy to Communications - 7.7

[music] Welcome to Counter-Spin. You're a weekly look behind the headlines. I'm Janine Jackson. This week on Counter-Spin, as a radio producer, you get pitches. I will paraphrase one I got this week. Dear Janine, the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iranian military targets and leaders this weekend. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Hamunay, was killed as were key Iranian leaders. President Trump is urging Iranians to rise up and overthrow the regime. What will the impact be on the economy? On Wall Street, what does this mean for markets and investors going forward? I am then offered a guest who will tell listeners that "concerns about the attacks causing economic chaos are overblown." The markets will panic initially and then stabilize. Close quote. And most importantly, quote, "This ends the uncertainty that was impacting the markets over Iran." And if American and Israeli objectives are met, it could lead to dramatically reduced gas prices. Long term. No mention of parents in Manab who dropped their daughters off at school March 3rd and now have to bury them. What's losing a child? When we're talking about you, maybe or maybe not, paying less at the pump. Am I right? It would be one thing if it were a guy at the end of the bar. But we have official smart people news media instructing us how we should think and feel about attack. About attacks paid for, with our sometimes important tax dollars, reigning horror on Iranians, whose crime is that they didn't overthrow their disapproved leadership. Ask yourself if you want that to be the criterion for violent aggression around the world. It's hard to parse US corporate news coverage of the attacks on Iran if you are not willing to let go of the idea that might does not in fact make right, along with your ideas about what a better world could look like. That's why we grow our critical faculties and support media that whatever else they do don't tell us that the US and Israel killing Iranian schoolgirls is just something to consume with your breakfast cereal. Gregory Shupak is an academic and activist as well as author of the wrong story, Palestine Israel and the media from OR books. We'll talk with him about the US War on Iran this week on counterspin. That's coming up. You're listening to counterspin brought to you each week by the media watch group Fair. Every day is a good day to recognize the substantive differences between the corporate news media who firehose at us every day and alternative outlets that you might need to seek out whose journalism is shaped by a different bottom line. When the country you live in launches in illegal unprovoked assault against another sovereign country, that's an excellent time to look at those differences outlets like drop site news, Mondo, Weiss in these times, the nation are bringing us critical assessments of the Trump White House's shifting rationales for their attacks on Iran. With voices from the people in the region on the ground who have a historical understanding that precedes the last presidential election. Corporate media are reporting the assassination of Iran's supreme leader Ali Hamene as a cool slick techno operation in critic Adam Johnson's phrase. The US A Today fear mongers with an explainer headed US on high alert for homeland attacks by Iran. What to know. Well, what to know starts with the brain teaser that the FBI and DHS are quote on war footing due to Iran's long history of plotting retaliatory attacks. If you can buy that premise elite media, assume you will buy the bit of yet another US war on a sovereign nation that no intelligence suggested posed an imminent threat and that the majority of the US public oppose. But that will cause death and destruction and be used as an excuse for why you can't have health care. Here to help us sift through news media that appear either vehemently or lazily uninterested in history or humanity is Gregory Schupeck. He teaches media studies in English at the University of Guelph in Toronto. He's author of the wrong story, Palestine, Israel and the media from OR books. He joins us now by phone. Welcome back to counterspin Gregory Schupeck. We could be back. Thanks for having me. Well, listeners will understand we are recording on March 5th and many things are happening as we speak and certainly will have happened by the time that they hear this. That said, some things will still be true at the risk of sounding naive or redundant except that if you read the news, you know they still need saying. The US and Israel strikes on Iran, the murdering of schoolgirls, the assassination of coming a are illegal, unprovoked and unpopular. Yes. Certainly. And I think that you know it's interesting to observe the you know disjuncture between what's been pretty thoroughly attended media full court press in support of the war on the one hand and on the other hand the lack of public support for it. Right. And yet I think it's also a case that for more propaganda to be effective, it doesn't necessarily have to result in the population being enthusiastic about it. The main thing I need to accomplish is to plant enough doubt so enough confusion that people aren't organizing in large enough numbers to bring it to a halt. And so I don't think the yardstick of the effectiveness of propaganda is solely does the public support it to for example the very high degree that they did at the outset of the Iraq invasion. Right, which I always want to put an asterisk on because that high support was right before the invasion and if you go back a couple weeks earlier, the US population was not even supportive of the Iraq invasion. I appreciate that talking point and at the same time, I think like if you move those polls back a couple of weeks, people were asking why are we going to invade Iraq, you know, as a New Yorker, we were reeling from the attacks. Yeah, but it wasn't a cry for war, but I appreciate those still the distinction and it has to do I guess with maybe something that the people, if not the politicians, have learned. Yeah, I absolutely think that a lot more of the population understands the costs of these types of adventures. And yet that that is still not kind of materializing in organized public opposition. There are a lot of factors that explain that not all of which has to do with covert media propaganda, but I think that that is one in noteworthy feature that is of course a through line for through so many of the US led wars in the post 1945. So I think that even regardless of where public support is at, it takes quite a while as it didn't be a non, for example, for really large scale, math, effective opposition to materialize and that's if it ever does. Well, let's get into the media coverage that I know you've been unfortunately steeping yourself in some news media seem to feel that noting Trump's shifting rationales for the aggression on Iran is the same as interrogating them, but it sort of feels like they're just waiting for him to land on one that they can get behind, but certainly it's meaningful that President Trump keeps saying something different about why we're doing this. Yeah, absolutely, and I don't know it's always hard to parse with with him and and also administration how much of this of the inconsistency in their talking points has to do with, you know, just deliberate strategy versus incoherence. But certainly, you know, an initial 24 hours, Trump was pretty clear that the goals included regime change where they seem to have backed off of that since that, but it is as you say, rather a weak criticism of. The war to just say Trump is being unclear or to emphasize it's the New York Times first editorial on the attack did. There's this focus on well, the way that Trump communicated with the American population, which was dropping a video in the middle of the night. And yes, that is an absurd way to frankly avoid democratic engagement. However, if Trump had some sort of town hall meeting and this is still what was happening, not as if his method of communication matters more or as much as the fact that Cario was war in the first place. And I would say the same thing about the criticisms that we saw in that time, the editorial and in the Washington Post's editorial as well, about Trump's failure to get congressional authorization for this war. I understand why that matters within the context of the American system. About the same time, if you had got it, the war would still be an act of aggression under international law. It's kind of secondary for those living outside US borders, whether Trump kind of follows the Constitution to the letter or not. Again, I agree with you better if the proper democratic protocols were followed, but I don't think that that's salient here. And it's sort of picking at the edges to foreground those criticisms of the war rather than foregrounding the fact that what he's doing was described at the Nuremberg Tribune of the Second World War as the supreme international crime. And the reason it was called that was because the act of international aggression that is today starting a war means that those who start the war are responsible for all horrors that take place within the context of that war. So however, this unfolds, or whatever ghastly, casualty figures we end up at, and whatever manner those deaths happen to unfold, all of that is a latest doorstep of the aggressor US and Israel. So that's really where the emphasis ought to be much more so than on this kind of procedural ism. Absolutely. And it's amazing how far we've come from Nuremberg to the point where I think it's fair to say that a lot of corporate news media, foreign policy coverage, gives you the feeling that diplomacy is for the week. And in this conversation, the US was purportedly in diplomatic conversations. I mean, was in diplomatic conversations with Iran moderated by the head of Oman. We never heard that those conversations broke down, but suddenly then the US unleashing fatal aggression. And so how are we to think about diplomatic conversations when this can happen in the midst of them? It sort of feels like it's a joke on us. Yeah. I mean, it looks like it was probably just installed tactic by the US to get their ducks in order for the war. And in terms of the media coverage, I mean, I think they mostly, and since the war was launched, pretend that those discussions were not even happening. And the reason they do or they lie about them. But the reason why they ought to pretend they weren't happening is because what was coming out of those negotiations completely undermines the argument, which is one of their central pro-war talking points that supposedly the attacks on Iran are justified because the government of Iran allegedly might or something they could be pursuing nuclear weapons hours before the US has really strikes again. The Omani Foreign Minister, Al-Bouthayidi, went on a CBS station and said that Iran had agreed to effectively take steps that would make it impossible for it to build a nuclear weapon. To be more specific, the Iranians had agreed to zero enrichment, which would, without which you cannot build a nuclear bomb. That's completely expunge from the bloated record that I've seen. And certainly some of the editorials in major papers that I've looked at in the fair piece that have been working on this week, which are from the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. In addition, we also have statements from the International Atomic Energy Agency, specifically from Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the IAEA. He said in late February, second half of February, that he had not seen any indication that Iran was currently working to develop a nuclear weapon. That's really pretty important and is not in any of the initial responses to the war. Now Grossi came out and said that reiterated this point on, I think it was Monday, a couple days into the aggression against Iran. And that got a little bit of coverage. And the initial commentary where you had this kind of specter of non-existent Iranian nuke, it might have been helpful to point out that whenever Trump makes reference to the Iranian nuclear program, there's really no proof that according to the IAEA, that it's even working on developing a nuclear weapon. Exactly. Let alone having one imminent. Let alone having one within reach of California. Yeah. And that's again, to say nothing of what happened in Oman, which is that in direct U.S. Iranian talks, Iran had apparently agreed to zero enrichment, which would make building the bomb impossible. So it was a trade, there were negotiations. There were at least a trade on the U.S. part I should say. And it would be nice if the U.S. population had some insight into that. Not only for this bloodbath, which is going to drag on, who knows how long, and kill just unthinkable volumes of people, as it already has, killed over 1200 in the first six days. 1200 in Iran, I should say. Others, other members in some of the other countries in the region, dozens in Lebanon, which is a direct coral area of attacking Iran. Yeah. So the United States, the public, had just another kind of reminder of how little the U.S. government can be trusted on these matters, because I don't think that this aggression against Iran will be the last time that the U.S. attacks the country. And so the further that people can kind of develop a consciousness around imperialist lies, the better in terms of the capacity to resist those wars. Absolutely. And on the nuclear question, and I would ask folks to look at Fair.org, we've talked about this many times over the years, there is zero evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. And in fact, international agencies, as you've said, the IAEA and others have assessed that, have looked into that. Even the United States intelligence doesn't say that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. And I would encourage folks to read the coverage carefully, because you hear nuclear program, nuclear energy, and then you're meant to just align that into weaponry. And then further, and I mean, I just take us back to basics, the U.S. has nuclear weapons. Israel has nuclear weapons. And so the idea that the price of participating in serious people foreign policy conversation is to accept that some countries should have nuclear weapons. And others, if they look like they might be able to potentially develop them, well, we need to bomb them off the map. That is weird. That is not a logical, humane understanding of anything. Yeah, absolutely. And it's also worth pointing out that, and then to get to this point in a moment ago, it's also worth pointing out that there's no basis for the idea that let's say Iran was developing nuclear weapons and we had good reason to believe that. The IAEA said they found proof, whatever. Okay. Let's do that what's happening. There's still no doctrine in international law that justifies a preventative or preemptive more to disarm Iran. So it's basically irrelevant whether Iran was developing nuclear weapons or not. That's not relevant to the question, do the U.S. and Israel have the right to attack it? They don't. Well, you know, I don't see silver linings, especially except for increased awareness, right, of horrors and of falsities and maybe an increased ability to address them, which is I think what we're talking about. This is a big question that I hope you can answer short, but you know, for many listeners, you look at a globe, countries are two different colors. That means they're different countries, but this is obviously a regional operation. It always has been for lay person's ears. What should we be thinking about in terms of the region? By which I mean, what headlines are we as U.S. media consumers going to be suddenly surprised by in a month? We're going to hear about Lebanon. We're going to hear about, you know, what situation should we be looking out for in terms of the region in terms of the impact of this U.S. aggression? Yeah. The U.S. the US and Israel, but Israel's kind of taking the lead on it with regard to Lebanon, are essentially issuing decrease, ordering South Lebanese people to evacuate that portion of the country, South of the Lattani River, which is a mask displacement of the population, just as we saw in Lebanon when Israel was attacked in either 2012, 2024, and just as we've seen in Gaza as well. It seems based on some of the Israeli rhetoric that there is an appetite inside Israel to get a permanent foothold in Lebanon. And so I think that just as they've done not only with obviously Palestinian land, but also Syria. So I think that there's a very real risk that Israel with US support is going to try to build bases, if not outright settlements in Lebanese territory, and keep as much of Southern Lebanon as they can. And so you'll hear probably a lot about efforts to disarm Hezbollah and efforts to cast Lebanese society as a whole as against Hezbollah, or prevent them as some sort of rogue operation that has no support in Lebanon, rather than what they are, which is at this point a major political player that has twice in recent years performed better than any other political organization in the country's elections. There are this point in intrinsic kind of sabrik of Lebanese society, it's not to say that they enjoy majority support or anything like that, but I think you're going to see a lot of one-dimensional demonization of Hezbollah should justify something that could push Lebanon dangerously close to another civil war that is to say if the Lebanese central government tries to disarm Hezbollah, which they may not do because they don't really have the capacity to disarm them, but they might try after the heads of the US and Israel and with their support. But certainly what we're already seeing is mass violence against Lebanese people being carried out by Israel with US support, and that I think there's a real risk that that will translate into an attempt to hold on to Lebanese territory for the long term. So I think that's a major regional flashpoint. Certainly Yemen and the Red Sea surrounding it because Enzoelah, which is often referred to as the Houthis in the ancient media, is again involved in the US Israeli aggression against Iran, just as they have been at various points involved in supporting Palestinian resistance to genocide. And so I wouldn't be surprised at all if we hear rationalizations in corporate media for attacks on Yemen that will be justified as previous attacks in Yemen have been in terms of saying, well, the Houthis have typically called our interfering with shipping in the region. They're firing weaponry at Israel. So for these reasons, the US itself perhaps, or if not them, then Israel needs to ramp up air strikes against Yemen. It's worth noting that the areas where Enzoelah's power is roughly depending on what just a minute you look at, 70-80% of the population of Yemen already begun to be ravaged by disaster at the US. So it is more from 2015 onward to a ceasefire for a few years back by some entry supports country in the region. So I think Yemen will definitely be another focal point where you'll see corporate media trying to soften up the population to accept more grotesque violence being inflicted upon the people of Yemen. Absolutely. Well, I don't want to end there. So let me ask you finally, we do see that these things are not popular. They're not supported. Whether or not the people who oppose this US aggression have the levers of power to change it is its own question. But I do take heart in the fact that folks see through it. It is very hard to sell killing schoolgirls who showed up to play volleyball. That's a hard sell, you know, and I, and I, they take a lot of work to sell that narrative. And I think that people are resisting it and are girding themselves against it. But how do we do that? How do we, how do we get ourselves as citizens in a place in the US and Canada as I know where you are? And there are analogous issues. How do we gird ourselves? How do we prepare ourselves to stay critical and stay human in the midst of this? Well, I'm going to kind of venture that just simply by virtue of listening to this, much of the audience already has a pretty good moral compass in terms of understanding that the lives of Iranian schoolchildren, managers, as much as the lives of the children at the school down the street from wherever you live. So I'm quite sure that most people listening will be on solid ground there. There is unfortunately a segment of the population in both of our countries that doesn't see it that way. But I do think that cutting through the propaganda is not only something that happens in the form of writing articles and independent media, as much as I obviously think those things are important. But, you know, popular organizing, popular education, these are spaces as well where that counter propaganda can take place, right? Resistance to propaganda. That happens at rallies, that happens at teachings that can happen, you know, at frankly at a conversation you strike up with your relative or your friend. So, you know, it is something that some of us get to do the flashy fun things like write articles, but that's only one part of it. And it's not necessarily the most effective. It's certainly not the only effective form of what is frankly just very slow and at times, hoping work of building resistance to imperialist warfare. So sometimes you might text your mom and provide a little bit of information about how to understand Hasbola a bit better than what government media offers and that can go a long way. All right, we'll end there for now. We've been speaking with Gregory Schuppack, academic and activist and author of the wrong story, Palestine, Israel and the media available from OR books. Thank you so much, Greg Schuppack, for joining us this week on Counter-Spin. Yeah, thanks again for having me. And that's it for Counter-Spin for this week. Counter-Spin is produced by Fair, the National Media Watch Group based in New York. If you missed part of today's show or you'd like to hear previous shows, you can find decades of shows and transcripts on our website fair.org. The website is also the place to show much needed support for Counter-Spin if you are able and so inclined. The show is engineered by Alex Noise. I'm Jenine Jackson. Thank you for listening to Counter-Spin. [Music]