John Nichols, associate editor for The Capital Times and a contributor at The Nation, spoke Thursday night at the Social Science Building about American media coverage of the war in Iraq.
Nichols talked for half an hour, then fielded questions from the audience of about 30 people, who were mostly students. During his lecture, entitled \The War CNN Isn't Showing You,"" he denounced what he views as slanted media reporting of the war and bemoaned current media trends in general.
Nichols first criticized the American media for portraying an incomplete, biased view of the war and failing to sufficiently inform the public.
""Our media, instead of giving us a grounding in reality, gave us a vapid, officially-reported version of the war,"" he said. ""It's the Bush administration's fault for leading us into the war, but it's the media's fault for creating this bizarre state of everyone being uninformed.""
Nichols mentioned the images of the falling statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad as an example of slanted media coverage.
""All the photos they've been showing of the statue being pulled down have been close-ups,"" he said. ""If you look at the shots from farther back, there were really only dozens of people standing around and they had to use a U.S. military vehicle to topple it.""
Nichols claimed the inadequate coverage of the war is a symptom of a general deterioration of American media integrity.
""What's wrong with our media systems of this country is what's wrong with this country in general-we've lost sight of our founding principles,"" he said. ""Over the last 200 years we've moved further and further from the concept of freedom of the press.""
Nichols blamed the recent merging of media companies into giant conglomerates for perpetuating this trend. He argued that legislators must halt mergers to stop powerful corporate interests from deceiving the public through the media.
""Preventing further consolidation of media can help to prevent more wars like this one from happening in the future,"" he said.
Nichols closed by urging the audience to undertake a working role in changing the media.
""The media reform movement should be like the environmental movement,"" he said. ""Everyone needs to get angry and be active.""
Rich Shore, a UW-Madison senior, agreed with Nichols' message.
""The media must ask tough questions and be critical, which it just isn't doing today,"" he said. ""I think it's important to remember that there's something we can do to change that.\
