THE PRESS AND THE JFK ASSASSINATION
If any large element of our news industry, such as NEWSWEEK, or NBC, or CNN, for example, decided to conduct a thorough, objective review of the JFK assassination, significant and historic progress could be made in the case. The single-bullet theory could be disposed of in relatively short order. At least some of the photographic evidence could be properly examined. The acoustical evidence could be thoroughly evaluated. Many of the numerous surviving witnesses could be interviewed. Previous interviews with important witnesses could be analyzed with voice stress analysis. Credible leads developed by private researchers could be pursued. The unlikelihood of the theory that Oswald fired all the shots could be further established. The specious stories of several surviving members of the Dallas Police Department could be subjected to the scrutiny and analysis with which they should have been examined long ago. In fact, ALL of these things could have been done years ago, and the network or newspaper that did it would have had an historic, major news scoop, a scoop worth millions and millions of dollars for years to come.
JFK assassination documentaries continue to be of high interest. Indeed, in the last four years alone major news outlets have broadcast or published several "investigative reports" on the case. Tragically, however, without exception these "reports" were error-filled, superficial defenses of the lone-gunman theory. In some instances, it appeared that the journalists who wrote the reports made no effort whatsoever to study scholarly works critical of the lone-assassin scenario.
Why is this still happening? Why does our news industry seem almost incapable of giving the American people the truth about the assassination? Most journalists are liberal, according to media surveys. If so, why aren't they interested in seeing to it that the public gets the real story about President Kennedy's death? Why do they seem so intent on defending the essential elements of the Warren Commission's version of the shooting? Why do they continue to defend the single-bullet theory, in spite of the massive and growing evidence that the theory is not only invalid but impossible? Why won't they give this evidence a fair hearing?
I think we might find the answers to some of these questions by reviewing previous analyses of the press's treatment of the assassination.
Jim Garrison:
During my flight back to New Orleans I found myself reflecting on the mind-set of Carson and the NBC attorney who had debriefed me. They were unnerved by my viewpoint, I realized, not so much because it differed from their own but because I was explicitly advocating the existence of a CONSPIRACY in President Kennedy's assassination. I recalled the thinly veiled contempt of the attorneys whenever they touched upon the concept of a conspiracy. I felt as if I were a German citizen back in the mid-1930s who had publicly questioned Adolf Hitler's sanity and was being given the obligatory questioning before being shipped away to a mental institution. I remembered that Carson himself had nearly come unglued during the heat of our argument as I zeroed in on the idea that a conspiracy had occurred.
Why was it, I asked myself, that these people at the very heart of the New York media industry were so allergic to the very concept of conspiracy? What was it that was so inconceivable, that was so utterly unthinkable about the idea of a conspiracy?
Then, perhaps for the first time, I realized what it was that petrified these people, that froze their brains into gridlock. To acknowledge that an organized conspiracy had occurred was to recognize that it had been done for a purpose--to change government policy. Having told the world for so many years how wonderful we all were, here in the greatest country in the world, the media people were not willing to admit that our national leader could be removed in such a brutal fashion in order to change government policy. . . . That just could not be. Therefore, in their minds, the assassination had to be a random event, the work of a deranged loner. (Garrison, ON THE TRAIL OF THE ASSASSINS, New York: Warner Books, 1988, pp. 248-249)
Carl Oglesby:
A reporter for one of the big outlets chanced one day to be the only one of the major media people at the Assassinations Committee's hearings to get the real point of what had happened that day. Chairman Stokes had presented a major blast at the FBI and raised the question of FBI co-responsibility in [Dr. Martin Luther] King's death. It was a dramatic moment. Stokes is a fine speaker, he cared a lot about what he was saying, and his statement was well conceived and written. The reporter who picked up on it had caught a strong story, clearly the lead of the day. And all the other majors missed it.
The reporter came in the hearing room smoldering the next day, slouched in his place muttering darkly about getting chewed out by his boss. Chewed out? For what? For that story about Stokes' speech on the FBI, he said. But that was a great story, nobody else got it. That's the point, he said. Why? Because my bosses say that if the rest of the press didn't get it, too, it must not have happened, and it looks bad when one of says something so different from the rest.
What an educational exchange! One had heard things about "scoops" and journalistic courage, and now it turned out that the real key to success in the big time was something else. You had to know how to run with the pack, because what the "news" actually was, boiled down, was the collective opinion of this same pack. If the pack thinks JFK was killed by a lone nut, then anybody who thinks something else must be another one.
How often on the lecture circuit in the old days the Warren critic would hear someone say that if any of these doubts were actually valid, and if there was anything at all to the monstrous idea that the President was killed by a conspiracy, then surely by now our bright , ambitious people of the media would already have found out all about it and won Pulitzers, like Woodward and Bernstein. Since there are no Woodward and Bernstein of the JFK assassination issue--and no Pulitzers--there must actually be no issue.
All ye who have ever thought that particular thought, take heed and ponder this tale of the bright, ambitious reporter who got rebuked for his scoop, while the ones with the blandest and emptiest impressions of what happened that day in the hearing room cruised on through their career without a ripple. Pack journalism is, to our mind, a very special problem in the conspiracy cases because pack journalists are so timid and vicious. As other interviews make clear, there are many faults to find with the HSCA's hearings. But their performance was a hundred times in front of the mainstream media in terms of curiosity, investigative vigor, and courage to face tough possibilities.
If the press had reported each day on the actual contributions the committee was making instead of constantly blunting everything that said conspiracy and overplaying everything that said relax, then the 80 percent of us who today sense conspiracy in the JFK death would be not only more numerous, but also more aroused and more insistent that the whole truth be found. (Oglesby, THE JFK ASSASSINATION: THE FACTS AND THE THEORIES, New York: Signet, 1992, pp. 173- 175)
In 1993 major newspapers and magazines across America refused to publish two Associated Press and Reuters wire stories on Dr. David Mantik's historic discoveries concerning evidence of tampering in the autopsy x-rays at the National Archives. In fact, to my knowledge, not a single major newspaper or magazine carried the wire stories. Why? (The wire stories can be seen in the appendices to Harrison Livingstone's recent book KILLING KENNEDY AND THE HOAX OF THE CENTURY.) The wire stories contained other important information as well. Why weren't they published? They were certainly newsworthy and credible, and were definitely important and of high interest. So why weren't they published? It's worth noting that this occurred at the same time the press was giving glowing reviews to Gerald Posner's badly flawed defense of the Warren Commission, CASE CLOSED.
There have been several historic, crucial revelations to emerge from previously sealed files recently released by the Assassination Records Review Board. Why haven't these important new disclosures been reported by the press?
Could this have anything to do with the many reports of CIA and FBI influence on the press? In 1977, for example, information surfaced indicating that a number of journalists and news managers at major media outlets had either received payment from the CIA and/or were "cooperating" with the CIA. Dr. Gary Aguilar summarizes some of what was learned from the disclosed information about the press and the CIA:
Not only did journalists, representing THE NY TIMES, ABC, NBC, CBS, Scripps Howard, UPI, AP, Hearst, Reuters, Bill Moyers, Paley, etc., "associate" with the CIA, they recruited for the CIA, gave CIA agents false credentials as journalists, and planted false information with foreign officials--and with the American public as well of course. Over 200 journalists had signed secrecy agreements with the CIA (THE NY TIMES "Sulzberger" for only one notable example), or had "employment contracts." (Aguilar, "The CIA and the Media," Journalism Forum, CompuServe, February 24, 1996)
The COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW cogently argued,
If even one American overseas carrying a press card is a paid informer for the CIA, then all Americans with those credentials are suspect. . . . If the crisis of confidence faced by the news business--along with the government--is to be overcome, journalists must be willing to focus on themselves the same spotlight they so relentlessly train on others. . . . When it was reported . . . that newsmen themselves were on the payroll of the CIA, the story caused a brief stir, and then was dropped. (As quoted in Aguilar, "The CIA and the Media")
In recent months there have been additional reports that press personnel--journalists and news managers--continue to "cooperate" in various ways and to varying degrees with the CIA. How extensive is this "cooperation"? What exactly does it involve? Are there journalists who are accepting cash payment from the CIA? Are there news managers who are doing so? Has the CIA planted agents, or does it have paid operatives, in the press? These are matters that need to be thoroughly investigated by Congress.
It's also known that in the 1960s the FBI had what it considered to be "friendly assets" in the press. Does the FBI still have "friendly assets" in the press? If so, are any of these persons receiving payment or other favors from the FBI? These, too, are matters that need to be considered by a Congressional investigation.
What can be done about the press's poor handling of the case? For starters, we must realize and take advantage of the fact that the emergence of the e-mail and online newsgroups and web pages affords the opportunity to literally bypass the press to a certain extent. Additionally, we can seek to educate journalists about the assassination. It couldn't hurt to periodically e-mail credible research articles and letters to the editor on the case to major news outlets, such as CBS, NBC, ABC, NEWSWEEK, US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, and so forth. Some of those articles just might get read by someone, and that someone just might start to take a more critical look at the lone-gunman scenario or at least be more open to considering evidence that points to a conspiracy. We should also attempt to work with local media outlets, such as our local newspapers and TV stations. Many times local journalists are much more open to persuasion and substantive dialogue than are their counterparts at the major media outlets. Finally, we should attempt to educate our friends, family, and neighbors about the evidence of conspiracy in the assassination. Education is the key.
There is some cause to hope that the situation is improving. The A&E Network, for example, has aired two informative documentaries on the case which contain a great deal of evidence of conspiracy and which strongly challenge the Warren Commission's version of the shooting. The 1992 documentary THE JFK CONSPIRACY, hosted by James Earl Jones and produced by All-American Television, has been shown on dozens of local cable outlets across the country. In 1992 ABC's "20/20" program aired an informative, well-done segment on Dr. Charles Crenshaw's revelations about President Kennedy's wounds. Thanks to the emergence of cable TV, credible documentaries and other programs presenting evidence of conspiracy have been aired in virtually every part of the country in recent years. This is a healthy, long-overdue development. But the major news outlets, such as CBS, NBC, NEWSWEEK, TIME, THE WASHINGTON POST, etc., continue to advance the lone-gunman theory and to dismiss or ignore the growing evidence that President Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy.
Mike Griffith