QUIET!!!!!!!!!!!! MEDIA SLEEPING

Quiet! Media Sleeping

One way to learn something about how media works – or doesn’t work – is to look at the use of certain words in news reports. As an example, let’s look at the word “quietly.”
In many cases, the word “quietly” is used in regard to the actions of public officials, and it makes sense. As in a December 5th article about U.S. relations with Brazil, in which the New York Times stated that “ Trade differences with Brazil...have been quietly patched up...” They mean (I guess) that these differences have been “patched up” behind the scenes, using diplomacy and private meetings and so forth. Do we need to know the details? Probably not, so that’s fine.
But often when you see the word “quietly” it is a clue that what you are reading is a rather stark, if indirect, admission by a media outlet of the fact that they have been sleeping on the job. The job, that is, of reporting important news. For example...
On October 23rd, the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) published an Associated Press (AP) story on the second page of the “Business” Section that used the word “quietly” as follows:
“President Bush showered $136 billion in new tax breaks on businesses, farmers and other groups Friday, quietly signing the most sweeping rewrite of corporate tax law in nearly two decades.”
Now, if it is true that this is “the most sweeping rewrite of corporate tax law in nearly two decades,” then isn’t it the job of the media to assure that it is not done “quietly?” True, as the Chinese Xinhua News Agency reported, “There was no ceremony for the bill-signing and President Bush made no comment on the new bill.” But all that means is that the President would like his signing of the bill to be “quiet,” presumably because he suspects – accurately, I hope – that most United Statesians would not approve of “showering” the wealthy with even more preferential tax treatment than they already get. His signature was affixed to this outrage, after all, about two weeks before the presidential election.
The reality is that such a scandal will only remain “quiet” if reporters and editors refuse to give prominence to a story that they, themselves, admit is a huge one. In this case, the entire story was pretty “quiet” in the nation’s press, with the New York Times devoting a total of two sentences to the bill in the month preceding the signing, despite numerous stories sent over the wires by Associated Press, among others, during that period.
Here’s another example. On the same day, October 23rd, the AP led off a different story like this: “More than 800 former soldiers have failed to comply with Army orders to get back in uniform and report for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Army said Friday. That is more than one-third of the total who were told to report to a mobilization station by October 17.” The Army, reported the AP, “is trying to resolve these cases quietly.” (That’s the Star Trib’s edited version; the original AP story said, “the Army is going out of its way to resolve these cases as quietly as possible.” Interesting editing, eh?)
Again, it’s fairly easy to see why the Army might want to keep this evidence of dissatisfaction among the ranks with the two ongoing U.S. military occupations “quiet,” especially with their Commander-in-Chief up for election in a couple of weeks. But, again, isn’t it the media’s job to report on such things, regardless of the Army’s desire to keep it “quiet?”
So, remember: If a major piece of news is not widely known, the media have failed to do their job. And when the media themselves tell you that the people involved took some major action “quietly,” they are confessing to that failure.