More Rumination on Fahrenheit 9/11 and the Media
George Monbiot delivers a perceptive and persuasive article in the Guardian about a "scruffy comedian from Michigan." I think I’d like to borrow his words – because they’re more eloquent and better researched than my own – to illuminate my response to Fahrenheit 9/11.
Using my own words once more; the best account I’ve ever read (if you know of better, please let me know) of the dirty business of fighting in wars and the propaganda machine that reports those wars back to the public is George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. In early editions of the book, chapters five and ten are analyses of the European press coverage of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 (in later editions these chapters become appendices). Orwell checked through issues of newspapers from the far left, the far right, and all those in between to discover how their versions tallied with his personal experience of fighting against the fascists as a volunteer. He discovered that almost all reports, from the communists to the fascists, and on the very far right, the Daily Mail, were complete fabrication. Interestingly, in a footnote he remarks:
I should like to make an exception of the Manchester Guardian. In connection with this book I have had to go through the files of a good many English papers. Of our larger papers, the Manchester Guardian is the only one that leaves me with an increased respect for its honesty.
On the whole, I think the editorial stance of the Guardian today bears favourable comparison, although I did notice some inconsistencies in the reporting of the first few weeks of the most recent Iraq war.
I was mildly surprised to hear that Ray Bradbury, author of classic sci-fi novel Fahrenheit 451 was furiously displeased with Michael Moore’s hijacking of his title. I’d have thought that Bradbury’s politics would have been broadly similar to those of Moore’s. The full interview is on the website of Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter, but I can’t find any complete translations, only heavily editorialised presentations of carefully selected snippets. If anyone comes across an entire translation, please let me know, as I’d be interested to read it. Certainly, Moore’s appropriation of the title is somewhat clumsy, but does this qualify him as a "horrible human?"
