How an irreverent current affairs review came into being

The Cyrano story—the past is prolog

By Patrice Greanville

WHAT IS CYRANO'S JOURNAL?

First and foremost, CJO, as a "webzine" with a decidely anti-establishmentarian, anti-capitalist viewpoint, provides uncompromisingly honest reportage of current affairs on a broad range of issues spanning politics, culture, and, of course, that inevitable elephant in the room, the commercial media and its denizens. CYRANOS' JOURNAL was born in 1982, as a quarterly print publication devoted to media and political analyses. Above all, Cyrano was originally meant to be a catalyst, a meeting ground and clearinghouse for the media reform movement starting to coalesce in those years. That was its principal role. Accordingly, the patient dissection of mangled stories, although carried out from time to time, and inherently important, was not the magazine's main mission. The consolidation and dissemination of corporate media theory, in accessible form, was. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for life, that kind of thing.

Today, both FAIR and Media Matters for America keep a constant and expert eye on the doings of the rightwing propaganda machine, and its "natural" echo-chamber, the mainstream media. Similar solid (and in many respects superior) work is being done in Britain by MediaLens, an organization we admire for its admirable focus, overall analytical quality, and political passion. We see no need to duplicate their superb performance in this venue. (More on this later.)

Cyrano managed to publish and survive (precariously) for 18 months and then it folded, the victim of so many leftist magazines' killer disease: ridiculous capitalization. Surprisingly, the magazine left a lasting imprint. Copies of Cyrano, especially of the premiere issue, are found in many libraries across the country today. In 2003 Cyrano finally re-emerged in its present web incarnation.

For those who want to know more, here's a bit of history

Cyrano was set up in response to what was correctly perceived then, at least by a small circle of American leftists, as a glaring gap in the overall information strategy of the American social change movement, namely the absence of effective mass media directly controlled by oppositional forces, a problem that remains unresolved, and, just as important, the lack of an in-depth critique of corporate media and the American political propaganda system. For obvious reasons, at the time even the best of the bourgeois media monitors, like the well-meaning Columbia Journalism Review, consistently shied away from exploring systemic flaws. (In fairness, I should report that of late a measure of "radicalism" has begun to blow through the stodgy corridors of the Columbia J-School, perhaps a harbinger of better things to come. At least since the early 1970s, a number of students have published bitter critiques of the School's curriculum and orientation, decrying its role as a free-of-charge incubator of conformist media cogs and "status conscious" media stars...Of course, not all the flogging is totally justified. Besides their compromised funding, the problem for J-School administrators at Columbia and elsewhere is simple: Even if they allowed and encouraged a more radical stance in future journalists, where would these graduates go for jobs in a media culture that is virtually totalitarian in its bourgeois makeup? So-called professional schools are not in the business of producing candidates for the unemployment lines...)

Curiously, while the acquisition of its own mass communications machinery has always been an obvious concern of any group opposed to the established order, the American left, for a variety of reasons, including the existence of a peculiar creature in our midst, the American liberal, has been by and large cheerfully oblivious to this central task. This has left the sensitive job of reporting and interpreting current and past events in the hands of its ideological enemies.

The somewhat cavalier attitude with which the left regarded the creation and strengthening of authentic left media, has cost the left—and the American nation and the world —dearly. Arguably, most of the revolting crimes of modern-day imperialists—from the genocidal Vietnam War to the Iraq War, not to mention scores of other murderous interventions around the world, might not have taken place if progressive voices had been able to reach, on a regular basis, at least ten to fifteen percent of the American audience. For it doesn't take much to unravel the system's propaganda. Truth is inherently corrosive; and it has a huge advantage—reality is constantly corroborating it. The Lie, on the other hand, requires an immense and truly pervasive apparatus of constant reinforcement to remain viable.

But whatever the reasons, in 1982, surprising as it may sound today, there were no left-oriented media monitors, only some books, columns and sporadic articles (such as those by Alex Cockburn, Noam Chomsky, Ed Herman, Michael Parenti, Herbert Schiller and others) which, however brilliant, did not suffice to cover media issues on an ongoing basis, nor gather enough critical mass to launch a media reform movement. FAIR, for example, a welcome and extraordinary development for the American left, did not materialize until 1986. And Bob McChesney, perhaps today's foremost media reform activist, did not enter the fray in earnest until the early 1990s.

Under these circumstances, however modest in scope, Cyrano's attempt to offer a radical media review seemed to make sense. The late Herbert Schiller, a friend of Cyrano's founding editor, Patrice Greanville, was especially enthusiastic about the project, although he was correct in prognosticating a very short life unless well-heeled backers could be found in a hurry. (They weren't.)

Schiller was far ahead of his time in the field of political economy in communications. He was among the first, and consequently one of the most influential, theorists to study the systematic connections among the media (in the largest meaning of the term), industry, economics, and government. His seminal work was aptly titled The Mind Managers. Originally published in 1973 by the Beacon Press (a publishing house whose contributions to the civic health of American society easily exceed its miniscule size), The Mind Managers elucidated some of the mechanisms through which corporate interests filter information and control what actually is presented as fact.

Since that time, other observers and theorists have added much value to the growing body of bourgeois comunications analysis, especially Michael Parenti, whose own Inventing Reality (1992) remains must reading for serious students of what passes for journalism in the corporate corridors. With his characteristic incisiveness, Parenti examines the subtle but profound ways in which the media influence and manipulate the public's perception of reality. He attacks the widely held belief that the news media are controlled by liberals and liberal opinion--and he clearly depicts the news media as a controlling institution of the American capitalist system, an institution that serves the interests of the rich and powerful while appearing to serve the many.

Parenti's argument, zeroing in on the vast hypocrisy of the system's media, underscores a dominant trait of American commercial communications. American propaganda is powerful because it is first and foremost subtle, devious, internalized; the prison is within. Meeting the highest standards of indoctrination, it follows us everywhere because we carry it in our heads. By contrast, old-fashioned totalitarian propaganda is laughably crude: You can discount it the moment it is uttered. Its very "officialness" gives it away. Totalitarian propaganda did its job of brainwashing millions because it had historical accident on its side. In Germany, a ruined nation with a culture predisposed to regimentation, the Nazi nucleus and their powerful backers found a fertile soil where their machinations could bear fruit. (It must never be forgotten that fascism is only the naked, real face of capitalist oligarchies.)

Now, no one except the most paranoid leftists and rightists believes that the media are monolithic in intent or effect. Smooth from the start, US-style consciousness manipulation does not rely on heavy-handed methods. Implementing many of Madison Avenue's proven techniques of "hidden persuasion" it issues from a thousand places at once in an organic, ostensibly voluntary and uncontrived manner. There is no Propaganda Ministry as such, nor an elaborate conspiracy shaping every item sent into the public trough. They aren't needed. By the simple expedient of exercising the right to hire and fire whomever they choose, private media owners, overwhelmingly men and women of property predisposed to see the world from an upper-class or establishment perspective, enforce a tacit but effective form of censorship over media personnel. In these precincts, where the first rule of management is hypocrisy, the top corporate echelons are usually delegated the task of maintaining doctrinal discipline, and they do. In 2005, the most notorious example may be Rupert Murdoch's media empire, but, in reality, as businesses, all major media play by the same rules. There are no innocent bystanders; only willing or reluctant accomplices.

The desired effect of this pervasive bias is one of paralysis in regard to the defense of the majority interest, widespread apathy, or even active support among the masses for policies ferociously inimical to their own interest. Orwell was right about the problem he drew attention to in 1984, but he was dead wrong about the country: America in its post 9/11 phase is a much better example of the land of Newspeak than the dismantled Soviet System. Under George W. Bush, government by public relations fiat—all lies all the time—the logical terminus of a decomposing bourgeois democracy, has finally arrived.

The first issue takes shape

When approached, many of the writers published in Cyrano's early issues were uniformly generous in their support for the new enterprise, knowing better than most that the fraudulent nature of the American communications system represented a clear threat to the survival of democracy—even a very imperfect democracy as we have. Time has proven that assumption correct. The current Bush Neocon regime, a virulent retread of the contemptible Reagan-Bush cabal of the 1980s, has demonstrated that "government by manipulated perception" is far more real than just a case of left paranoia. In that sense, The Premiere Issue's "classic files" have retained their relevancy and immediacy.

Each writer was chosen to tackle the topic that best suited his or her expertise, or the issue that concerned them at the time. Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky, already well known for their pathbreaking 1979 study of disinformation in foreign policy, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (The Political Economy of Human Rights: Vol. 1), analyzed the forces that shape U.S. policy in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, as well as the role of the media in dependably misreporting these policies and their motives.

Herbert Schiller, in The Packaged Consciousness, furnished a roadmap to the political syntax used by the corporate media in "interpreting" the world via some very nifty myths. This essay is an obligatory read for anyone seriously interested in exploring the perverse morphology of capitalist media, especially television, where intrusive features such as "fragmentation" all but destroy the emotional continuity of many stories.

For his part, in another essay, Reflections on Capitalist Culture Donald Lazere questioned whether modern America fit the description of a thoroughly stupefied mass society in the Orwellian/Marcusian mould. Said Lazere with the perspicacity for which he is justly known:

The 'colonization' of leisure time in the twentieth century, the manufacture of mindless distraction to fill people's every spare moment, is a more pervasive means of keeping the masses diverted from critical political consciousness than any bread and circuses devised by earlier ruling classes-even though the culture industry's immediate motivation may not be political mind control so much as profits.

The late Bertram Gross, a former policymaker and savvy expert in the ways of government and, more to the point, "countergoverning," weighed in with a complete anatomy of a COUP D'ETAT, AMERICAN STYLE, a thesis he had recently formulated in his book Friendly Fascism (1980). In his compelling and eminently cautionary analysis, Gross spelled out in detail the likely scenario to be followed by the Right to defeat any progressive U.S. president—all the way from disruption to outright overthrow. There's no mystery to the putschist playbook; it's been implemented many times by the American intelligence services around the world, always in support of privilege and tyranny. That Bertram was on target is borne out by the fact that the Right was already in foaming-at-the-mouth mode with a centrist-rightist creature like Bill Clinton, scarcely an American version of Salvador Allende. (Clinton's own opportunism and dissemblings provided plenty of ammunition to his tormentors.) In any case, we can all imagine what this unscrupulous, murderous posse would do if a real leftist were to occupy the White House!

Incidentally, there's another scenario, equally or perhaps even more plausible in the American setting than the destabilization of a progressive head of state: A coup from within, a coup with a presidential facade. And in this coup—with the President himself leading the subversion of what remains of our Constitution—the media again would play a dominant role as midwife to the monster, as a facilitator. Consider the facts. Twice in the span of one generation the party of naked plutocracy has been caught with a smoking gun, actively undermining the American Constitution, actively overthrowing the will of the people from inside the Oval Office. By the standards of subversion, there's little doubt that Irangate, on Reagan's watch, remains a much bigger scandal, a much bigger violation of democratic rules, than Watergate, which could be dismissed as mere foul play between two crooks. But, which scandal did the media pursue to the bitter end? The really serious one or the superficial? Take a wild guess.

Finally, and to round out the first issue, I wrote a special article (FIRST CATALOG OF US MEDIA BIASES, DISTORTIONS & SUPPRESSIONS) designed as a down payment on a series of comparative analyses contrasting American media with those of other nations. The "bias catalog" was expected to help younger readers (and educators) draw up their own "report cards" on media performance, by applying the suggested standards to any issue of their choice.

Cyrano's turf

We indicated earlier that Cyrano was not set up to conduct instant analyses of media coverage, something difficult if not impossible to do in 1982, in pre-Internet days. The emphasis was instead on broader discussions, on areas where the mainstream culture and the media intersected, and on the pioneering of new forms of cultural criticism, like reviews of TV commercials and educational curricula. That focus has not changed, and today, in 2005, we see even less reason to delve into that kind of format, valuable as it is. The reason is simple: at least three fraternal organizations already operate in the field, and they do a splendid job.

FAIR, founded in 1986 by Jeff Cohen, and set up, in part, to counterbalance the torrents of manure generated by Reed Irvine's oxymoronically baptized Accuracy in Media (AIM), a provocateur organization funded by a gaggle of reactionary tycoons led by Richard Mellon Scaife (of "Citizen Scaife" fame), John M. Olin, and the Coors clan, has amassed an astonishing record. Operating on a dime, but armed with determination and truth, FAIR has managed to make itself heard in the higher councils, even if its overall effect in those quarters remains a matter of debate. There's no doubting, however, the organization's contribution to the energizing of progressive media activists, and even of mainstream journalists, many of whom have learned from FAIR that all's not well in the complacent world of Big Media.

A more recent arrival on the scene is Media Matters for America. MMA's pedigree is impeccable. Founded by the gifted and, in my view, remarkably courageous David Brock, a former influential apparatchik in the Right's propaganda machine, MMA literally tracks the beast around the clock:

Launched in May 2004, Media Matters for America put in place, for the first time, the means to systematically monitor a cross section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation -- news or commentary that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda -- every day, in real time.

A third young entrant in this category, MEDIACHANNEL.ORG, an offshoot of Globalvision, founded and led by the protean Danny Schechter, a Cyrano contributor, is a force in its own right. Combining up to the minute commentary (Danny runs his own blogspot) with theoretical insights (Schechter is a veteran of the commercial media), and a mandate to consolidate alternative media under one roof, MEDIACHANNEL.ORG is an organization to be reckoned with. The main problem afflicting these organizations (and Cyrano, too), is inadequate capitalization. Thus, despite their virtues and demonstrated usefulness, none of these organizations' future is assured.

The rise of (left) media watchdogs stems from the very gravity of the problems we face and the continued deterioration of mainstream media standards. Some argue that mergers and conglomeration, and the naked drive for profits, have ruined the profession and stifled diversity. There is a feeling of nostalgia for the good old days, when higher standards supposedly prevailed. While there is some merit to this argument, we better skip the tears. The media's deplorable performance is nothing new. The list of misfires spans at least half a century or longer. The media dropped the ball with the Palmer Raids, with the Cold War, with Joe McCarthy, with the Korean and Vietnam adventures, with the Reagan canonization, with the criminal CIA shenanigans all over the world—from Greece to Iran to Guatemala, to Chile, to Nicaragua, to El Salvador, to Indonesia—to scores of other places we may never know. While busy mythologizing JFK, it stood helpless when, after decades of demonizing the Soviet Union, the Cuban missile crisis suddenly brought the world to the brink of annihilation. If the media had been doing its job the GOP would have long been relegated to the dustbin of history, where it belongs. Instead, it continues to win elections and conduct its noxious business in the name of the American nation. And if the media had been doing their job we'd probably have today a much more honest parliamentary system, universal health insurance, a different, far more egalitarian and stable economy, cheaper drugs, a sane, generous policy toward the environment, and, yeah, no Iraq war, no global warming, no Enrons, and, in all probability, no 9/11 in recent memory, either. Oh. And American democracy might not be in its deathbed. Need I go on?

Character is fate

As an integral part of the corporate system the media won't change their spots until the system itself changes. Media watching is therefore necessary in the same way that keeping an eye on a tyrannical or corrupt government is necessary: we need to anticipate and control the damage.

Our readers know that the American media's flaws stem from its character. The media's obtuseness mirrors the rump political spectrum of the nation. That means a window of "respectable" attention extending all the way from the center-right to the extreme right, but with a concentration around the more respectable center-right, what we might justifiably call the "GOP-lite axis."

This mutilated political spectrum has meant that, for many years, and with the connivance of the media, the center-right in the US has been routinely identified as the "liberal left"—an imposture of mind-boggling proportions, but typical of the American political landscape. In the ensuing confusion, card-carrying liberals, many of them professional Cold War anti-communists, have found themselves pigeonholed as the country's "Left." Adding fuel to the fire, the rabid denunciations from the Right have certified the currency of this chaotic situation. One is forced to ask: If the political labels are so messed up in the U.S. that the center passes for the left, how can the regular untrained observer find his or her way on the political map? Deliberate or not, it's been a masterful propaganda stroke for the status quo. The old Victorian war cry, "Confusion to the enemies of the Crown!" acquires special resonance in contemporary America.

Planned innovations

Cyrano's editorial group has been planning and will soon inaugurate a number of innovative editorial departments. Commentary and analysis will extend to areas not normally covered by our fellow organizations, and certainly avoided by our ideological foes. These include:

Economic Illiteracy

Most working journalists, including those trained in business and economics, are functional illiterates when it comes to covering the political economy in a manner meaningful to the average citizen. The existing GDP model, for example, although denounced as inadequate by its own inventor, is accepted uncritically by the press as the best yardstick to measure economic performance, while its nefarious social implications are left unexamined. In the same vein, no one questions the reason why corporations must always grow (in a finite world!) to claim success. Can there be another type of economic setup, even one within capitalist parameters, that is less environmentally and socially destructive than this insane notion? No one in the working press seems to be interested in the question, nor are the members of the Fourth Estate eager to ask why corporate magnates must always control the pace and nature of technological introduction, a traditional "right" fraught with huge social and environmental consequences. Similarly, in an age of widespread job insecurity and growing unemployment, the issue of job creation, destruction, and re-acquisition via retraining, is rarely discussed with the clarity, impartiality, and depth required for the affected to make informed decisions. There's ample data, for instance, pointing to the relative futility of retraining or even education as the solution to the spreading unemployment problem originating in the substitution of machine labor for human labor. This is as old an issue under capitalism as the Luddites, if not older, and its relevancy has acquired new dimensions in our "globalised" world where the corporate class appears to have become the unstoppable new hegemon...Yet no corporate leader, politician or union leader seems prepared to breach the accepted dogma. Would a media examination of the issue help?

History Revisited

Official history, the great repository of a society's vision of itself, and of other nations, carries everywhere enormous self-serving distortions. Accepted historical myths provide the framework and cloth for wily propaganda. This is territory rife for examination. We are working at this time, for example, on a piece that will discuss the actual role and impact of Napoleon in the modern world. Yes, Napoleon. Was he the sanguinary monster depicted in so many Anglo-American texts and Hollywood and British films? Or was he the victim of an early form of character assassination befitting a revolutionary threat to the established crowns of Europe? In a way, the Napoleonic Wars may have transcended mere national rivalry and been the first instance of global conflict over ideological principles. The first instance of a "Cold War", with all the attendant proxy wars and hot spots...Till that time, wars all over the planet were only the bloody clashes of competing aristocratic mafias after the usual loot: land, women, treasure, slaves, and power. After 1789, all that changed. Professional and amateur historians are welcome to file their articles with us. The field is vast, bounded only by the imagination.

Gender Wars

In this section we hope to start presenting materials dealing with the long, very long struggle of women for recognition as equals in a world apportioned by male force since time immemorial. Modern feminists have done a great deal to dig up some of the facts, but a lot more needs to be done to secure the gains and advance the signposts. A number of areas need urgent re-examination—like the main political priorities embraced by the movement—to make feminism a relevant reality to women—and especially working class women—of all races and ethnic backgrounds. In the process, in Cyrano's customary way, we'll discuss the issues without any obligatory "PC" slant, and delve into topics normally left out of the equation, like the calamitous state of heterosexual relationships in the West and in other nations and civilizations; the impact of expectations among women and among men, and the cultural templates that may be causing some of the trouble...(We hasten to add that we are painfully aware that stable and fulfilling relationships seem a diificult if not impossible endeavor to gays and lesbians, too.)

The Great Isms

Intended as a didactic review and open discussion of the "isms" still relevant to contemporary civilization. For a world that rightwing ideologues proclaimed to be already free of the "need" for ideology (remember the 1970's campaign to convince us that humanity - with capitalism - had reached the end of history, the end of social evolution?) we seem to be still navel-deep in isms, as their relevancy, far from diminishing, continues to grow: racism, chauvinism, sexism, capitalism, socialism, communism, fascism, Zionism, religionism, ageism, militarism, feudalism, imperialism, colonialism, and even heightism, for God's sake, which, by the way, is no laughing matter as it addreses the childish, implicit prejudice exercised by the mass culture and the big and tall against short people (the PC crowd would call them "vertically impaired," but we think that's pretty idiotic since it invites precisely the kind of snickering short people have to contend with every day of their lives.) Did we leave anything out? Probably.

The Punditocracy

Irreverent articles targeting many of these self-assigned arbiters of truth and propriety...especially the windbags populating much of the media's stratosphere, starting, of course, with the cable channels's bla-blameisters.

Reviews of reviews

No matter how authoritative the byline we do not regard any review of a book, movie, TV program or any other cultural artifact or event, as the final word. Therefore we are prepared to start reviewing the reviews, the more august the source the better, and exhuming the evidence. Any diggers?

Religion and cultural fads

Modern civilization, and especially America, have proven fertile soil for innumerable forms of pop idealism and charlatanry: est, The Landmark Forum, each wave of fashionable self-actualization, the old religions, the new religions, scientology, all prey on the need for direction, meaning, and community in a society that, based on unbridled egoism, offers little of these indispensable social and psychological supports.

Critique of Advertising and Public Relations --Spot Reviews

Bombarded continually by intrusive, often idiotic or obnoxious ads, especially via television, we seem to be helpless to respond. Well, we'd like to do something about this. We would like to start reviewing these artifacts, drag these "hidden persuaders" out of the shadows where they hide in comfortable anonymity. Why? They constitute an underhanded but integral part of mass communications in our world, and, more importantly, carry the very intent and DNA of the commercial corporation into our lives—often without prior consent. So, fellas, who are the people behind these artistically ambitious but professionally misleading concoctions? Who exactly approves these ads? How do the media justify running commercial messages that are obviously mendacious and against the public interest? The trade journals, as a rule, vehicles for self-congratulatory intramural triumphalism and careerist minutiae, provide little light on these matters; they are mostly concerned with the business aspects of the message, not its social consequences.

As for public relations, this is a profession that, much like advertising and corporate marketing in general, trades by definition in lies and disinformation on behalf of the powerful, the only people who can afford their "ethically challenged" wiles.

With few exceptions, in a truly moral society such occupations would probably be banned. Indeed, it is a sad reflection of how ethically obtuse bourgeois society is that public relations, advertising, and other questionable "overtly manipulative social arts" are now taught in many colleges with great seriousness and pomp with nary a thought to the broader implications. America, as usual, leads the parade in this regard. But hey, don't get me going on this. I also believe that B-schools—those glorified dens of thieves constantly training and cranking out new waves of money-obsessed anti-social cretins— should be eliminated for the larger good. MBAs anyone?

—P>G>

Summer, 2005

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