Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting - Softcover

Peter Brock

4.2

5 ratings by Goodreads

9781882383306: Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1882383303 ISBN 13: 9781882383306

Publisher: GM Books, Los Angeles, 2005

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Five years in exhaustive preparation and writing, Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting, is the blockbuster book by American journalist Peter Brock that exposes the shocking record of the Western media's war reporting in the breakup of Yugoslavia and their collusion that deceived the world during the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo.Here are the documented contradictions, the profession-wide errors, admissions, confessions and suppression by the reporters and correspondents who were co-participants in the deliberate dismantling of a sovereign nation, inflaming governments and the United Nations, politicians and manipulating public opinion.This is the book that was feared by the mainstream American and European press since 1993 when "Dateline Yugoslavia: The Partisan Press" was published by this author in Foreign Policy, the journal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Washington, D.C.). It reverberated throughout Western capitals, shattering the media's self-illusions about impartiality, objectivity, fairness and truth and provoked an unprecedented reaction and backlash from media organizations, journalistic societies, academics and government leaders, leading to street protests in Europe, and even a "press trial"!

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About the Author:

Mr. Brock's career as a newspaper journalist for more than 30 years is highlighted by 17 professional awards - including being named a finalist for the 1989 Pulitzer Prize competition in Public Service. Recognized as a political and environmental writer and investigative reporter, Mr. Brock holds the Southern Journalism Award for Investigative Reporting (Duke University), the Thomas L. Stokes Award for Environmental Reporting of the Washington Journalism Center, and other distinctions. He has widely traveled the Balkans, Western Central Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and other regions since 1976. A specialist in the role of the Western media in the Balkan wars, Mr. Brock's controversial articles and reports were reprinted in major newspapers worldwide. He appeared on nationally-televised panel discussions that focused on the Yugoslav wars, and he was interviewed by numerous domestic and international newspapers, television and radio. He began his newspaper career at The Philadelphia Inquirer, served for 20 years with The El Paso (Texas) Herald-Post, and wrote/reported/edited for newspapers in New Mexico, Colorado and Washington, D.C. ENDORSEMENT: Those of us who served as UN commanders in Bosnia realized the majority of the media reports were biased to say the least. Whenever we tried to set the record straight we were and continue to be accused of being, "Serbian agents," refreshing to see a journalist, not a general, dispel some of the myths that characterized the professional propaganda paid for by two sides in a three-sided civil war. -- Lewis MacKenzie, Major General (ret�d) UNPROFOR Chief of Staff and Commander Sector Sarajevo March to August 1992 Author of, Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo, 1993.

Review:

Peter Brock has done a masterful job through patient and unbiased documentation and cool, logical reporting highlighting the great failure of the media in fairly and accurately covering the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. As someone intimately involved in covering the wars of the 1990s in the Balkans, I can attest that Brock s writing is restrained and, if anything, understated. His indictment of the media for its bias contribution to the start and ongoing conduct of the war is valid. That there were genuine initial misunderstandings on the part of the world s media with regard to the Balkan situation is clear. But the fact that the media on whose judgments governments made policies allowed itself to be duped by propagandists, and that editors then refused to recant when their errors became obvious: there lies the essence of Brock s indictment.

The free press of the world fought to be recognized as the guardian of truth and as a pillar of good governance. It cannot now deny culpability and reject criticism, or avoid the growing sentiment that it as with all aspects of public life requires constant review, and reform. It is evident from Brock s vital and eminently readable book that for freedom to perish, all it takes is for the media to exempt itself from its ethical responsibility toward impartiality. If Watergate was the modern starting point for agenda-based reporting, then the Balkan wars showed that, unchecked, the media could, without accountability, bring about the downfall of nations. The resultant emergence of terrorist coordinating centers in the Balkans, intimately involved in the 9/11, Madrid, and London attacks, can be laid directly at the door of the editors who allowed bias to rule their coverage of the Balkan wars.

We have yet to see the full consequences of the media s shameful unprofessionalism in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. But to start to remedy the problem it is essential that Brock s Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting be widely read, and its message taken to heart. Peter Brock s book should be the basis for both Congressional and independent media enquiries. --Gregory R. Copley, Editor Defense & Foreign Affairs

(General) Lewis MacKenzie expected journalists to call him frequently in Etobicoke, but what he did not expect were the kinds of questions they asked. What is interesting is that most of the calls now deal more with: "Could you tell us again what happened on such and such a date because we are taking another look at the way we covered it in our reporting." My message to them when they start wallowing in their anguish is. "Do not feel too guilty about all of this because you only reported what you saw, and what you saw was only 150 meters on either side of the Sarajevo Holiday Inn." --Lewis MacKenzie, Major General (retd) UNPROFOR

Peter Brock s devastating portrayal of the role played by western journalists in distorting the truth about what was really happening during the break up of Yugoslavia is a major accomplishment. The book underlines the terrible power of the media in influencing governments to make unwise policy decisions affecting the very course of history. It also exposes the close affinity that exists between media and government. Both are capable of telling lies and both are unwilling to admit mistakes. This is a must read book. It is a sad and shameful story but one that should be mandatory reading by every politician and by every practicing and aspiring journalist. --James Bissett, Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia (1990-1992).

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