Reading the coverage of Obama’s new missile defense policy in yesterday’s Financial Times turned out to be an unexpectedly eye-opening experience for me. The front page article--
Obama under fire for U-turn on missiles, by James Blitz and Daniel Dombey, Financial Times, US edition, September 18, 2009—was unremittingly critical. Two other reports on page 3—
US defends missile pull-out, by the aforementioned Mr. Dombey, and
Obama’s gambit threatens ties with east Europe, by the aforementioned Mr. Blitz, Charles Clover, and Jan Cienski—were a lot more nuanced. And the lead editorial—
New US realism on missiles plan—was actually quite supportive.
The front page article was above the fold, had a two-column headline in large type, occupied columns two through six, and was easily the most prominent report on the page. It begins with the words “Barack Obama’s decision to scrap Bush-era plans for a missile defence shield on Thursday triggered dismay in central Europe and among Republicans on Capitol Hill, amid claims that it amounted to a major security concession to Russia” and then manages to create a mildly apocalyptic overall effect without saying anything that would technically be a lie. “The Polish and Czech governments voiced no immediate concern” we are told. But there is no discussion of the reasons for the Polish and Czech governments’ equanimity. Instead, the report then proceeds to quote politician after politician to conjure up an image of a cynical Obama abandoning Europe to the Putin menace. “This is bad news,” says Mirek Topolanek, a former Czech prime minister. Senator John McCain, calls the new policy “seriously misguided”. “I think this is a near catastrophe for American relations with Eastern European countries and many in NATO,” says John Bolton, a former Bush administration official. All that the readers get are these scary sound bites; the arguments behind the sound bites aren’t presented.
The report does give some space to President Obama and Defense Secretary Gates. But their defense of the new policy is also in sound bites. It is mentioned that “Mr Obama emphasised he was following the unanimous advice of his secretary of defence and the joint chiefs of staff,” but it is not made clear why the military brass supported the new policy unanimously. Obama’s argument that the new policy relies on “technology that is both proven and cost-effective” is mentioned but the foundations of that claim are neither supported nor debunked—they are just ignored. The views of non-combatant third party experts are not presented.
When you present a debate in sound bites, the effect can be asymmetric. The apocalyptic types benefit when their arguments are not laid out (in all their demented glory). The reasonable, cool-headed types lose when their arguments are ignored. The guy with the “end is nigh” placard can often get people’s attention. But when he hands you his ten-page single-spaced manifesto, you finally begin to see him for the nut job he really is. On the other hand, a guy who is on the receiving end of loud and angry denunciations has no hope of escape unless he is allowed to boot up his spreadsheets, bring down the temperature, grind through his cost-benefit analyses, and slowly take down his fiery opponent.
Or, to put it differently, if you let A criticize B and you let B deny the criticism, but you let neither A nor B set out a detailed argument, you actually favor A, the critic. You may think you are being even handed, but you actually aren’t.
What was surprising about the FT’s coverage was how different the page-three reports were—and how different in tone the editorial was—from the page-one report. General James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and Defense Secretary Gates get more space to explain the military rationale for the new policy. For example: “He [Cartwright] added that the previous European system, focused on 10 long-range missile interceptors in Poland, would have been unable to deal with a barrage of Iranian short and medium-range ballistic missiles. According to recent US intelligence reports, Tehran is making much more progress with such missiles than with longer- range devices.” Notwithstanding several very weasely paragraphs, the editorial is in the end quite forthright: “Whatever view one takes, the plan for installations in central Europe was flawed. Abandoning it makes sense, provided that the US manages the change wisely.”
A disappointing aspect of the coverage was the FT’s unwillingness to point out that the Bush administration’s original proposal to install a missile defense system in eastern Europe was based on a falsehood and that the Russians were right to expose the lie. Here’s an extract from the page-one piece: “The Bush administration had originally proposed the European-based system to counter the perceived threat of Iran developing a nuclear weapon that could be mounted on its increasingly sophisticated missiles … The Czech Republic and Poland saw the bases as a commitment by Washington to increase their security against Russia.” Nobody of sound mind would or could ever believe that Iran was a threat to Poland or the Czech Republic. Yet, the Bush administration was too cowardly to admit that obvious point. The Poles, the Czechs, and everybody else knew that Bush was planning the missile defense system to put pressure on Russia. And yet, Bush brazenly lied that it was all about Iran, and nobody except the Russians would call him on it!
So, what is one to think about the Financial Times’s views on this issue? How wise is it to size up the FT’s thinking by reading the editorial alone? How is one to interpret the tone of the front page report? To what extent should one see an editorial bias in the reporting or, more precisely, in the allocation of prime space to a report that slyly pushed a view that was at variance with the official editorial position?
The front page of a newspaper is a very scarce commodity. It is a safe bet that a large proportion of readers form their views from what they see prominently displayed on the front page; relatively few readers will plough through long articles on the inside pages, especially if they have already read a front-page article on the very same topic. So, when I see a newspaper saying one thing on the inside pages and the editorial pages and conveying a different impression on the front page, I take the front-page “report” to be the true editorial, and I take what’s ostensibly the “editorial” to be mere newsprint, good only for wrapping fish.
Sometimes we can’t say what we really feel when what we feel is too ignobly solipsistic. At such times we embrace subterfuge. The FT is a European paper. It was rattled by what felt like abandonment. Unable to impeach the logic of Obama’s new missile policy, it decided to take the high road on the editorial page and unleash a sneak attack on the front page!
Finally, an odd thing about the FT’s coverage was its unwillingness to address the three hundred-pound gorilla in the room: Why can’t Europe—even today—take care of its own defense?
To sum up, I still don’t know what the FT’s politics are. But I now know enough to discount the editorials when the front page gives me a different vibe.
