The Media and the Kennedy Assassination - by Ross F. Ralston
The Media and the Kennedy assassination: The social
construction of reality by Ross Frank Ralston –
(Ph.d. dissertation, Iowa State
University, Ames, Iowa, 1999)
The research problem was to take a major political event in
American history – the John F. Kennedy assassination – explore major media
coverage of the event, and then examine media construction of social issues.
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy has two
official versions in our nation’s history. The Warren-Ford-Dulles Commission
came to the conclusion that, without assistance, a man in a building shot a man
in a car. In 1979, pursuant to post-Watergate cynicism in government, the House
Select Committee on Assassinations concluded there was a conspiracy and a
second gunman fired from a different direction. However, high school textbooks
have reified only the first version of history – that of a single lone
assassin.
A content analysis of CBS and Time-Life coverage is made
using Lasswell’s methodology of surveillance, correlation, and transmission.
CBS produced the most television assassination documentaries and Time-Life
owned the Zapruder film which was crucial evidence. Of the four perspectives on
media coverage (the Fourth Estate, Mirror Approach, Marketing, and Hegemony),
only hegemony fits the consistent pattern of the media coverage.
Berger and Luckman’s (1967) social construction of reality
involves reification, legitimization, and institutionalization. As Kuhn (1962)
notes in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, normally when the number of
anomalies to a theory becomes too great, we are forced to switch to another
explanation. However, this did not happen with the Kennedy assassination. We
must ask why. The Fourth Estate would predict the media pursue the story with a
check and a balance of government by responsible investigative reporting, as
the Marketing Approach would give the consumers what they want. The Mirror
Approach is where the media represents a neutral transmission of information
while with Hegemony, the major media would dissipate the greatest possible
doubt of a conspiracy in order to create the impression that the political
structure was secure and legitimate to create an image of the stable
institution of government. The study concludes that hegemony best explains
media coverage of the event.
- CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
On November 22,
1963 , President John F. Kennedy was murdered in the streets of Dallas ,
Texas
The same day that Ruby murdered Oswald, FBI Director J.
Edgar Hover phoned the White House and spoke to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s
aide, Walter Jenkins, about a conversation he had with Deputy Attorney General
Nicholas Katzenbach. According to Jenkins’ memo of the conversation, Hover stated
that “the thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having
something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real
assassin.” (Appendix to Hearings before the House Select Committee on
Assassinations. 1979, 11HSCA411); hereafter referred to as HSCA). Katzenbach
testified that he was reacting to repeated calls from the State Department that
a no-conspiracy statement be issued to “quash the beliefs” abroad that
conspiracy rumors were true (1979, 3HSCA726). The next day Katzenbach sent a
memo to White House Aide William Moyers advising the formation of a
presidential commission to investigate the assassination. In the memo he
stated: It is very important that all of the facts surrounding President
Kenendy’s assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in
the United States
….Conflict sociologist Antonio Gramsci noted that as
sociologists we must deal with the structure of society and the actor. Writing
in prison notebooks after being imprisoned by Mussolini for ten years, he noted
that the domination of one class over others could be achieved by political
force as well as by ideological means, with the later being more significant….The
more prominent the institutions of civil society, the stronger the role of
ideology rather than force will play in shaping the path of society. To explain
this, he coined the word, “hegemony” (Gramsci, 1971), and placed it into the social
construction of political truth.
To Gramsci, hegemony referred
to a situation where “a certain way of life and thought is dominant, in which
one concept of reality is diffused throughout society in all its institutional
and private manifestations” (Williams, 1960:587)….Key to the process is that
hegemony leads to the ability to define the parameters of debate and legitimate
discussion over alternative values or beliefs. The result of the hegemonic
process is that the majority of the population is largely unaware of
alternative values and readings of history (Garson, 1973:164)….
Reification – JFK’s Murder in Textboks
Even if we may never find a satisfactory conclusion to the
JFK murder which is acceptable to a majority of citizens, we can learn about
how government pronouncements can be reified in the face of contrary evidence
and popular opinion.
Despite the public doubts, two different conclusions by
official government investigations and suppressed evidence, high school and
college textbooks have clung to a simplistic and reified account of the
President’s murder….
…The reification process is consistent with the
individualistic/great man theory of history. Former CIA
Director Allen Dulles may have had this in mind when he suggested that past cases
of political murder in America
Dulles: It’s a fascinating book, you’ll find a pattern
running through here that I think you’ll find in the present case. The last one
is the attack on Truman. There you have a plot, but there other cases are all
habitual going back to the attack on Jackson
Russell: The Lincoln Assassination was a plot.
Dulles: Yes, but one man was so dominant that it almost
wasn’t a plot.
(Warren December 16, 1963 :52).
Europeans seem more likely to expect the manipulation of
politics by hidden forces. In a subtle way, Dulles’ argument brings up one
facet of American society that is so different from the prevailing attitudes of
Europeans. Conspiracy is a word which does not carry the same connotation in Europe
as it does in the United States
.... The Fourth Estate approach is derived from ideals of
the Enlightenment and carries the belief that man is a creature of reason who
wants to know the truth and will be guided by it, that he can find truth by
applying his reason without outside restrictions while he is also born with
inalienable natural rights and that he forms governments of his own volition in
order to protect those rights and hence the best government is that which
governs least (Voelkner, 1975:11)
The result is that the press must have a minimum of
restraints imposed on it because man can find the truth with the free flow of
ideas and then there are built-in corrections to government control. A free and
aggressive press will uncover those other parts of the profession if they lie
or distort. Remember, after all, man puts out all information and ideas to the
cold calculus of reason. He may find some truth amidst falsehood or some
falsehood among truth, but overall and in the long run truth will prevail. In
other words, government should keep its hands off the press.
With this belief, if the press is not an instrument of
government, it also does not speak for an elite ruling class. People discern
between truth and falsehood, so it is essential that minorities as well as
majorities; the politically weak as well as the politically strong should have
roughly equal access to public opinion and the media.
Still, a direct chilling example was provided by former
Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein (1977) who revealed that, after World
War II when the CIA was formed, publishers
and executive management have eagerly volunteered their services for the
benefit of that agency. His investigation discovered that over 400 American
journalists “have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence
Agency.” The journalists “provided a full range of clandestine services, from
simple intelligence gathering to serving as go-betweens with spies in Communist
countries.” Some were recruited to be paid CIA
intelligence officers while others were conduits for money and carried messages
to agents and operatives. Included among the reporters were respected Pulitzer
Prize winners.
Some of this hegemonic relationship was an outgrowth of
fighting global communism. In that struggle Bernstein perceptively notes “the
traditional line separating the American Press Corps and government was often
indistinguishable.” Media officials were sometimes paid for their CIA -related
services while others only signed secrecy agreements.
On the FBI side of the coin, J. Edgar Hover cultivated media
outlets in order to “covertly influence the public’s perception of persons and
organizations.”
“The Bureau’s use of the news media took two different
forms: placing unfavorable articles and documentaries about targeted groups,
and leaking derogatory information intended to discredit individuals.” (Senate
Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations, book three. 1976:35)
RESEARCH QUESTION
In order to examine news media construction of social
phenomena on major issues, this study involves an examination of the Kennedy
assassination. It utilizes Lasswell’s elements of analyzing media through the
lens of the four perspective media content:
The Market Approach would predict that the major media would
give the consumer audience what they want. Since a clear majority of Americans
have rejected the lone gunman theory, the idea of the second gunman in media
content would sell copies, appealing to profits.
The Fourth Estate conception would predict that as a monitor
towards checks and balances, the major media would pursue the story with
responsible investigative reporting, being careful not to sensationalize.
Hegemony would predict, in light of both the Katzenbach memo
and the conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Earl Warren, that the major
media would absorb and neutralize the greatest possible doubt of conspiracy in
order to create the impression that the political power structure is secure and
legitimate in the wake of JFK’s murder, so that reality would be constructed to
create an image of the stable institution of government – what the new
President and Katzenbach believed to be a necessity.
The Mirror Approach would predict that the major media would
just gather and transmit information with the journalist being neutral, like a
television camera pointed at the eye of an event.
CHAPTER 4. CONENT ANALYSIS OF TIME/LIFE
…Although it is not the intention of this treatise to
examine the first early issues of Time or Life, it is important to note that
early themes of correlation were put into motion quite rapidly. Time pronounced
Oswald guilty in its December 6, 1963 ,
issue, which was released just days after the shooting with the headline, “The
Man Who Killed Kennedy.” Likewise, Jack Ruby was a loner, pictured as a man who
could not forget how Jackie had suffered “so he took his gun and killed
Oswald.” He was also a man “big timers never even knew existed.”
Life’s take on Oswald was remarkably similar. In its
November 29, issue, released within hours of Oswald’s death, he was pronounced
guilty without any adversary testing of evidence with the title theme,
“Assassin: The Man Held – And Killed – For Murder.”
With reports of eyewitnesses circulating about gunfire
emanating from the front of Kennedy’s vehicle, and the opinion of Parkland
doctors that JFK’s throat wound was one of entrance (Meagher, 1967:149-159),
the specter of a second gunman was raised since the “Oswald window” was behind
the President. Speculation of a larger plot loomed on the horizon…..
“AWD showed me a letter he had received from Rankin recently
expressing the desire to reach a modus vivendi in order to allay the story of CIA ’s
possible sponsorship of Oswald’s activity.”
Gatekeeping
The neutral assumption of a Mirror Approach leaves the gate
open to whatever the camera picks up. So does the Market Approach with its no
holds barred grip on reality. Yet Hegemony reflects gatekeeping through
boundary maintenance as does the Fourth Estate since the media acts as a check
and balance on government and politics.
Time and Life’s blanket endorsements of the Warren Report
upon its release do not resemble the scrutiny of dedicated inquiry which is the
hallmark of the Fourth Estate approach. It shuts the door to future expose.
Sell Opinoin
The Fourth Estate exists to check and balance institutions
of government by digging out data and the Market Approach is geared to selling
newspapers. Since the Mirror Approach would be neutral, only Hegemony can lay
bona-fide claim to selling consistently the opinioned vision of the world.
Appraisal
In the coverage of the Kennedy assassination, Content
Creation revolved around suppression of the Zapruder film by Time/Life and
clear distortion by CBS…
True Fact Finding and the Media Portrayal based on it
continued to reflect a bland acceptance of the Report and its contents for the
Audience. Gatekeeping was evident throughout as Boundary Maintenance of that
initial position was repeatedly continually in Content Creation. Repetition
through cognitive dissonance reveals that hegemony was the norm and practice of
its authors….
With techniques such as distortion, media suppression of the
Zapruder film and contrived rifle tests, we have to ask ourselves about the
social construction of reality in explaining and justifying the social world.
Without the diffusion of ideas and evidence and with the passive acceptance of
missing evidence, a Fourth Estate approach is not in operation. Something else
is operating instead.
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