vanityfair | I sat on an uncomfortable chair, facing a camera. Generators hummed amid the delphiniums. Good Morning America
was first. I had been told that Diane Sawyer would be questioning me
from New York, but ABC has a McVeigh “expert,” one Charles Gibson, and
he would do the honors. Our interview would be something like four
minutes. Yes, I was to be interviewed In Depth. This means that only
every other question starts with “Now, tell us, briefly … ” Dutifully, I
told, briefly, how it was that McVeigh, whom I had never met, happened
to invite me to be one of the five chosen witnesses to his execution.
But I’ve left you
behind in the Ravello garden of Klingsor, where, live on television, I
mentioned the unmentionable word “why,” followed by the atomic trigger
word “Waco.” Charles Gibson, 3,500 miles away, began to hyperventilate.
“Now, wait a minute … ” he interrupted. But I talked through him.
Suddenly I heard him say, “We’re having trouble with the audio.” Then he
pulled the plug that linked ABC and me. The soundman beside me shook
his head. “Audio was working perfectly. He just cut you off.” So, in
addition to the governmental shredding of Amendments 4, 5, 6, 8, and 14,
Mr. Gibson switched off the journalists’ sacred First.
Why? Like
so many of his interchangeable TV colleagues, he is in place to tell
the viewers that former senator John Danforth had just concluded a
14-month investigation of the F.B.I. that cleared the bureau of any
wrongdoing at Waco. Danforth did admit that “it was like pulling teeth
to get all this paper from the F.B.I.”
TV-watchers have no doubt noted so often that they are no longer aware of how often the interchangeable TV hosts handle anyone who tries to explain why something happened. “Are you suggesting that there was a conspiracy?” A twinkle starts in a pair of bright contact lenses. No matter what the answer, there is a wriggling of the body, followed by a tiny snort and a significant glance into the camera to show that the guest has just been delivered to the studio by flying saucer. This is one way for the public never to understand what actual conspirators—whether in the F.B.I. or on the Supreme Court or toiling for Big Tobacco—are up to. It is also a sure way of keeping information from the public. The function, alas, of Corporate Media.
TV-watchers have no doubt noted so often that they are no longer aware of how often the interchangeable TV hosts handle anyone who tries to explain why something happened. “Are you suggesting that there was a conspiracy?” A twinkle starts in a pair of bright contact lenses. No matter what the answer, there is a wriggling of the body, followed by a tiny snort and a significant glance into the camera to show that the guest has just been delivered to the studio by flying saucer. This is one way for the public never to understand what actual conspirators—whether in the F.B.I. or on the Supreme Court or toiling for Big Tobacco—are up to. It is also a sure way of keeping information from the public. The function, alas, of Corporate Media.
