Ever wonder what's behind the mainstream media's bloodlust over Iraq? Okay, some obvious explanations leap to mind. War sells papers and boosts ratings. Journalists often don't know much about foreign countries or economics. Reporters want "access" to the policymakers, who aren't so accessible when their policies are criticized. It makes the job easier.

Even so, the endless columns calling for war, the near blackout of news about protests and the polls showing overwhelming support for the bombing (I can just picture the question: "Do you agree that we should nuke Baghdad or are you some kind of unpatriotic scum?") seem like more than mere knuckling under to the government. Just like any other business, in journalism the bosses tell the employees what to do. In the 1998 edition of Project Censored, Peter Phillips looked at who sits on the boards of directors of 11 of the U.S.'s largest media companies and found that (surprise) they sit on the boards of other corporations. So the bosses from companies ranging from hospital chain Columbia/HCA to hospital supplier Phillip Morris (seriously) sit in positions to choose the editors who decide how the news is presented.

Phillips lists the corporations that have ties to the boardrooms of the fourth estate and they include many companies that stand to profit from U.S. policy in Iraq. The most obvious profiteers are the defense contractors, two of whom own TV networks: General Electric (NBC) and Westinghouse (CBS). Among CBS's directors is Frank C. Carlucci III, who happens to have been a deputy director of the CIA under President Carter and was Secretary of Defense from 1987-89, when Saddam Hussein was a valued U.S. asset. (Now that's cashing in on the D.C. revolving door from government to industry!) Both companies share directors with other defense contractors: Allied Signal and Textron for NBC; General Dynamics for CBS.

GE doesn't just own NBC and sponsor news shows on PBS, it also provides a member of the board of directors at the Washington Post, as does Textron. The Post, by the way, owns Newsweek and the Everett Herald, and is the former employer of the Seattle P-I's editorial page editor.

No company got better PR out of the 1991 Gulf War than Raytheon, whose Patriot missiles looked far more effective on TV than they were in reality. Raytheon happens to have two directors on the board of Knight-Ridder, which owns the Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, San Jose Mercury-News, and 49.5 percent of the stock in the Seattle Times.

In last month's bombing, the Navy unloaded several hundred "obsolete" cruise missiles on Iraq at $1 million a pop, coincidentally making room for orders for new ones. The missiles were made in Kent by Boeing, which provides a member of the board at Times Mirror, owner of the Los Angeles Times, Long Island Newsday, and the Baltimore Sun.

The obvious reasons the U.S. wants to crush Iraq is to control the flow of oil. Does the oil industry influence news coverage of Iraq (or for that matter any other oil producing country like, say, Nigeria, which we're now told is becoming more open to dissent)? They might if they had a pipeline to the boardrooms--and as it turns out, they do. The New York Times has a director who also sits on the board at Texaco. At Times Mirror you can find a director from Amoco. Ashland is represented at the Washington Post. Phillips Petroleum has a director at Knight-Ridder. Meanwhile Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain and owner of USA Today, has a director from du Pont, which technically isn't an oil company, but you'd be hard pressed to find many of their products that aren't made from petroleum.

The same holds true on the broadcast side. Mobil and Chevron representatives sit on the board at Time Warner, which owns CNN and Time Magazine. CBS has directors from Ashland and Sunoco. Exxon has someone on the board at NBC, as does Goodyear, whose tires are made of synthetic rubber which is made from oil.

The banking industry also benefits from the U.S.'s Iraq policy, as it has from every American military action. The investment banks underwrite U.S. debt to pay for the bombing, which has the added benefit of letting other nations know that they may be next if they try to stand up to western capital. That may come in handy as debt is destroying economies from Indonesia to Venezuela (and, hey, there's oil in those places, too).

The banks and Wall Street firms are well-positioned to have their voices heard in America's newsrooms. J.P. Morgan & Co. has people on the boards of Knight-Ridder, the Washington Post and NBC. That's the same J.P. Morgan that played a major role in getting the United States into World War I because it was Britain's biggest creditor and its loans would have been worthless if Germany had won. Bet you didn't learn that in your high school history class.

Bank of America provides a director for Gannett and Walt Disney, which owns ABC. Chase Manhattan has directors at CBS and NBC. Citicorp has directors at Time Warner and NBC. Banc One is represented at CBS. Lehman Brothers has a director at the New York Times. Salomon and Wells Fargo have directors at the Washington Post. Bankers Trust New York has a director at Fox, and American Express directors can be found at Gannett, the Washington Post, and Time Warner.

Other companies that can profit from the bombing are also represented in the mainstream news outlets, but you get the idea. When you look at who's calling the shots and how they make money, a lot of corporate news coverage makes sense. Don't expect the press to take universal health care seriously when the industry has people in major media boardrooms. Preventing cancer and other diseases rather than treating them with expensive drugs? Lots of polluters (including the dioxin-spewing publishers themselves) and drug companies are positioned to keep that perspective from the public (see also this week's Media Watch). How about some honest coverage of global warming or solar power? Yeah, right.

By controlling how the news is presented, Boeing, Exxon, and the rest get plenty of advertising for their war. And the beauty of it is, the networks and newspapers pick up the tab, because when you're on a corporation's board, the corporation pays you. Sweet.