What I'm Reading: Noam Chomsky & Edward Herman, "Manufacturing Consent"

This was a gift from a fan, Matt Frost! Thanks Matt!

In this pretty famous book from 1988 Herman and Chomsky argue that the US media fits what they call a “propaganda model,” i.e. even though it’s not state-run and doesn’t always toe the line, American news media often shares the basic underlying assumptions of those in power and tends to be heavily biased towards them. Initially I thought "No shit, Sherlock!” - a lot of us here in the UK have known for a long time that large swathes of our media are owned by Tories - but the examples they use to develop it are still really interesting, mainly because they explore bits of history that I’ve never had the chance to study before.

They talk about the USA’s interference with elections in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua (that’s right: the USA, now concerned that someone fiddled with their election, has done that exact thing many times before) up to and including sending money and weapons to Guatemalan death squads, and the media’s totally being cool with that. They talk about the double standards applied when hundreds of public figures were murdered or disappeared in US client states (media almost silent/took government stance as gospel) Vs the murder of a priest, Jerry Popieluszko, in 1984 in Soviet-controlled Poland (media absolutely outraged). They talk about the attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II and how America and Italy bent over backwards to blame it (incorrectly) on the USSR on the basis of almost zero evidence, when it was actually the work of right-wing terrorists. They also discuss Vietnam, and that bit’s really illuminating because although they show that the media eventually became more critical of the war’s cost to Americans the media almost never challenged the underlying premises of it - i.e. that the Americans were there as well-intentioned “defenders” of “South Vietnam” and that the war was at worst a blunder, instead of a horrific moral and legal crime. They further discuss the US annihilation of Cambodia and subsequent support of Pol Pot. I get the impression that if they had written this book now there’d be a lot more chapters with a lot more examples that have happened since 1988!

One of the more shocking bits was their brief exploration of the Watergate scandal:
“The major scandal of Watergate as portrayed in the mainstream press was that the Nixon administration sent a collection of petty criminals to break into Democratic party headquarters, for reasons that remain obscure. The Democratic party represents powerful domestic interests, solidly based in the business community. Nixon’s actions were therefore a scandal. The Socialist Workers party, a legal political party, represents no powerful interests. Therefore, there was no scandal when it was revealed, just as passions over Watergate reached their zenith, that the FBI had been disrupting its activities by illegal break-ins and other measures for a decade, a violation of democratic principles far more extensive and serious than anything charged during the Watergate hearings.”

They’ve gone back and mined the newspapers and articles and have stats and figures on exactly what percentage of articles or front page stories mention this or that, and the stance they took on the various issues, which is nice: I more often see people claim that the mainstream media has a particular stance than I see them actually provide data on it.

I’d definitely check this book our at least as much for the history as the theory. If you ever want to get me a book to help me research the show, my wishlist is here! http://amzn.eu/8nXbBGn

If you want to get this book, use this link and I get a % of the sale!http://tinyurl.com/yczudmt3