Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics The Media From JournoList to Breitbart, the American Media h

Somehow, Ezra Klein has managed to drain a little more water out of the already shallow pool of media objectivity. He's introduced the notion that, in some instances, it may not have been a soft bias, but instead a hard one. That's exactly the kind of suspicion and mutual distrust that a party caucus breeds. And, unless the full JournoList is opened to the public, nobody will ever know for sure.

JournoList looks to me to be yet another mile-marker on this country's return to a partisan press. This does not upset me very much at all. I think American democracy is unthinkable without the political parties, so I do not think that a partisan press is all that bad. And it might finally stop journalists and academics from acquiring the inherently political authority that comes with monikers like "objective news" or "social science" when they are in fact promoting subjective values. That would be a good thing.

In the meantime, we have to ask ourselves: Are we better off never having the ability to speak offhandedly among friends, to say in private what we could never say in public, to think aloud and uncensored?

Or do we resign ourselves to the new reality -- that no one is ever to be trusted -- and keep our thoughts to ourselves? The answer implied by the events here described suggests a country in which few of us would want to live.

It seems like good propaganda is actually more likely to be accepted as truth than are the complicated facts uncovered by good reporting.

The key word in that sentence is complicated. "Complicated" facts require extra reading and thought in order to fully comprehend their meaning and worth. Propaganda is usually simple, with appeals to emotion that derail deeper thought processes.

Unfortunately there is also a very thin line between politically biased media... and intentional and manipulative distortion of the public record in order to achieve political goals.

Of course this dynamic works in all political direction... never the less I was really shocked to find out that I had not heard of the distortions underlying the ACORN story. I follow the news, and keep reasonably well informed with multiple sources. And If I was not aware of this story... I gotta think that the preponderance of Americans are similarly uninformed. And so the result is an intentional distortion of the public record the stands fasts despite the truth being later exposed.... not unlike the many people who remain convinced that Sadam really did have WMD and did conspire with Bin Laden to attack the US.

It seems like good propaganda is actually more likely to be accepted as truth than are the complicated facts uncovered by good reporting.

Hence, the opportunity for Roger Ailes and Andrew Breitbart to totally distort "reality" by propagating and promoting fabrications. I was going to start another thread with this article, but it seems appropriate to add it here:
Do "both sides" really do what Breitbart does? and No, both sides don't do what Breitbart does: Part II

Manufacturing Consent was written during the Cold War. A more apt version of this filter is the customary western identification of 'the enemy' or an 'evil dictator' - Colonel Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, or Slobodan Milosevic (recall the British tabloid headlines of 'Smash Saddam!' and 'Clobba Slobba!'). The same extends to mainstream reporting of environmentalists as 'eco-terrorists'. The Sunday Times ran a particularly nasty series of articles in 1999 accusing activists from the non-violent direct action group Reclaim The Streets of stocking up on CS gas and stun guns.

The demonisation of enemies is useful, essential even, in justifying strategic geopolitical manoeuvring and the defence of corporate interests around the world, while mollifying home-based critics of such behaviour. The creation of an 'evil empire' of some kind, as in postwar western scaremongering about the 'Soviet Menace' or earlier talk of the 'Evil Hun', has been a standard device for terrifying the population into supporting arms production and military adventurism abroad - both major sources of profit for big business. Iraq's Saddam Hussein has been a useful bogeyman for US arms manufacturers who have notched up sales of over $100bn to Saddam's neighbours in the Middle East. The fifth filter also applies to media demonisation of anti-globalisation protesters - often described as 'rioters' - and anyone else perceived as a threat to free-market ideology.

This brief description of the propaganda model hardly does justice to the sophisticated and cogent analysis presented by Herman and Chomsky. The interested reader is urged to consult their book directly. Its particular relevance here is that it explains how and why the status quo of corporate power is maintained in modern society, the dominance of the neoliberal agenda of free trade with its automatic rejection of alternatives (Margaret Thatcher's 'There Is No Alternative'), and the emasculation of dissident viewpoints which are variously labelled as 'biased', 'ideological' or 'extreme'. How likely is it that anyone calling for radical change in society - whether environmentalists, human-rights activists or opponents of the arms trade - will be consistently and fairly reported by corporate news organisations? How much more likely is it that their arguments will be vilified, marginalised or simply ignored?

Another Obama mentor the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a situation. Alinsky would say, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.”

What Breibart did was out of bounds for anybody in the press, but happens all of the time during political races.