Media Control
" I have the greatest
admiration for your propaganda. Propaganda in the West is carried
out by experts who have had the best training in the world --
in the field of advertizing -- and have mastered the techniques
with exceptional proficiency ... Yours are subtle and persuasive;
ours are crude and obvious ... I think that the fundamental difference
between our worlds, with respect to propaganda, is quite simple.
You tend to believe yours ... and we tend to disbelieve ours.
"
a Soviet correspondent based five
years in the U.S.
"I think democracy fails
under a variety of conditions and one of the conditions occurs
when people don't have the ability to get the kind of information
they need to make up their mind. Ideologically, I don't care much
for FOX News. But the truth is that, as long as there are countervailing
points of view available on the spectrum, it doesn't matter."
Howard Dean
Books
"The Gulf War ... was
made popular by an immense propaganda barrage unleashed by the
Pentagon, the media, and government, creating an ideological milieu
in which 45 percent of the population said it would be prepared
to use nuclear weapons against Iraq. Military actions were, transformed
into a grotesque national spectacle, a great celebration of war-making."
Carl Boggs
" They just don't come
in contact with people not in their [income] bracket. They've
lost touch with their community."
Stan Opotowsky of ABC News, about
the journalistic elite - On Bended Knee, p81
Articles
"The major media are large
corporations, owned by and interlinked with even larger conglomerates.
Like other corporations, they sell a product to a market. The
market is advertisers - that is, other businesses. The product
is audiences, [and] for the elite media, [they're] relatively
privileged audiences. So we have major corporations selling fairly
wealthy and privileged audiences to other businesses. Not surprisingly,
the picture of the world presented reflects the narrow and biased
interests and values of the sellers, the buyers and the product."
Noam Chomsky (from Take the Rich
Off Welfare)
"The press ... traditionally
sides with authority and the establishment."
Sam Donaldson, ABC correspondent
- On Bended Knee, p77
"One of the intentions
of corporate-controlled media is to instill in people a sense
of disempowerment, of immobilization and paralysis. Its outcome
is to turn you into good consumers. It is to keep people isolated,
to feel that there is no possibility for social change."
David Barsamian, journalist and
publisher
" The cost of being presented
as a " responsible and serious candidate" by the media
[is] usually to show fundamental agreement with the existing distribution
of wealth and power. "
Michael Lerner, philosopher, psychologist,
author
"In the United States,
both the Republican and Democratic Parties, with only a few prominent
exceptions, have been and are in the pay of the corporate media
and communication giants."
John Nichols and Robert McChesney
"The media serve the interests
of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing
their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established
privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly."
Noam Chomsky, American linguist
and US media and foreign policy critic
"War is caused by elites
acting in what they take to be their own interests, institutional
violence promulgated by ruling groups for personal gain."
The Nation magazine
"The only thing necessary
for the triumph of evil is for enough good men to do nothing."
Edmund Burke
" The most unpardonable
sin in society is independence of thought."
Emma Goldman, American anarchist
and feminist, 1869-1940
"The modern susceptibility
to conformity and obedience to authority indicates that the truth
endorsed by authority is likely to be accepted as such by a majority
of people, who are innately obedient to authority. This obedience-truth
will then become a consensus-truth accepted by many individuals
unable to stand alone against the majority. In this way, the truth
promulgated by the propaganda system - however irrational - stands
a good chance of becoming the consensus, and may come to seem
self-evident common sense."
David Edwards, author of Burning
All Illusions
" We are willing to accept
lies if they make our lives easier. "
Producer from the TV series "People's
Century", opining on why Americans tolerate unjust and inhumane
U.S. government policies, at home and abroad
"The media serve the interests
of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing
their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established
privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly."
Noam Chomsky, American linguist
and US media and foreign policy critic
Think Tank watch
" Like blackbirds in flight,
packs of reporters darken the sky, moving in swarms at the same
speed and in predictable trajectory. When one lands, they all
land. When one leaves, they all leave.
The programmers and channel
controllers from all the stations are part of the same well-paid
elite, steeped in the same values, committed to the mission of
maximizing audience share and profits. They are chosen for their
ability to play the game and not challenge the audience with too
many controversial ideas or critical perspectives. It's no surprise
that they circulate easily within the commanding heights of media
power, moving from company to company and job to job.
A kind of group think corporate
consensus, steeped in market logic and deeply inbred by an un-brave
news culture, breeds conscience-free conformity and self-censorship.
This makes frightening sense
in a globalized economy where consumerism is more desired than
active citizenship, where power is increasingly concentrated and
the public is increasingly unwelcome in a public discourse defined
by the powerful. If your goal is to numb people and drive them
away from active participation, then TV as "weapon of mass
distraction" and wall to wall entertainment makes sense.
Shut up and shop is the now the message, one that makes sense
to advertiser dominated media outlets... "
Danny Schechter, Dung on all their
Houses, Toward Freedom magazine, December / January 2000
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