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A propaganda model provides a ready explanation for this quite typical dichotomous treatment.
More significantly for our particular concerns here, the media typically provide their own independent contribution even without being “used,” in the manner and for the reasons that we have discussed.
No simple model will suffice, however, to account for every detail of such a complex matter as the working of the national mass media.
There are other considerations that tend to induce obedience. A journalist or commentator who does not want to have to work too hard can survive, even gain respectability, by publishing information (official or leaks) from standard sources;12 these opportunities may well be denied to those who are not content to relay the constructions of state propaganda as fact.
Furthermore, while there have been important structural changes centralizing and strengthening the propaganda system, there have been counterforces at work with a potential for broader access. The rise of cable and satellite communications, while initially captured and dominated by commercial interests, has weakened the power of the network oligopoly and retains a potential for enhanced local-group access.
The organization and self-education of groups in the community and workplace, and their networking and activism, continue to be the fundamental elements in steps toward the democratization of our social life and any meaningful social change. Only to the extent that such developments succeed can we hope to see media that are free and independent.
Appendix 1 THE U.S. OFFICIAL OBSERVERS IN GUATEMALA, JULY 1–2, 1984
This group, in Guatemala for a very brief stay, was transported around the country to “observe” on election day by helicopter, and made a brief statement and held a press conference on July 2.
Appendix 2
TAGLIABUE’S FINALE ON THE BULGARIAN CONNECTION:
Agca was imprisoned in Italy, cold warriors of the West had much to gain and little to lose by manipulating Agca to pin the assassination attempt on the East.
In sum, this is a model case of propaganda under the guise of “news” or “news analysis.” In this instance there are a number of lies, but these are less important than the other systematic distortions.
Appendix 3 BRAESTRUP’S BIG STORY: Some “Freedom House Exclusives”
According to Freedom House, television commentary and Newsweek are the worst offenders in this “extreme case” of journalistic incompetence,
In this connection, we should observe that the numerous stories on the Hué massacre cited by Braestrup in self-refutation referred to the official allegations that 300 to 400 government officials were killed in Hué, a considerable massacre but “only one-tenth of the civilian toll in the fighting,” so that “it did not seem like a major story,” Gareth Porter comments; he adds that “What made the ‘Hue massacre’ a major story was the publicizing by U.S. embassy propagandist Douglas Pike, who wrote a pamphlet on the subject in late 1969 at the request of the American ambassador to Saigon, Ellsworth
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Note also the Freedom House assumption that a free press, militantly guarding its objectivity, should not only consider those who are resisting the U.S. attack as “the enemy,” “the foe,” etc., but must also refrain from accurately describing “the enemy” as tough, resolute, and courageous.
If this is one of the great achievements of contemporary scholarship, as John Roche claims, then scholarship is in a bad way indeed.
