Filtering The News

by Jeffery Klaehn

Book Overview

Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky's 'propaganda model' argues that there are five classes of 'filters' in society which determine what is news: in other words, what gets printed in newspapers or broadcast by radio and television. Whether a news item is going to be used by the media, or not, is going to depend on whether it can pass through these filters.

Filtering the News begins with a critical review and assessment of the propaganda model,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1551642603
• ISBN13: 9781551642604
• Release Date: August 2005
• Publisher: Black Rose Books
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

how the news is overtly, subtly, and unconsciously shaped

Many readers will be interested especially in the article "In Sync' - Bush's War Propaganda Machine And The American Mainstream Media." Other articles are almost as up-to-date, while all deal with media issues relating to events within recent years. Another one of the nine articles by academics in the fields of media and communications is about Dan Rather and controversial stories he was involved in toward the end of his career. Media coverage of the civil war in East Timor, environmental problems, and the Israeli media are other subjects anyone who keeps up with today's media, current events, and public issues will recognize as well. In most of the articles, the Propaganda Model--abbreviated PM in one article--is used as an analytical tool for seeing how the mainstream media misrepresent or distort events, individuals, and contexts. The articles' general critical stance toward the media will be familiar to most readers--but the keen critiques of the varied important media stories introduce considerable new material. The articles are models for a media criticism and skepticism that is just beginning to be revived.

The media's manipulation of public opinion

"Filtering the News" by Jeffery Klaehn (editor) is an excellent supplement to the classic "Manufacturing Consent" by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. The seven authors present case studies and essays from the recent past that puts various aspects of Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model (PM) to the test. The results should interest anyone who wants to understand more about the media manipulation of public opinion and its effects on the democratic process. Six of the authors are Canadian and one is American, offering what might be considered a North American perspective on the issue. In fact, most of the case studies examine the behavior of leading Canadian media organizations such as CANWEST Global, the CBC and the Globe and Mail, but the significant influence that U.S. media has on Canadian media is often discussed while several chapters focus specifically on U.S.-centric stories. In any case, given that the PM is a structural analysis and that similar patterns of media ownership and control exist in Canada and the U.S., most Americans will probably recognize the dynamic interplay of capital, state and media that is described in the Canadian case studies to be similar to what may be observed in the U.S. One of my favorite essays, "Newspaper Discourses on the Environment" by Robert Babe tests one of the PM's hypotheses that environmental reporting does not accord with the media's primary goal of promoting consumption. Mr. Babe's study about the Kyoto Protocol in the Canadian media finds that most pieces about the proposal to combat global warming were presented as a political power struggle but not as a scientific or environmental issue. Opinions expressed from the perspective of business were accorded prominence compared with environmentalists and the public, whose thoughts were marginalized and trivialized. Worse, ambiguous opinion poll results were selectively publicized to purportedly show a lack of public support for the proposal. While Canada eventually did sign the agreement with majority support from its citizens, Mr. Babe amply demonstrates that media reporting showed a pronounced tilt towards the pro-business position while mere lip service had been paid to the environmental position. Another noteworthy article is Robert Jensen's "Dan Rather and the Problem with Patriotism" which might be read as an exploration of Herman and Chomsky's contention that the media self-censors and adopts modes of behavior that instinctively serves the interests of the powerful. In this case, Mr. Jensen argues that proclamations of journalistic independence issued by the corporate media establishment should be viewed with suspicion, especially when prominent individuals such as Dan Rather urges citizens to yield unquestioningly to their political leaders. Contending that blind patriotism only serves to embolden a dangerous and imperialistic U.S. foreign policy, Mr. Jensen makes a compelling case that crisis is the time when the U.S. commercial mainstream

Is the media really biased? Is there a solution to the liberal/ill-liberal media?

It's helpful to consider industrial manufacturing when considering the products produced by the mass media. As any physical product is limited by the dimensions of machines - so is the news, as it is constrained by specific financial objectives. Logically, other forms of limitation flow from this arrangement: advertising as a primary source of revenue, the biases of owners/parent companies, the positioning of experts, and dominant cultural ideologies. The media position their product to invoke an emotional response - this is the angle; and thus the product manufactured is not only the medium, but the unwitting viewer. Filtering The News is a fair attempt to change our outlook on 'objective reporting'. Spanning several different current and historical events, it poses no solution, but a model that cuts through the dogma of dominant institutions. One review here mistakenly assumes that this book is about liberalism and responsible journalism. Criticism of one chapter does not merit a one star review for an entire book. If one looks at their frequent - perhaps overzealous - reviews an obvious pattern emerges. I will say no more, but I would encourage readers to seek out the biases evident in extreme ranges of opinion, and to draw their own, informed, conclusions.

Scholarship and analysis

Robert Everton's chapter examines Israel Asper and CANWEST Global's propagandistic, undeniably pro-Israel coverage of an attack by Palestinians on Israelis in Hebron, on Nov 15, 2002. It also examines CANWEST Global's "institutional mememory", the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail coverage, as well as the NYTs coverage and contextualization in the NYTs. Everton relates the case to each of the five propaganda model filter mechanisms -- corporate ownership and profit orientation of dominant media, advertising, sources, flak, and anti-communism/dominant ideology. An unbias assessment, anyone? Now let's talk about the chapter on Iraq . . .