Noam Chomsky and the Media
...rease of capital costs, based on technological improvements and the owner’s stress on reaching a large audience. Therefore the first filter was applicable more than a century ago. It has become more and more effective over time. Advertising served as a way of weakening the working-class press. Before advertising became prominent, the price of a paper had to cover the costs of business. With advertising, the papers with advertisements could charge a price well below the production cost. Papers lacking in advertising were then put at a disadvantage. Their prices would have to be higher, sales would be lower and there would not be enough money to improve themselves. For this reason an advertising-based system will drive out the media that depend on sales alone as their source of income. The advertiser’s choices influence the media prosperity and survival. The mass media are drawn together with powerful sources of information by economic necessity. Economics forces them to concentrate their resources where news often occurs. The White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department in Washington D.C. are central points for news activity. Business corporations and trade groups are also regular providers of news stories. They turn out a large amount of material that meets the demands of news organizations for reliable flows. A reason for the attention given to sources is that the media claim to be objective news dispensers. Mainly to protect themselves from criticism of being biased and the threat of lawsuits, they need material that can be seen as accurate. It also has to do with cost. Getting information from presumably credible sources reduces the cost of research. Whereas getting information from sources that are not reliable could take costly research. “Flak” refers to negative responses towards the media. It can come in the form of letters or petitions, lawsuits, bills before congress, criticism, or threats. It can be organized locally or centrally or be independent actions of individuals. If “flak” is produced on a large scale by people with enough resources it can be costly to the media. Advertisers may withdraw patronage. If kinds of facts, position or program are thought to be elicit “flak”, it can be a deterrent. The final filter is the ideological “anti-communism”. This ideology helps put the population against an enemy. Because it is a fuzzy concept it can be used against anyone advocating policies that threaten property interests or support accommodation with communist states and radicalism. It helps fragment the left labor movements therefore serves as political control mechanism. If the rise of communism is the worst imaginable result then fascism is considered to be a lesser evil. The five filters lessens the range of news and limit what can become newsworthy. B. What the media isn’t telling us: Two points have gone unmentioned in the voluminous coverage of the Paul Bernardo and OJ Simpson murder trials. The first point is the important role the news media play by filling their pages and airwaves with the details. University of Toronto criminologist, Richard Ericson pointed that “today’s news media provide us with the same entertainment with the same entertainment formerly offered by public hanging, the guillotine, stocks and pillories. In so-doing they are a crucial link in the system of social control. Journalists point to examples of extreme deviance, promote possible solutions and reinforce the system of social control. The media do not merely report on social control, they are part and parcel of such efforts.” The second point was made by the Canadian communications scholar Dallas Smythe who observed that the media are adept at the magician’s trick of misdirection, or distracting the audiences away from important matters and focusing their attention on the unimportant. Chomsky used sports as an example. “It offers people something to pay attention to that which is of no importance. That keeps them from worrying about things that are important in their lives.” There is an analogy of course between spectator sport violence, as parodied in the James Caan film, Rollerball, and the revolting details on which these murder trials have dwelled. In 1994 about 150 stories were nominated from the mainstream and alternative media as well as newsletters etc. All stories were researched and evaluated at Simon Fraser and the University of Windsor. 20 were sent to a national panel of journalists and public figures in the spring of 1995. These judges came up with a rank ordered list of the 10 under reported stories. 1. $300-million cleanup of toxic hazards at AECL’s old nuclear facilities. 2. Provincial Trade Agreement have dealt away their powers. 3. Third World battles GATT over plant patenting which risks jobs. 4. Corporate and white-collar crimes overlooked, obsession with violent offenses. 5. Cigarette manufacturers’ complicity in smuggling. 6. Reducing interest rates provides an alternative for debt reduction. 7. The Canadian Wildlife Federation hides its hunting connections from donors. 8. World Bank forced resettlement of 200 million people. 9. Fish farming could risk environmental disaster without more stringent controls. 10. Governments quick to lessen damage to NAFTA caused by Chiapas rebellion. Economics seems to be the main reason for almost every omitted or under reported story listed. Except in the case of the Canadian Wildlife Federation. It seems to be evidence of the exclusion of stories which present free market economics and private enterprises in a bad light. This is the same with the 10 most under reported stories of 1993. All the exclusions seem to have economic ties. All 20 stories were evaluated as newsworthy yet they were still under reported by the mainstream media. In all 19 out of 20 stories seem to oppose corporate ownership values. III. East Timor: A. Dili Massacre: On Tuesday , November 12th, 1991, a group of Indonesian soldiers opened fire on a group of 3000 mourners, killing about 180 and injuring dozens more. This was just one of the many massacres to take place since the Indonesian take over in 1975. When Portugal gave up this three century rule over the island of Timor in 1974, East Timor began to move toward independence. Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs Adam Malik assured a leader of the nascent nationalist party, Fretilin, that it respected the right of every nation to independence, and that Indonesia had no plans to expand its territory into East Timor. Soon Indonesia saw the Timorese as communists. They decided to finally annex the “Cuba on its doorstep.”The US had no opinion in the matter. But the fact that President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had flown out of Jakarta the day before the invasion proves at least some sort of consent. According to the Australian Ambassador, Kissinger told the US Embassy to cut down it’s reporting on Timor. For 16 years Indonesia has ruled over East Timor. The East Timorese believed that a 12-day visit scheduled to begin November 4th 1991 by a Portugese parliamentary mission would be their push towards the world. They put all their hopes into that mission. Unfortunately on October 24th 1991, Portugal suspended the mission. The suspension disintegrated any East Timorese hope for recognition. Early morning, October 28th, 1991 plainclothes Indonesian police entered Motael church in Dili and killed Sebastiso (Gomes) Rangel and arrested most of the other youths who had been hiding out in that church for over a year. This drove the East Timorese to desperation. On November 12th, thousands gathered to mourn the death of Gomes Rangel. The mass began at 6 am. A bit before 8 am, hundreds of Indonesian soldiers opened fire on the crowd of mourners. They shot down men, women, and children with American suppl...