“The New York Times is a great newspaper, but arguably this very fact helps make it a great instrument for the engineering of consent to lots of problematic and sometimes very nasty policies and pieces of reality.”
– Edward S. Herman [1]
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It is interesting to compare media treatment of the countries of Syria and Yemen.
Both countries have been rife with armed conflict for years. Both in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Millions in both countries are food insecure and lacking access to basic goods and services. [2]
Yet, while Syria has gotten extensive coverage in the press, the Yemen tragedy remains largely hidden from view.
The media’s coverage seems to reflect the status of the named perpetrators as allies or rivals of the U.S. Hence, Syrian casualties of Bachar Al Assad are ‘worthy victims.’ Yemeni casualties of U.S. allied Saudi Arabia and its coalition bombing are ‘unworthy victims.’
This differential treatment could make for a vital contemporary case study of what a seminal media analysis published in 1988 called a ‘Propaganda Model.’ The thesis, in a nutshell, is that media reporting will inevitably conform to the needs, desire and world view of the corporate and government power players that dominate social discourse in Western nations.
The publication was called Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. One of the authors of that influential work, Edward Herman, passed away from cancer on November 11.
Edward Samuel Herman was Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He attained notoriety however as a media analyst and critic, specializing in the corporate, regulatory and political economy of the media. His views have been expressed in about twenty books, including not only Manufacturing Consent (co-authored by Noam Chomsky), but The Global Media: The Missionaries of Global Capitalism (with Robert McChesney, 2000) and most recently, Enduring Lies: The Rwandan Genocide in the Propaganda System, 20 Years Later (with David Peterson, 2014).
Edward Herman’s work was influential to a generation of activists, this author included. Over the course of this program, first broadcast on December 1st, a range of individuals who have connected or collaborated with Professor Herman will share their thoughts about the man, his theories and influence, and the legacy he leaves behind.
Stephen Lendman is a writer, broadcaster, and independent journalist. Edward Herman had contributed to Lendman’s 2014 volume: Flashpoint in Ukraine. How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III. Lendman’s November 16th commemoration of Edward Herman appears on his site stephenlendman.org.
Jeff Cohen is the founder of the media watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and the founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College in New York. Cohen is author of the November 14th article Edward S Cohen: Master of Dissent, published at Fair.org.
Ann Garrison is a writer, journalist and reporter with KPFA Pacifica Radio in Berkeley CA. A contributor to numerous online media outlets including Black Agenda Report, Black Star News, Digital Journal. Pambazouka News, Counterpunch and Global Research, Ann has interviewed Edward Herman on several occasions. Their last recorded interview focused on the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Mickey Huff is the current director of Project Censored, the media research project headquartered out of Sonoma State University in California. PC’s Censored 2018, released in October contains a chapter authored by Edward Herman updating the Propaganda model on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Manufacturing Consent.
One final note, Edward Herman’s articles have been published at Global Research for almost as long as the site has been in existence. An archive of his articles can be found at this link.
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Notes:
- https://www.globalresearch.ca/new-york-times-great-paper-great-propaganda-organ/5308591
- https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-humanitarian-overview-2018
