Methods of Media Manipulation

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Methods of Media Manipulation
zanfaz
10/04/01 at 07:43:46
Methods of Media Manipulation
by Michael Parenti
from the book
20 years of Censored News
by Carl Jensen and Project Censored



We are told by people in the media industry that news bias is
unavoidable. Whatever distortions and inaccuracies that are found in
the news are caused by deadline pressures, human misjudgment, limited
print space, scarce air time, budgetary restraints, and the
difficulty of reducing a complex story into a concise report.
Furthermore, the argument goes, no communication system can hope to
report everything. Selectivity is needed, and some members of the
public are bound to be dissatisfied.

I agree that those kinds of difficulties exist. Still, I would argue
that the media's misrepresentations are not merely the result of
innocent error and everyday production problems. True, the press has
to be selective- but what principle of selectivity is involved? Media
bias does not occur in random fashion; rather it moves in the same
overall direction again and again, favoring management over labor,
corporations over corporate critics, affluent whites over inner-city
poor, officialdom over protesters, the two-party monopoly over
leftist third parties, privatization and free market "reforms" over
public sector development, U.S. dominance of the Third World over
revolutionary or populist social change, nation-security policy over
critics of that policy, and conservative commentators and columnists
like Rush Limbaugh and George Will over progressive or populist ones
like Jim Hightower and Ralph Nader (not to mention more radical ones).
The built-in biases of the corporate mainstream media faithfully
reflect the dominant ideology, seldom straying into territory that
might cause discomfort to those who hold political and economic
power, including those who own the media or advertise in it. What
follows is an incomplete sketch of the methods by which those biases
are packaged and presented.

Omission and suppression

Manipulation often lurks in the things left unmentioned. The most
common form of media misrepresentation is omission. Sometimes the
omission includes not just vital details of a story but the entire
story itself, even ones of major import. As just noted, stories that
might reflect poorly upon the powers that be are the least likely to
see the light of day. Thus the Tylenol poisoning of several people by
a deranged individual was treated as big news but the far more
sensational story of the industrial brown-lung poisoning of thousands
of factory workers by large manufacturing interests (who themselves
own or advertise in the major media) has remained suppressed for
decades, despite the best efforts of worker safety groups to bring
the issue before the public.

We hear plenty about the political repression perpetrated by left-
wing governments such as Cuba (though a recent State Department
report actually cited only six political prisoners in Cuba), but
almost nothing about the far more brutal oppression and mass killings
perpetrated by U.S.-supported right-wing client states such as
Turkey, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, El Salvador, Guatemala, and
others too numerous to mention.

Often the media mute or downplay truly sensational (as opposed to
sensationalistic) stories. Thus, in 1965 the Indonesian military-
advised, equipped, trained, and financed by the U.S. military and the
CIA-overthrew President Achmed Sukarno and eradicated the Indonesian
Communist Party and its allies, killing half a million people (some
estimates are as high as a million) in what was the greatest act of
political mass murder since the Nazi Holocaust. The generals also
destroyed hundreds of clinics, libraries, schools, and community
centers that had been opened by the communists. Here was a
sensational story if ever there was one, but it took three months
before it received passing mention in Time magazine and yet another
month before it was reported in The New York Times (4/5/66),
accompanied by an editorial that actually praised the Indonesian
military for "rightly playing its part with utmost caution."

Lies, bald and repetitive

When omission proves to be an insufficient form of suppression, the
media resort to outright lies. At one time or another over the course
of forty years, the CIA involved itself with drug traffickers in
Italy, France, Corsica, Indochina, Afghanistan, and Central and South
America. Much of this activity was the object of extended
congressional investigations and is a matter of public record. But
the media seem not to have heard about it.

In August 1996, when the San Jose Mercury News published an in-depth
series about the CIA-contra-crack shipments that were flooding East
Los Angeles, the major media held true to form and suppressed the
story. But after the series was circulated around the world on the
Web, the story became too difficult to ignore, and the media began
its assault. Articles in the Washington Post and The New York Times
and reports on network television and PBS announced that there
was "no evidence" of CIA involvement, that the Mercury News series
was "bad journalism," and that the public's interest in this subject
was the real problem, a matter of gullibility, hysteria, and
conspiracy mania. In fact, the Mercury News series, drawing from a
year long investigation, cited specific agents and dealers. When
placed on the Web, the series was copiously supplemented with
pertinent documents and depositions that supported the charge. The
mainstream media simply ignored that evidence and repeatedly lied by
saying that it did not exist.

Labeling

Like all propagandists, media people seek to prefigure our perception
of a subject with a positive or negative label. Some positive ones
are: "stability," "the president's firm leadership," "a strong
defense," and "a healthy economy." Indeed, who would want
instability, weak presidential leader ship, a vulnerable defense, and
a sick economy? The label defines the subject, and does it without
having to deal with actual particulars that might lead us to a
different conclusion.

Some common negative labels are: "leftist guerrillas," "Islamic
terrorists", "conspiracy theories," "inner-city gangs," and "civil
disturbances." These, too, are seldom treated within a larger context
of social relations and issues. The press itself is facilely and
falsely labeled "the liberal media" by the hundreds of conservative
columnists, commentators, and talk-show hosts who crowd the
communication universe while claiming to be shut out from it.

Face value transmission

One way to lie is to accept at face value what are known to be
official lies, uncritically passing them on to the public without
adequate confirmation. For the better part of four years, in the
early 1950s, the press performed this function for Senator Joseph
McCarthy, who went largely unchallenged as he brought charge after
charge of treason and communist subversion against people whom he
could not have victimized without the complicity of the national
media.

Face-value transmission has characterized the press's performance in
almost every area of domestic and foreign policy, so much so that
journalists have been referred to as "stenographers of power."
(Perhaps some labels are well deserved.) When challenged on this,
reporters respond that they cannot inject their own personal ideology
into their reports. Actually, no one is asking them to. My criticism
is that they already do. Their conventional ideological perceptions
usually coincide with those of their bosses and with officialdom in
general, making them faithful purveyors of the prevailing orthodoxy.
This confluence of bias is perceived as "objectivity."

False balancing

In accordance with the canons of good journalism, the press is
supposed to tap competing sources to get both sides of an issue. In
fact, both sides are seldom accorded equal prominence. One study
found that on NPR, supposedly the most liberal of the mainstream
media, right-wing spokespeople are often interviewed alone, while
liberals-on the less frequent occasions they appear-are almost always
offset by conservatives. Furthermore, both sides of a story are not
necessarily all sides. Left-progressive and radical views are almost
completely shut out.

During the 1980s, television panel discussions on defense policy
pitted "experts" who wanted to maintain the existing high levels of
military spending against other "experts" who wanted to increase the
military budget even more. Seldom if ever heard were those who
advocated drastic reductions in the defense budget.

Framing

The most effective propaganda is that which relies on framing rather
than on falsehood. By bending the truth rather than breaking it,
using emphasis and other auxiliary embellishments, communicators can
create a desired impression without resorting to explicit advocacy
and without departing too far from the appearance of objectivity.
Framing is achieved in the way the news is packaged, the amount of
exposure, the placement (front page or buried within, lead story or
last), the tone of presentation (sympathetic or slighting), the
headlines and photographs, and, in the case of broadcast media, the
accompanying visual and auditory effects.

Newscasters use themselves as auxiliary embellishments. They
cultivate a smooth delivery and try to convey an impression of
detachment that places them above the rough and tumble of their
subject matter. Television commentators and newspaper editorialists
and columnists affect a knowing style and tone designed to foster
credibility and an aura of certitude or what might be called
authoritative ignorance, as expressed in remarks like "How will the
situation end? Only time will tell." Or, "No one can say for sure."
(Better translated as, "I don't know and if I don't know then nobody
does.") Sometimes the aura of authoritative credibility is preserved
by palming off trite truisms as penetrating truths. So newscasters
learn to fashion sentences like "Unless the strike is settled soon,
the two sides will be in for a long and bitter struggle." And "The
space launching will take place as scheduled if no unexpected
problems arise." And "Because of heightened voter interest, election-
day turnout is expected to be heavy." And "Unless Congress acts soon,
this bill is not likely to go anywhere."

We are not likely to go anywhere as a people and a democracy unless
we alert ourselves to the methods of media manipulation that are
ingrained in the daily production of news and commentary. The news
media regularly fail to provide a range of information and commentary
that might help citizens in a democracy develop their own critical
perceptions. The job of the corporate media is to make the universe
of discourse safe for corporate America, telling us what to think
about the world before we have a chance to think about it for
ourselves. When we understand that news selectivity is likely to
favor those who have power, position, and wealth, we move from a
liberal complaint about the press's sloppy performance to a radical
analysis of how the media serve the ruling circles all too well with
much skill and craft.

[Michael Parenti received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale
University in 1962, and has taught at a number of colleges and
universities. He is the author of thirteen books, including Democracy
for a Few (6th edition); Power and the Powerless; Inventing Reality:
The Politics of News Media (2nd edition); The Sword and the Dollar:
Imperialism, Revolution and the Arms Race; Make-Believe Media: The
Politics of Entertainment; Land of Idols, Political Mythology in
America; Against Empire: Dirty Truths; and Blackshirts and Reds:
Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism. Dr. Parenti's
articles have appeared in a wide range of scholarly journals and
political periodicals. He lives in Berkeley, California, and devotes
him self full-time to writing and lecturing around the country.]


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