The thesis of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, in their classic work Manufacturing Consent, is that money and power can be used:

• to filter out news 'unfit' to print
• to marginalize dissent
• to reflect the interests of the corporations that own or advertise in media, and powerful political entities (think government) whose interests are often aligned with corporations (and vice versa).
• to enable government and private corporations to 'get out their messages,' define public debates, etc.

The five filters

Imagine information being poured through five filters that are part of the system of mass media in the U.S.. What will you end up with? Each stage is likely to filter out some information. Maybe some of that information that gets left behind is scooped up by other outlets, non-commercial / alternative / non-profit outlets. What news is left at the end that is 'fit to print,' so to speak? Let's look at the filters:

1. Size, ownership and profit orientation
   1. Size is important
      1. It requires lots of investment capital to run a media outlet; the larger media conglomerates get, the more money it takes to buy one's way into the game. Why do people try? Money, power, influence, connections . . . take your pick. Also, it can take political connections, relationships with the banking industry to get the licenses, come up with the investment capital, etc.
   2. Ownership is critical
      1. Expansion has led to concentration of ownership (we've discussed this one):
         • In 1983, 50 corporations dominated most of every mass medium; the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal. ...
         • By 2004, 5 corporations dominate. In 2000, AOL Time Warner's merger-$350 billion-more than 1,000 times larger than the biggest deal of 1983." (Bagdikian, 2000)
      2. As media become less and less family-run operations and more market-based (i.e., commercial), there is greater pressures to de-regulate, take advantage of economies of scale. This will lead to increased concentration of ownership. This will also likely mean more takeovers and mergers, interlocking directorates (This is when you have board members from one company sitting on other boards, and they may be making decisions not based solely on their role as director of one board--there may be conflicts of interest). Whose interests are being served when members of a board are sitting on other boards? Does this create a fair playing field?
      3. Ties with government are very important to media owners
         1. There are requirement of licenses, franchises-subject to govt. control
         2. Government as source of discipline The FCC (Federal Commuincations Commission) could withhold or deny licenses, for instance. The airwaves are (theoretically) owned by the public, and licensed by the FCC. In practice this means that companies that depend on government policy have to be careful about criticizing public officials who could withold tax breaks, subsidies, enforce regulations, etc..
2. Advertising filter
   1. Media outlets sell consumer audiences to advertisers
   2. Advertisers choose where to advertise-consumers' choices may be more limited
   3. Cable TV-remember where it came from? It was supposed to be commercial-free
   4. Media outlets that depend on sales or subscription fees for revenue will lose out--these won't provide as much operating capital, and will make it difficult to compete with ad-based outlets
   5. Public broadcasting, Mother Jones, the Nation, In These Times, The American Prospect --these magazines or outlets limit advertising or rely completely on donations. How do they survive? Why do they tend to cover different stories?
      1. Money clearly finances more glitz, entertainment, and if that's what brings more eyeballs for the media outlets to attract advertisers ... rather than more staff, reporters, etc.
      2. Cross-advertising (Fox is the worst offender)--cross-advertising is when the media outlet runs ads for other shows or programming from the same outlet or another company owned by the same outlet. Fox news local affiliates often run 'news' stories about Fox prime time TV series
      3. Role of ratings-Nielsen is the big ratings company, and right now there are controversies about their new electronic people meters (designed to get local TV market information). Rupert Murdoch doesn't like them, because Fox hasn't rated as well in these as it does with the paper TV diaries Neilsen traditionally used. Minority groups are also complaining about ratings differences that affect the viability of shows targeting racial and ethnic minority groups. What happens in the newsroom if ratings drop?
      4. The reality is that media outlets have to sell themselves to advertisers, but can face pressures from advertisers
         1. Gulf and Western pulled its advertising from public TV because of one show that was screened that it didn't like); Chrysler has tried to pressure networks by insisting on reviewing programming before it would pay for advertising
         2. General Motors pulled its advertising from the Los Angeles Times last year because they were suggesting that unseasonable torrential rains might be connected to global warming and climate change (not good for the business of internal combustion engine manufacturers, apparently).
         3. In essence, the propaganda model contends that anything that interferes with the public's 'buying mood' is risky
         4. What about public radio and TV, you say? Are they immune from the pressures of advertising? According to a 2006 study by Fair.org, no. They take few chances and tend to have on 'establishment' guests that will espouse fairly safe, noncontroversial viewpoints.
3. News sources--Certain sources of news are considered legitimate, such as government. This gives various agencies and individuals in government broad power over controlling messages, what is news, etc.--they've got lots of correspondents covering their activities as news, even where it might look, feel and smell more like marketing and PR. Sociologist Max Weber wrote about sources of legitimacy. He identified three. First, charismatic authority--the cult leader, religious figure--the charismatic individual whose followers would walk off a cliff for. Problem with charismatic authority, with respect to power, is that it doesn't tend to transfer to other individuals--it's a problem of succession. Second is traditional authority, for instance you may have heard of the 'divine right of kings.' If you're a monarch, and people believe you reign under instructions from God, that's pretty powerful stuff--they're likely to believe whatever you say. The Pope's authority in the Catholic Church is similar. The third type is rational-legal legitimacy. We often think of law, the constitution, etc.). We tend to want to believe people in positions of legitimate authority, which means we may be susceptible to liars. The media also has a great deal of legitimacy. Ever heard the phrase 'As Seen on TV!' (There's even a website, with really great stuff that you probably need to own and have, yes, seen on TV)
   • There are specific institutions with lots of legitimacy--the white house (oops--wrong one, try this one), the Capitol Building, the Pentagon . . . . For journalists these are easy sources of information, with huge public relations staffs and sophisticated mechanisms for dispensing the news to hungry journalists dying for copy before 5:00 pm. The recent flap over a Medicare ad, payed for by taxpayers and rather deceptive in nature, suggests the blurry lines between public service announcement and marketing campaign. It happened again with the No Child Left Behind act.
   • The current White House and the media have a love-hate relationship. The White House media managers such as Karl Rove and Dan Bartlett, who manages a staff of 52, say the media is elitist and doesn't speak for the people, yet they more than any other White House have used the media to control their messages and shape public opinion. Even so, whenever press gets bad, they go to local radio and TV outlets for more 'friendly coverage.' Think of the election campaign, Bush vs Kerry--who gets more coverage-the candidate or the officeholder?
   • The photo opportunity as news (check out the strategy)--if the White House can get its carefully orchestrated images on the nightly news as news, then they've had a successful day. Sometimes they do, most of the time in fact. Sometimes not.
   • Press conferences. After two years and 45 days in office, Reagan had had 16 press conferences, Carter 45, Ford 37, Nixon 16, Johnson 52, and W. Bush 8 (1 in prime time. As Communications director Dan Bartlett said this White House uses news conferences more sparingly than other types of presidential events, because "if you have a message you're trying to deliver, a news conference can go in a different direction."
   • Deflecting pressure--spokespeople can speak for presidents, vice presidents; documents can be classified in the interest of national security, unpopular news can be released on the weekend. These are all well-tested strategies to reduce public access to information.
   • How's the Iraq War going? Depends on who you ask, demographers at Johns Hopkins, or the Pentagon (here's one of many many sites especially for journalists!).

Essentially, overreliance on official sources for news can produce propaganda, and the Government has spent billions of dollars doing just that in the last few years.

4. Flak This is negative feedback. Flak happens on both sides, but one side has more money-the pro-business side (check out AIM, Media Research, newswatch, FAIR, etc.). This is direct flak, and can include other organizations, such as the Pentagon, or even phone calls from the White House complaining about critical coverage. Here's an example of direct flak, from John DiIulio, former director of Faith based initiatives for the White House. First his quote, then the next day his retraction:

'In eight months, I heard many, many staff discussions, but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions. There were no actual policy white papers on domestic issues. There were, truth be told, only a couple of people in the West Wing who worried at all about policy substance and analysis, and they were even more overworked than the stereotypical, non-stop, 20-hour-a-day White House staff. Every modern presidency moves on the fly, but, on social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking-discussions by fairly senior people who meant Medicaid but were talking Medicare; near-instant shifts from discussing any actual policy pros and cons to discussing political communications, media strategy, et cetera'

The retraction the next day: "My criticisms were groundless and baseless due to poorly chosen words and examples. I sincerely apologize and I am deeply remorseful."

Corporations also can sling flak--the Chrysler advertising example is a good one. We also saw in the video the car dealers complaining about a story on how to buy a new car for less. There are lots of media watchdog sites that give flak to newsmakers and media outlets. Here's an example from the Pentagon, going after cartoonist Tom Toles. The people who confirmed that U.S. casualties in Iraq are higher because soldiers were not equipped with adequate body armor are trying to stifle Toles' constitutionally protected free speech, because it denigrates soldiers' sacrifices, apparently (of course Toles was making a comment about the Pentagon's use of propaganda to minimize or deflect attention from its role in elevated levels of casualties):

"While you or some of your readers may not agree with the war or its conduct, we believe you owe the men and women and their families who so selflessly serve our country the decency to not make light of their tremendous physical sacrifices." (from a letter to the Washington Post)

Journalist Tom Englehart has documented a fairly long list of critics of the current Administration who have been targeted by the White House flak machine. The list is so long it was divided into three installments (here's the second, and here is the third). What does this show? It shows how effectively news sources with some legitimacy can heap negative feedback on their critics, and how these filters can interact with one another (think about the advertiser and ownership filters, especially).

5. Anti-communism/terrorism filter

The Cold war may be over, but anti-communist rhetoric is alive and well. Redistribution of wealth threatens our economic system-capitalism. For example, even democrat John Kerry won't say a word about Cuba-why? Florida and the Cuban vote, perhaps? We often hear stories about brutal dictators in left-leaning countries, but not in right-wing fascist countries. Why? (I'll provide some sources here from project censored)?

What kinds of tragedies, disasters get coverage?

Rwanda, Burundi (they're not communist)
El Salvador
Nicaragua (read about the role of John Negroponte, future U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, in U.S.-backed genocide)
Kuwait (major tipping points included the alleged rapes of pregnant women and murder of babies in incubators in the hospital. A PR company did those ...)
East Timor
The Congo
Iraq and Saddam's atrocities
Colombia (read about this country lately?)
Guatemala
Venezuela (another left-leaner--did you hear this story?)

But did you hear much about the coup in Haiti?

These days, of course, while anti-communism filters still work quite effectively. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is regularly flogged by the commercial media punditry (this uncritical coverage and criticism was from the U.S. government, which spends about .40 of every dollar in the world spent on the military, despite having no credible conventional threats to its sovereignty). You will never read a flattering article about Fidel Castro in the mainstream U.S. press, either. The New York Times, that liberal paper, can be especially hard on both of them.

But, as well as the anti-communism filter, we can add an anti-terrorism filter. Think news outlets report sympathetically on any groups in Iraq, detainees in Guantanamo Bay, anyone the White House says poses a threat to the United States? What would happen if media outlets began demanding more detail about government claims, for instance on the size and scope of al Qaida? Even if there are legitimate questions, gaps in our knowledge about terrorist activity, it is unlikely they will find a place in public forums.

So what, you're thinking. Media are biased. They focus on entertainment. Yes, but the news has always been given some independence, insulation from financial and political pressures. News divisions weren't expected to sustain themselves financially--they were a place to inform the public. Yes the propaganda model has probably always existed, but modern techniques make it much more effective at hiding the agenda behind news stories, television programs, etc. As ownership of media leads to greater concentration, and even ownership by corporations that are not media-based, there is more pressure for news to come 'in line' with the rest of a corporation's holdings--to be a vehicle for increasing profit and shareholder value, for selling other products or services provided by the corporation and its subsidiaries.

From this point of view, the whole concept of 'the news' can take on a new freshness. Is it 'news?' Does the fact that it's called 'news' lend it legitimacy and credibility that it hasn't earned, at least from many media outlets? Is it persuasion? Entertainment? Infotainment? Who benefits? Why is it that non-commercial sites have such different news?

Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000).