Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

In analyzing how the mainstream media uses bias, omission, and selective context as propaganda, the authors meticulously parse journalists’ use of language. Word choice is instrumental in how consumers perceive intent and meaning. For example, when reporting on the killing of Polish priest Jerzy Popieluszko, the media’s rhetorical strategy was to elicit as much sympathy for the priest as possible and thereby generate maximum outrage against his communist killers (the “anticommunism” filter). In describing the trial, articles excluded no grisly detail of the murder, including graphic descriptions of the corpse. Testimony was “tear-filled,” and Popieluszko was “humanized, with descriptions of his physical characteristics and personality that made him into something more than a distant victim” (43). The New York Times Op-Ed page used terms like “thuggery” and “shameless” when describing the Polish government, then a communist state in league with the Soviet Union. The effect of these rhetorical choices was to support official state ideology and vilify a sanctioned enemy.

In contrast, when four American nuns were raped and killed in El Salvador, a U.S. client state, the media reaction was subtly different. Coverage was lighter, and the act, although condemned, did not generate cries for justice or demands for investigations into possible governmental connections. The Times ran a back-page story featuring the following eulogizing quote: “The life of a missionary has never been easy or glamorous” (63). The rhetorical effect of this is simply resignation, as if the deaths were somehow inevitable in the vague, political chaos of Central America. In truth, plenty of evidence existed that the Salvadoran military perpetrated the crimes, but The Times “still spoke only of ‘unidentified assailants’” (64). Note also the use of “assailants” rather than “murderers” or “rapists.” The intent was to cast doubt on the identity of the killers—as well as soften the brutality of the crime—rather than link them directly to the U.S.-supported military.

The authors of Manufacturing Consent engage in some fancy rhetorical footwork of their own. American military actions are “atrocities” or “mass genocide.” Describing a scene of devastation after an American bombing campaign, they refer to “horrifying heaps of skulls” (284). Claims of progress in El Salvador are a “sick joke” (68). Indonesian generals, guilty of atrocities of their own, are “friends” of the U.S. whom “we cheerfully supplied and supported” (285). Whether the U.S. was cheerful about its role is questionable, but the implication of glee in the face of mass murder serves its rhetorical purpose. Of course, Herman and Chomsky would likely argue that a more objective posture in the face of these events would itself be a rhetorical strategy with political ramifications.

Herman and Chomsky contend that the language that journalists use when reporting a story should convey not only the facts, but also the social, cultural, political, and even emotional context. While much of the journalism the authors critique is factually accurate, it fails to provide appropriate context or to express the real-world experience of victims of U.S. aggression. A news report may dispassionately describe the number of bombs a B-52 dropped on a village or the number of casualties, but it does not capture the full extent of the devastation—for example, how long it will take the area to recover from the destruction, the economic impact of scorched farmland, or the physical suffering of children. A report explaining the details of the Paris Peace Accords might conveniently omit the fact “that the U.S. government announced at once its intent to disregard them” (251). Contrasting the PBS documentary of the Vietnam War with BBC reporting, Herman and Chomsky found the latter took a moral position on the war while American journalists, in an attempt to provide “balance,” remained more neutral. British journalists, for example, were more likely to label a Marine attack on a Vietnamese village a “war crime” than their American counterparts. The authors suggest that journalists must not prioritize objectivity over morality.

The notion that journalists—or anyone, for that matter—are objective is open to critique. Human perception is, by its very nature, personal and therefore biased. We experience the world through our physical senses—a very non-objective filter. Journalists are no different. They report what they see and hear, and to expect those physical perceptions to be immune from human bias may be unrealistic. Journalists, however, are bound by the expectation of objectivity: a series of “conflicting diktats: be neutral yet investigative; be disengaged but have an impact; be fair-minded but have an edge” (Dionne, E.J., qtd in “Rethinking Objectivity.” Columbia Journalism Review. July/August 2003). Working within these opposing parameters, journalists will necessarily make non-objective choices. Add to the mix the filters of the propaganda model, and suddenly “objective” reporting becomes, subtly or overtly, a biased account.