The myth of the liberal media: An Edward Herman reader

Abstract

This volume contends that the mainstream media are parts of a market system and that their performance is shaped primarily by proprietor/owner and advertiser interests. Using a propaganda model, it is argued that the commercial media protect and propagandize for the corporate system. Case studies of major media institutions—the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Philadelphia Inquirer—are supplemented by detailed analyses of word tricks and propaganda and the media’s treatment of topics such as Third World elections, the Persian Gulf War, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, and corporate junk science. The book contains the following four parts: the market system versus freedom of expression; news values, news papers, news shapers; media coverage of foreign and domestic policy; and propaganda and democracy.