Customer Reviews

Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both." ~ James Madison, 1822

Oh sure, Noam Chomsky's been exposing the illusory, beguiling nature of our democracy and Power's reliance on media systems to secure necessary illusions of a 'benevolent,' representative form of government through the deceptive "manufacturing" of the people's consent for forty or so years [TRULY a rebel without a pause!], but it hasn't been until the past five years that this grim dilemma has finally begun to be rightfully acknowledged and addressed by so many. Although, as dire as the current state of affairs is, it's important to bear in mind one of Chomsky's observations: *never* in his long life of activism has he ever encountered such demonstratively global dissent as is happening now. He isn't given to hyperbole, and the fact that millions are speaking out, getting active and subsequently applying pressure to tyrannical Power is a hopeful sign.

John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney, founders of the national media reform group FREE PRESS, have put together a book of solid, fact-based information that reveals our so-called "liberal" free media to be little more than statist/corporate propaganda. It's bizarre to contemplate how the majority of people in the U.S. simply do not or will not comprehend that reality, but it does speak to the efficacy of control and the power of suggestion. Nichols and McChesney, however, don't merely point out the flagrant deficiencies, they also shed light on the popular movements which have had greater success through the internet and alternative/indie media, and naturally, bring forth facts strategically framed, omitted and de-emphasized through mainline media {*not* just FOX, but also CNN, MSNBC, the networks, newspapers, popular periodicals, etc} which serve to assiduously propagate the Pentagon's and the administration's pro-empire line.

Now, I've nothing against pundit/author, Al Franken, however, it is a bit disconcerting to note that his latest "kid gloves" book [again, nothing against him; he's sharp, comical, my wife gave me his prior book last Christmas, I enjoyed it] has over 300 Amazon reviews, some of them with over 600 votes, while something far more substantive like "Tragedy and Farce," or something by say, Chomsky, or Greg Palast, or Mark Crispin Miller, Howard Zinn, comparatively, flies outside of the collective radar.

Tis a shame, friends. Not because there's anything wrong with Franken, or any of the other high profile Lefty names, but because the media structure will gladly push such names front and center in order to keep the debate devoid of deception-exposing facts, and to confine it within a specified framework of accepted conjecture and name-calling...the ol' divide and rule scheme.

This happens because in order to be a recognized, household Lefty persona, self-censorship becomes second nature, knowing they must not go "too far" outside of the widely adhered-to, propagandized view of "reality" for fear of losing status. Michael Moore's notorious film {which didn't come remotely close to disclosing the administration's full range of treason and criminality} is an example of this. Sometimes there is a method of addressing such monstrous problems in that, one can cleverly crack the door a bit, knowing that The People will piece together what may not have been visibly apparent just below the surface of the propaganda.

So, compared with say, Franken's work, Nichols and McChesney's book figuratively says: 'here are the facts. what are you arguing over? here are the FACTS of selling wars and stealing elections. aside from how it clashes with your media-induced perception of reality, and, sorry if that is distressing, as it must surely be...but, HERE. ARE. THE. FACTS.'
And to quote Chomsky, "Facts are stubborn things."

Read "Tragedy and Farce,", and for an insightful look into the psychological dynamics of the right wing movement's {what David Neiwert termed, "Christo-fascism"} desire to subvert the constitution, and how Bush is actually the "Clinton" that the right and it's PR agency/media made the real Clinton out to be, *definitely* read Mark Crispin Miller's scathing "Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order."

Simpy a great book. Nichols and McChesney are two of the most informed and sharpest media critics around. Right wingers won't like this book because it destroys so many of the myths that they cling to. However facts are facts and the authors are expert at presenting them.

The trend is unmistakable. Officials in Washington refer to what is happening to American media as "deregulation". Nothing could be further from the truth. What is really going on in this country is media consolidation. As a result one company, Clear Channel, now owns more than 1200 radio stations across America. A handful of other media conglomerates including Citadel, Entercom and Infinity control most of the rest. The same holds true for television stations and major newspapers. John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney find this to be an alarming situation. In "Tragedy and Farce" Nichols and McChesney present a compelling case for making the ongoing media consolidation the overriding public issue of our day.

For most of the history of the American republic there has existed a vibrant and diversified press. Most major cities had multiple daily newspapers reflecting a wide variety of opinion. Likewise most radio and television stations were locally owned and operated. In this environment the vast majority of these outlets were committed to covering local news and issues. Sadly in just the past quarter century all of this has changed dramatically. And as the authors passionately argue, no matter what your political persuasion, this is at the very least an unfortunate and at worst a potentially dangerous situation. At the beginning of Chapter 1 Nichols and McChesney quote Founding Father and former President James Madison who opined that "A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both." It is the contention of the authors that this unprecedented consolidation of American media has resulted in a situation where the American people are not being given adequate information to make intelligent decisions at the polls. Some may argue that this is just sour grapes from Nichols and McChesney who make no attempt to hide their "liberal" point of view. But for my money the authors present an extremely well thought out and coherent case for their position. Their analysis of the pathetic media coverage of the events leading up to the Iraqui War is right on target. They go on to make the case that American media coverage of the 2004 Presidential election was really not much better. Perhaps the most persuasive argument they make involves the so-called "Downing Street memo". This memo, which many considered to be the "smoking gun" against the Bush administration, suggested that President Bush decided to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the summer of 2002 and intentionally manipulated American intelligence to support his case. At the very least, release of this information should have set off a vigorous debate about our involvement in Iraq and about the veracity of our Commander-In-Chief. It should have become a major campaign issue in 2004. But as Nichols and McChesney are quick to point out the American media decided that other events that were going on at the time were much more important. And so it was that the American people were treated to wall-to-wall coverage of the goings on surrounding the likes of Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart and Scott Peterson. The dumbing down of America continues.

Whatever your political persuasion, "Tragedy and Farce" is a book which should be read and carefully considered. Unfortunately due to the ill-advised policies of the last several administrations the genie is already out of the bottle. What we have now is a media that is for the most part in the hip pocket of both political parties and extremely reluctant to make waves. Our Founding Fathers would be appalled!

The premise of this book is that we are not getting the real news from our media. The truth is being distorted, spun and omitted by the editors who are responsive to the dictates of THEIR masters, Big Business.

By allowing large conglomerates to buy up our communication media and monopolize the very avenues by which we learn about our government's policies and mishaps, the government/Big Business has assured itself of a propaganda machine. Better than Pravda at disguising the truth, ABC, NBC, CBS and of course, Fox are servile and willingly disguise the truth.

This book goes further and details the lack of money being spent on investigative journalism. They are simply stenographers to the Bush administration. I highgly reccommend this book, but be prepared to go elsewhere to get your news. YOu will never again trust the U.S. media for the truth. Not even PBS is giving it to us straight, or questioning their 'sources'.

From now on, it's LeMonde or Der Spiegel for me, and sometimes, the Washington Post!!!..just for comparison. But here's one good piece of news: You CAN trust the traffic and weather. Well, at least the traffic picture. Big Business (e.g., GE, Disney, et al) can't make money off lying about that.

I was disappointed by this book.

While generally sympathetic to its conclusions, I was expecting a systematic examination of exactly what the title purported to promise, namely, "How the American Media Sell Wars..."

Instead what I got was a broad hodge-podge of sweeping statements that oftentimes read like a blog post -- of over two hundred pages.

The authors seem to realize this when at the conclusion of the critical 2nd Chapter titled "The Crisis in Journalism", they write:

"We concede that this has been a sweeping discussion of journalism, and we have had to use broad brush strokes. We believe our core argument survives more detailed examination, and it would certainly be qualified and enriched by more detail and nuance." (p.35)

This level of examination doesn't stop them in the very next chapter from "drawing upon the foundation laid in chapter 2" as if sweeping assertions in one chapter could support sweeping assertions in the next without ever having to come back down to planet earth to have a closer look.

The book is completely riddled with un-sourced and undocumented conclusions which you either agree with or not but which the authors simply announce without bothering to prove.

The situation in newsrooms "is not unlike the newsroom in Pravda or Tass in the old Soviet Union" (p.32). Media coverage of Colin Powell's speech at the UN "could not have been exceeded by Stalin's stooges" (p.59). While all of this sounds great, you're entitled to wonder in a book that places so much emphasis on journalistic standards what exactly the authors know about Pravda, Tass or "Stalin's stooges".

In sum, this isn't a book that's particularly strong from a journalistic or research standpoint. The conclusions might make you happy but you're none the wiser as to the reasons why. The fact that magazines like The Nation, In These Times or Mother Jones haven't reviewed it also isn't a good sign. My copy is going straight into the trash.

Most of the previous reviews give a fairly accurate description of this book.
There is less hard news and more soft news now. There is increased concentration
of media power, fewer firms with many more outlets. There are far fewer foreign
bureaus and reporters. There are more opinions presented as news. This is bad
and I agree.

The bulk of the book is examples of how the media misbehave, and that is the
weakness. Almost all the examples show a strong liberal bias. Media concentration
has been going on for decades, with much of it during Clinton's terms, but it is
all blamed on Bush(43). Most of the references to Republicans, GOP, conservatives,
media corporations, and other corporations include a negative adjective, often
"lying" or "corrupt". The media should check the claims of the right, for they
always lie. There were no calls to doubt the claims of the left. At least there
was no claim that the left never lies. But it was close. Everything the Swift
Boat Veterans said was wrong. Everything Rather said was true; the only mistake
CBS made was picking the wrong evidence to present. There is no liberal bias
in main stream media. The main stream media has a very strong conservative bias,
except for FOX which is even worse.

Even liberals that want to believe all the accusations, can not use the book as a
reference in their battles with conservatives. There is no index to find the
accusation you want to use. There is a six page bibliography, but no notes in the
text to find the source, nor notes in the bibliography to refer back to where
the information was used.

The last chapter tells how to try to correct this bad situation. It shares the
bias weakness. There are references to organizations that are working to correct
some of the media problems, such as moveon.org and FAIR. Apparently, no conservative
thinks there is any problem with the media.

The star rating is an average. The book is worth five stars for the importance of
the topic, but only one star for the presentation. There are better books about
problems with the media. There are better books about the evils of big business.
There are even better "I hate Republicans" books.

The war is a tragedy and the media coverage of the 2004 presidential election was a farce. That is part of what Nichols and McChesney are telling us in this very readable and important book. More saliently they warn that unless the media reassumes its responsibility to tell the truth about how our government operates and about what it is doing that it hides from us, there is a danger that our democracy will be destroyed.

I have been hearing the lie about the "liberal bias" of the press for as long as I can remember. It is a lie told and retold, screamed and ranted about by the actual media powers that be, those who work for Sinclair Broadcasting, Clear Channel, Fox News--the entire Murdoch empire and more--the O'Reilly's, the Limbaugh's, the Ollie North's, the Scarborough's, the Beck's, the evangelical demagogues, the shrill shock jocks of AM radio, the editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal, and even some people working for the New York Times and the Washington Post. Behind these voices of deception are the conservative and controlling owners of our media and their corporate sponsors, people who merely want to massage and indoctrinate the populous into compliant couch potatoes who will buy their products and hail to the chief and not rock the boat.

Recently there have been a slew of books belatedly exposing this lie. Tragedy and Farce is yet another such tome, but in some ways it is among the best of the bunch. Nichols and McChesney take a historical perspective, showing how journalism has gone from 19th century Hearst jingoism to an eclectic array of publications in the heyday of the American press in the early 20th century to the docile and sycophantic reporters who work for today's mass media. An important and at times laugh out loud funny part of the book are the cartoons by Tom Tomorrow. His insightful satire and parody of our political elites and media mavens nicely complement the text.

But do Nichols and McChesney go far enough? They assert there is "a crisis in journalism" and they point to the recent consolidation of media, to the monopolistic franchises and subsidies that some media enjoy (p. 173) thanks to their financial, editorial, and news spin support of various politicians, especially those in the Bush Administration. They warn that "big media plays a well-marked role in defining the choices from which America's two major parties select their nominees for president." (p. 91) And they remind us that so tight is that media control that no third party candidate has more than a remote chance of ever becoming president. But what I would say is replace "big media" in the quote with "corporate America" and change "well-marked role" to "absolutely controlling role" and we are closer to the awful truth.

The plain fact is that we have a democracy by capitalism in this country, that there is no chance for any candidate to achieve the highest office who is not in the pocket of, and whose mind is not to some extent controlled by, the corporate structure that actually runs America. Big media is only one branch, albeit an essential one, of that structure. Until the mass media is non-commercial nothing will change. How could it? How can the average reporter go against the hand that feeds him or her? The authors note what happened to Phil Donahue at MSNBC when he "represented a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war." (p. 86) He was cancelled. If Donahue cannot go against his bosses how can we expect the reporter on the beat to write what he knows Murdoch or the corporate sponsors do not want to hear?

Apropos is this delicious quote from Theodore Dreiser: "The American press, with very few exceptions, is a kept press. Kept by the big corporations the way a whore is kept by a rich man." (p. 93)

The worst of all the big offenders of course is Fox News and their Orwellian "fair and balanced" slogan. Yes, ignorance really is strength (that is, the ignorance of the populous) and the bigger the lie the better. Noting that Fox News was "actually more gung-ho in its support of the war than US government entities like Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty" the authors quote Russ Baker as saying that the Fox News Channel is "a kind of Gong Show of propaganda." (p. 86) (Yeah, but not nearly as funny.)

The authors call "repugnant" the notion that "the great unwashed mass needs to be bathed in a cocktail of propaganda and lies, decontextualized half-truths, and jingoism..." (pp. 85-86) But what is even more insightful is to realize that in creating a compliant, ignorant, indoctrinated and sloganized electorate, the last thing you want is for them to be told the unpleasant truth, and so you have to lie. Having created the sheep, you don't want to apprise them of the wolves, the shearing, or the slaughterhouse.

One final quote: "The years of the Bush presidency will be remembered as a time when American media, for the most part, practiced stenography to power..." (p. 84)

Read this book, by all means, and work toward the de-commercialization of media because only when those who have the responsibility and privilege of addressing mass audiences are free to tell the truth will we as a people be free.

gooood

I thought this book would be more representative of the sensationalist reporting the media has been shoving down the throats of Americans for the last few years. Instead, this book essentially says there is not enough of this over-sensationalized baloney, and it begs that the media produce more in the name of our founding fathers.

If you dare to go there, check this out from the library. This drivel is not worth your hard earned money.

"James Madison's worst fears were realized in 2004, when voters in a popular election lacked popular information and the means to acquire it."

Says Who?

That should be enough glaring presumption on the part of the authors about the type of person likely to read this to scare anyone from buying this book.