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Left Progressive Media Inside The Propaganda Model

2009-projectProject_Censored_2010_Book_thumb In a recent study by Peter Philips and the Project Censored team, the progressive US press is appraised for coverage of “sensitive” issues. The authors ask: “Are independent media strong enough to operate outside the dominate filters of corporate media in the US? … Does the propaganda model extend to the liberal press in areas where news stories are seriously denigrated or ignored by the corporate media?”

Here’s a table summary of one of their empirical findings with an accompanying excerpt. The authors conclude that self-censorship pressures and the propaganda model also accounts for the news story selection process inside the left liberal media. By their reckoning and on the measure of these key issues, the very worthwhile CommonDreams comes out as the most progressive of the selection of US progressive media outlets.

TABLE 1: Liberal Media Coverage of Sensitive News Stories

Source

I-P* Death rates distortion

9/11 Building 7

Cuban 5

US torture

2004 Voter fraud

Impeachment movement

9/11 pre-warning

Norad failure

In These Times NO YES-N NO NO YES YES NO NO
Buzz Flash NO NO YES-P NO YES YES YES NO
The Progressive YES-P YES-N NO NO YES-P YES YES-N YES-N
Mother Jones YES YES-P NO YES YES YES YES-P NO
AlterNet NO YES-N YES NO YES YES YES-P YES-N
The Nation NO YES-P YES-N YES NO YES-P YES YES-P
TruthOut NO YES-P YES YES YES YES-P YES-P YES-P
CommonDreams YES-P YES-P YES-N YES YES YES YES YES
Democracy Now NO NO YES NO YES YES YES-D YES-D
Z-Net NO NO YES YES YES-P YES NO YES-N

Key
* I-P = Israel-Palestine

Yes:        Coverage of the core issues
No:         Did not cover the story
Yes-P:   Partial coverage of the story but left out key points
Yes-N:   Opinion statement against the story or negative coverage
Yes-D:   Coverage of the story as a debate between antagonists

Given corporate media’s culture of compliance with governmental and corporate PR efforts and the post-9/11 atmosphere of media cooperation with the War on Terror the question for this study is to what extent this transformation impacts liberal independent media. Does the propaganda model extend to the liberal press in areas where news stories are seriously denigrated or ignored by the corporate media? Do these news stories become too sensitive or difficult for liberal independent media to cover? Do labels like “conspiracy theory” deter liberal media from covering the factual aspects of key news stories? Are some news stories so sensitive that coverage is deemed too costly to independent media’s credibility?

Researchers at Project Censored have examined these questions by conducting a content analysis of ten well-known liberal media sources on eight key news stories denigrated or ignored by the corporate media. In addition we interviewed thirteen media reform experts at the National Media Reform Conference in Memphis in January 2007, asking them why certain news stories just don‟t seem to make it into the media.

We have great respect for each of these independent media organizations in this study. We consider them some of the strongest advocates for democratic media reform, governmental transparency and grassroots empowerment in the US today. This is the reason we hope that by doing this research the best can improve for the betterment of all.

On the first issue, the distortion of the grim ratio of deaths in Palestine, the role of the israel Lobby in the US is intimated, something we at PULSE have always maintained Noam Chomsky (whose propaganda model is marshaled by the authors) as well as Norman Finkelstein have been weak on in their denials of its influence:

Eight of ten of the liberal media groups did not cover the massive imbalance of deaths occurring in the recent Intifada. Two liberal media groups did partially cover the story, but corporate media and most of the liberal media provided coverage that relayed messages of equal death rates between Israel and Palestine.“The Israel Lobby” (Mearsheimer and Walt 2006) examines the historical unwavering US support for Israel. According to Noam Chomsky the “Israel lobby gets it inputs in large part because it happens to line up with powerful sectors of domestic US power.” (1991) Given this overlap it seems that the propaganda model explains editorial decisions inside the corporate media when covering the Israel-Palestine conflict, but it leaves a question regarding why most liberal media ignore this story as well. The Israel lobby includes the ability to influence campaign contributions and donations among the broad Jewish communities in the US. Perhaps a concern of losing Jewish community donations is influencing liberal publication editorial decisions?

Read the piece in full at Media Freedom International or download from PULSE (13 pp .pdf, opens in a new window). Also check out Deconstructing Deceit: 9/11, the Media, and Myth Information (.pdf).

9 comments on “Left Progressive Media Inside The Propaganda Model

  1. atheo
    4 August, 2009

    Yet Common Dreams censors their comments for political content. You might have noticed the boring conformity in the fawning commentary that has no sign of dissenting opinion or even any critical discussion at all, at least in regard to several chosen issues.

    Alternet is of course a Zionist operation and has a policy of cleansing their comments for posterity’s sake, an interesting use of human resources.

    Amy Goodman has a habit of allowing interviewees to make absurd assertions without correction. She also is fond of hosting multiple Jewish guests as balanced discussion of Middle East issues.

    Unlike Project Censored, I have little to no respect for thes “progressive” distractions. Even the more “left” styled Z-mag is actually oriented to covering for the Israel lobby.

    Full Spectrum Dominance of Media has been the status quo for most Western nations for decades. All of the studied outlets, to a one, are gatekeeping operations at the least. Chomsky himself being the prime example.

  2. peoplesgeography
    4 August, 2009

    Thanks Atheo. I wasn’t aware of CD comments censorship as I’ve never commented there, but do generally like their mix of articles — which are mostly sourced from other sites.

    Even then the verdict from Project Censored still indicates problematic coverage, theirs is just the best of the bunch. As you point out, that may be telling in itself!

    Also, for whatever civility and respectful sentiments Project Censored directs at these outlets, they are still essentially saying that these “progressive” news sites as nominated — and within the parameters of those chosen topics — are still very much bound up in the propaganda matrix.

    Can we get more cutting edge and radical outlets and topics? Undoubtedly. This study is nevertheless useful and important provided we are aware of its limited scope.

  3. 99
    4 August, 2009

    Atheo is SO right. People are too damn corruptible! And popularity is even more alluring than money for this… though the one usually comes with the other.

    I want a light saber! Get me a fucking light saber! I want to lop off their heads.

  4. Freeborn
    4 August, 2009

    The pious and self-important blathering about “grassroots empowerment” that frames this Project Censored content analysis study is a nauseatingly familiar feature of “progressive left” media studies.

    The late Bill Cooper lambasted people who moaned about Jewish ownership of the media by asking who had sold it to them in the first place!

    Cooper also encouraged people to start their own radio stations and newspapers.He had done both these things himself.

    Broadcasting out of Eagar in the Arizona mountains Cooper’s radio show,Hour of the Time,made him according to President Clinton-the most dangerous talk show host in the US.His newspaper Veritas and Harvest publishing company complemented his output.

    In November 2001,just months after having broadcast the imminence of a staged NWO attack on the US that would be blamed on Bin Laden and Al Qaida,Cooper was shot dead in a shoot-out at his home.

    One investigative reporter who took Bill’s advice and started his own station was James Corbett who podcasts from Western Japan and has a site:corbettreport.com where open source intelligence news comes as staple fare.Corbett has covered all the topics listed in the Project Censored content analysis above-admirably well.

    Common Dreams won’t be much help to you in any attempts you make to discover what is really happening in the world but James’s podcasts will.

    Like Cooper,James has no right or left agenda but is simply committed to freedom and independent broadcasting.

    There’s a film re-Bill Cooper’s legacy available on google.

  5. Chrysalis
    4 August, 2009

    So … aside from this site, which sites do people regularly read? I’m interested to know …any recommendations?

    I regularly read at Counterpunch and AntiWar.com for example, but I don’t endorse everything they publish.

  6. atheo
    4 August, 2009

    Chrysalis,

    Glad you asked.

    In a way Counterpunch and Anti-War are gatekeepers as well though I think Cockburn simply is for some reason blind to 9/11 as an inside job and strident in his attacks on 9/11 truth seeking. I find many good essays on other topics at his site.

    99 has an always interesting aggregation of new content at http://neufneuf.blogspot.com/

    I cover a wide spectrum of issues and perspectives at http://atheonews.blogspot.com/ and also at http://obamboozled.blogspot.com/

    You will also find many unique blogs listed on the blogrolls at my sites, one of which being Rebel Reports which is also selected here at Pulse.

  7. Freeborn
    4 August, 2009

    Chrysalis

    Angirfan and Kenny’s Sideshow which was pulled last week but is happily now back online are indispensable tools that will help you make sense of the world on an everyday basis.

    For more specialised and academically sourced articles Globalresearch.ca is superb.

    Xymphora,nobody,Dissecting the New Age are all thought-provoking.

    Beware the gatekeepers all truthseekers should avoid like the plague.

    These are thinking sites for thinking people-while there’s still time.

  8. Freeborn
    4 August, 2009

    Oh and while we’re on the plague-for the latest on the one they’ve developed and called “swineflu” you should make a point of reading Jane Burgermeister’s charges lodged with the FBI against Big Pharma and the Illuminati crime families.

    It’s at Natural News where an unhacked/tampered file can be accessed.If not the paper is called Evidence of Use of Pandemic Flu to Depopulate the USA and can be googled.

    Burgermeister has also been interviewed at YouTube.

    goldenheart888wordpress.com and en.wordpress.com
    (Birdflu666.com)have compelling papers documenting the genocidal scam now in progress.

    The Burgermeister evidence runs to 134 pages but read it….it just might save your life!

  9. aramchek
    25 November, 2009

    Conmmon Dreams banned me, and several others, before the last election for supporting Nader, single-payer, meaningful electoral reform, getting out of the Mideast, etc. I re-registered awhile ago and posted last night on Common Dreams that Obama is looking like a third term of Bush with regard to foreign policy. I further asked, hypothetically, whether editorial staff at CD were happy with Obama, or naively disappointed — and whether we’re to believe that. For this mundane level of criticism, I was banned again. CD is obviously a gatekeeping operation, a mechanism to scope & define a harmless protest-mentality politics, with several taboo topics. I imagine they’ll write books about American progressive politics and, they’ll base all of their “facts” and sentiment on the artificial culture that CD is attempting to manufacture, rather than provide a venue for real/existing dissenting views.

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This entry was posted on 3 August, 2009 by in Israel Lobby, Media, Palestine, USA and tagged , .

Timely Reminders

"Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes perceptibly worse than what it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself."
-- Aldous Huxley

"The only war that matters is the war against the imagination. All others are subsumed by it."
-- Diane DiPrima, "Rant", from Pieces of a Song.

"It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there"
-- William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"


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