Oct 29 2024 57 mins 4
War & the Media
In times of war the corporate media play a salient role in shaping public opinion. There are worthy and unworthy victims. Muslims, Arabs, and Iranians generally fall into that latter category whereas Washington and its allies are worthy victims that we support and empathize with. The current phase of the Gaza war did not begin on October 7 as the media repeat ad nauseum. But to dig into the underlying causes and provide context and history rarely occurs because it would undermine the dominant propaganda. Thus the Norah O’Donnells, Wolf Blitzers, Lester Holts and other corporate news anchors don’t question the embedded assumptions and simply mimic, with few exceptions, the dominant official line.
Interviewed by David Barsamian.
Speaker: Norman Solomon
Norman Solomon is a political commentator and media critic. The National Council of Teachers of English honored him with the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language. He is the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and co-founder of RootsAction.org, an online activist group. He is the author of many books including Target Iraq, War Made Easy, Made Love, Got War and his latest is War Made Invisible.
Description from www.alternativeradio.org
In times of war the corporate media play a salient role in shaping public opinion. There are worthy and unworthy victims. Muslims, Arabs, and Iranians generally fall into that latter category whereas Washington and its allies are worthy victims that we support and empathize with. The current phase of the Gaza war did not begin on October 7 as the media repeat ad nauseum. But to dig into the underlying causes and provide context and history rarely occurs because it would undermine the dominant propaganda. Thus the Norah O’Donnells, Wolf Blitzers, Lester Holts and other corporate news anchors don’t question the embedded assumptions and simply mimic, with few exceptions, the dominant official line.
Interviewed by David Barsamian.
Speaker: Norman Solomon
Norman Solomon is a political commentator and media critic. The National Council of Teachers of English honored him with the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language. He is the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and co-founder of RootsAction.org, an online activist group. He is the author of many books including Target Iraq, War Made Easy, Made Love, Got War and his latest is War Made Invisible.
Description from www.alternativeradio.org
