Noam Chomsky on “Concision” in the US Media
Monday, December 10th, 2007
You don’t have to agree with any of Chomsky’s ideas to see the fact that the way the media chooses people to go on the air has nothing to do with trying to represent all sides of an issue, everything to do with conventionality, concision, and possibly representing a particular viewpoint.
There’s no doubt that Jim Lehrer, a journalist I respect, must sit around with his producers and decide who they are going to call to represent each side of an issue. The fact that they see issues this way frames things in ways that make it hard for viewers to look outside the box, and for them to ever invite a guest on who thinks outside the box. That guest wouldn’t mix well with any other and viewers might have to think in new and possibly uncomfortable ways to make sense of it all.
The further out you get from NewsHour, the worse it gets: CBS, NBC, CNN and then Fox… Although Fox isn’t looking for concision, they’re looking for napalm.
Wow, Glenn really hit on something here. Actually Marshall McLuhan was onto this way back when.
[via Glenn Greenwald (Salon)]
