Volgens de
televisiejournalist Chris Kijne is de New
York Times ‘de beste krant van de wereld,’ die regelmatig stelt: ‘Ho,
wacht even, niet te snel,’ zo citeert hij David Carr, de media-journalist van
de Times. De lezer van Kijne's stukjes zal zich
afvragen of de man die voor hem/haar de opinies maakt alle kranten ter wereld bestudeert om tot een gefundeerd oordeel te komen dan wel dat hij opnieuw een cliché gebruikt.
http://www.spreekbuis.nl/content/2625/Kijne:_Page_One.html
In werkelijkheid
mag Kijne de New York Times ‘de
beste krant van de wereld vinden,’ maar wat zegt hij daar nu precies
mee? Laten eerst de feiten voor zich spreken, daar gaan we na een kort
aanloopje:
Met betrekking tot het begrip 'objectiviteit' wees
Noam Chomsky op het volgende opmerkelijke feit toen hij over de
verlichtingsfilosoof David Hume schreef:
'in considering his First Principles of
Government, he expressed his puzzlement over ''the easiness with which the many
are governed by the few" and "the implicit submission with which the
men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers".
"When we enquire by what means this wonder is brought about", Hume
concluded, "we shall find, that as Force is always on the side of the
governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is
therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends
to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free
and most popular.'''
In hun uitgebreid gedocumenteerde
studie Manufacturing Consent. The political economy of the Mass Media die voor een aanzienlijk deel is gebaseerd op een landurige bestudering van de
berichtgeving van Kijne’s ‘beste krant van de wereld,’
constateren de Amerikaanse geleerden Edward S. Herman en Noam Chomsky het
volgende:
‘In contrast
to the standard conception of the media as cantankerous, obstinate, and
ubiquitous in their search for truth and their independence of authority, we
have spelled out and applied a propaganda model that indeed sees the media as
serving a "societal purpose," but not that of enabling the public to
assert meaningful control over the political process by providing them with the
information needed for the intelligent discharge of political responsibilities.
On the contrary, a propaganda model suggests that the "societal
purpose" of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and
political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and
the state. The media serve this purpose in many ways: through selection of topics,
distribution of concerns, framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis
and tone, and by keeping debate within the bounds of acceptable premises.’
Overigens is het relevant te weten dat
dezelfde New York Times Chomsky omschrijft als 'arguably the most important intellectual
alive.'
Beide wetenschappers concluderen na ruim
400 pagina's analyses tenslotte:
‘As we have
stressed throughout this book, the U.S. media do not function in the manner of
the propaganda system of a totalitarian state. Rather, they permit -- indeed,
encourage -- spirited debate, criticism, and dissent, as long as these remain
faithfully within the system of presuppositions and principles that constitute
an elite consensus, a system so powerful as to be internalized largely without
awareness. No one instructed the media to focus on Cambodia and ignore East
Timor. They gravitated naturally to the Khmer Rouge and discussed them freely
-- just as they naturally suppressed information on Indonesian atrocities in
East Timor and U.S. responsibility for the agression and massacres. In the
process, the media provided neither facts nor analyses that would have enabled
the public to understand the issues or the bases of government policies toward
Cambodia and Timor, and they thereby assured that the public could not exert
any meaningful influence on the decisions that were made. This is quite typical
of the actual "societal purpose" of the media on matters that are of
significance for established power; not "enabling the public to assert
meaningful control over the political process," but rather averting any
such danger. In these cases, as in numerous others, the public was managed and
mobilized from above, by means of the media's highly selective messages and
evasions. As noted by media analyst W. Lance Bennett: "the public is
exposed to powerful persuasive messages from above and is unable to communicate
meaningfully through the media in response to the messages... Leaders have
usurped enormous amounts of political power and reduced popular control over
the political system by using the media to generate support, compliance, and
just plain confusion among the public".’
En:
‘Given the
imperatives of corporate organization and the workings of the various filters,
conformity to the needs and interests of privileged sectors is essential to
succes. In the media, as in other major institutions, those who do not display
the requistite values and perspectives will be regarded
as "irresponsible", "ideological,"or otherwise aberrant,
and will tend to fall by the wayside. While there may be a small number of
exeptions, the pattern is pervasive, and expected. Those who adapt, perhaps
quite honestly, will then be free to express themselves with little managerial
control, and they will be able to assert, accurately, that they perceive no
pressures to conform. The media are indeed free -- for those who adopt the
principles required for "societal purpose".'
Dat wat betreft de ideologische achtergrond van kranten als de New York Times. maar ook over de opzet
en het functioneren van de commerciele massamedia valt het nodige op te merken.
‘The
technical structure of the media virtually compels adherence to conventional
thoughts; nothing else can be expressed between two commercials, or in seven
hunderd words, without the appearance of absurdity that is difficult to avoid
when one is challenging familiar doctrine with no opportunity to develop facts
or argument... The critic must also be prepared to face a defamation apparatus
against which there is little recourse, an inhibiting factor that is not
insubstantial... The result is a powerful system of induced conformity to the
needs of privilege and power. In sum, the mass media of the United States are
effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a
system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces,
internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without significant overt
coercion. This propaganda system has become even more efficient in recent
decades with the rise of the national television networks, greater mass-media concentration,
right-wing pressures on public radio and television, and the growth in scope
and sophistication of public relations and news management.’
Onder de kop 'The New York Times
Versus The Civil Society' schreef de Edward Herman een vernietigend
artikel over 's werelds invloedrijkste
krant.
‘The
veteran New York Times reporter
John Hess has said that in all 24 years of his service at the paper
he “never saw a foreign intervention that the Times did not support, never saw a fare increase or a rent
increase or a utility rate increase that it did not endorse, never saw it take
the side of labor in a strike or lockout, or advocate a raise for underpaid
workers. And don’t let me get started on universal health care and Social
Security. So why do people think the Times is liberal?” The paper is an establishment
institution and serves establishment ends. As Times historian Harrison Salisbury said about former
executive editor Max Frankel, “The last thing that would have entered his
mind would be to hassle the American Establishment, of which he was so proud to
be a part.”’
Het hele artikel vindt u hier:
Op zijn beurt schreef een van de
belangrijkste onderzoeksjournalisten ter wereld, John Pilger over Kijne’s ‘beste krant van de wereld’:
‘On August 24 2006 the New York Times declared this in an
editorial: “If we had known then
what we know now the invasion if Iraq would have been stopped by a popular
outcry.” This amazing admission was saying, in effect, that
journalists had betrayed the public by not doing their job and by accepting and
amplifying and echoing the lies of Bush and his gang, instead of challenging
them and exposing them. What the Times didn’t say was that had that paper and
the rest of the media exposed the lies, up to a million people might be alive
today. That’s the belief now of a number of senior establishment journalists.
Few of them—they’ve spoken to me about it—few of them will say it in public.’
Wat
blijft er nu over van Kijne’s bewering? Meer daarover later.
1 opmerking:
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=630355
Succes, Ben
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