From: orwell@erich.triumf.ca (BALDEN, RON)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: CIA Now Plotting a Coup D'etat Against the Government of Cuba
Date: 17 Dec 1992 20:48 PST
Organization: TRIUMF: Tri-University Meson Facility
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Following are some comments of mine on Marc E. Talbot's
(met48546@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu) reply to my original posting.
I hardly expect anyone to immediately give up their previous views and 
agree with me but I urge those interested in how the world really
works to begin a serious study of the mass media as an essential
element of a course in intellectual self-defense. 

There is one key point that I would emphasize that is relevant both here
and also in a large fraction of the debates on socio-political issues
conducted on the network.  Many debators (presumably influenced by their
background in computer science) seem to believe that these
issues can be understood by starting with a few `axioms'
and then proceeding to deduce and debate their logical consequences, often
with impressive virtuosity.  (The "Ayn Rand libertarians"
with their axiomatic model of the "free market" which solves
all problems are particularly gifted at this.)  To give them their
due, they do not fall into logical self-contradiction.  But that is
not how one understands the real world of public affairs. 
What one needs is wide knowledge of the *facts*, not
deep logical inference mechanisms based on a few axioms.  Sheer
cleverness alone will not get you far in understanding public affairs,
as it might in mathematics.

An example of the preceding point relevant to the subject under
discussion [taken from Ben Bagdikian's "The Media Monopoly", 3rd
edition, Beacon Press, Boston, 1990 -- this is a valuable study of the
corporate concentration of the mass media, exploding along the way the
mythology that advertising has little effect on editorial content] is
the argument made by media corporations in the eighties in seeking
exemptions to various regulations regarding concentration of media
ownership (i.e. owning newspapers,  radio and television
stations in the same market) to regulatory agencies. Their argument
was that these exemptions were in the public interest, because a
larger media corporation had more resources to gather news and oppose
pressure by other power groups.  This argument is not logically
self-contradictory.  An alternative argument, equally plausible, is
that a large media corporation will identify its self-interest with
other large corporations over informing the public.  No amount of
purely `logical' debate will settle which argument applies to the
real world.  The *evidence*, IMO, is overwhelming that it is the
second which applies. 

[Marc commenting on my posting] 
>... but if the CIA were
>warping their press releases, you'd think that the "investigative reporters"
>would be pointing out a lot of anomalies in their stories.  I'm not saying
>that US Govt press releases aren't slanted, and may sometimes be outright
>lies, but I don't think that makes it accurate to say that the CIA controls
>the world's media.

>To a certain extent, yes.  You can tie up a lot of journalists by 
>'inundation', but when you start actually lying to them, you start running
>big risks of being caught, which is then a bigger story than what you were
>probably trying to cover up.  You might be able to tie up a big portion
>of various news agencies, but you still have to deal with the reporters who
>are stilling doing their jobs.

You can indeed find out a huge amount about what is really going on.
Just don't expect to find it laid right out for you in TIME, Newsweek,
ABC/NBC/CBS TV news, etc. Actually, by using appropriate renormalization
techniques the truth can often be found even in TIME.  The problem is that the
renormalization there is delicate and fatiguing, sort of like quantum
electrodynamics. 

>> ... U.S. CIA-Pentagon-State Department archipelago.  Former CIA officer
>>John Stockwell -- Director of the CIA's Angola Task Force in the 1970's --
>>has described how this works from his own personal experience.
>>To quote from his book "The Praetorian Guard: The U.S. Role in
>>the New World Order" (South End Press, Boston, 1991, pg. 97): ...

>I don't think it's fair to use a third world country as an example of the
>CIA controlling the world media. I'd be more interested in documentation
>of CIA or US govt influence over what gets published in other major western
>papers (ie london, Paris, Frankfurt).

I should have written as a transitional phrase above something like
"John Stockwell has written about the mechanisms of one such case from
his personal experience ..." rather than "has described how this 
works" as if this was a definitive example.  I agree that the 
mechanisms are different in the areas Marc cites.  If memory serves,
there is a discussion in Tom Gervasi's "The Myth of Soviet Military
Supremacy" (1986) about some of these other mechanisms.

>The US government could also get away with a whole lot more in the 60's than
>it could today.  The advent of high power mass-media devices, plus the more
>intense competition between news media, make it more difficult for the US
>govt to shove things under the rug.

Absolute, total, disagreement on this point.  The corporate mass media
are part of the U.S. establishment, not in opposition to it.  
There is indeed "intense competition" to get the details
of various juicy sex scandals involving public figures, photographs/videos of
airplane crashes, building fires, natural disasters, etc..  
(See, e.g., Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public
discourse in the Age of Television", 1986, and his most recent
book - just out in Penguin paperback -- with Steve Powers, "How to Watch
TV News".  Postman is a superb writer, IMO.)
That is quite different from intense competition to give you the clearest
understanding of the real structure of political/economic power in
your own society.

The following quotation from Mark Hertsgaard's
"On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency" (1988)
is instructive [pages 80-82 in 1988 edition, my ellipsis]
on the economic self-interest of those working in the mass media:

""As Tom Yellin, one of the original producers on ABC's "Nightline"
show and later the senior producer of CBS's "West 57th" news magazine, 
explained: "The political sensibilities of people in network 
television are mainstream, traditional and conservative; neither far 
left nor far right ... [ellipsis in original] 
We share the same basic assumptions of bankers, lawyers and the rest 
of the establishment.  You ain't going to see a bunch of radicals
coming in here." 

Salary levels alone made sure of that.  Television paid better than 
print and those in front of the camera earned more than those behind 
it, but none of the top journalists and news executives at major U.S. 
news organizations were anything less than upper-middle-class, and 
most were considerably more than that.  Network news anchors
[Rather of CBS, Tom Brokaw of NBC, Peter Jennings of ABC]
in particular ranked among the country's economic royalty
[making 1.7 million to 2.3 million a year].  Key Washington 
correspondents might have to struggle along on a quarter as
much.  [i.e. about .5 million a year]

.. Nevertheless, [although the top news personnel had lost
touch with the economic realities of most of the U.S. population] 
for the sake of ratings, network anchors in particular were encouraged
to project an Everyman identity on the air --- to look like someone
viewers at home would like and trust, and therefore watch.  Thus 
viewers of the December 10, 1985 edition of the "CBS Evening News"
were treated to the spectacle of multimillionaire anchor Dan Rather 
asking Capitol Hill correspondent how proposed changes in the tax law 
would "affect my pocketbook and the pocketbooks of other Americans."
At the time, Rather and Jones were engaged in what was called 
"cross-talk" --- a live interview by the anchor of his own 
correspondent, which audience surveys indicated helped to boost 
ratings by making viewers feel closer and more engaged with the faces 
they were watching.  The phrasing of Rather's question was likewise 
designed to encourage the sense that he and the viewers were all
in this together.  An honest answer by correspondent Jones ---
"Well, Dan, as someone who makes over two million dollars a year, your 
tax bill could be reduced by as much as a couple hundred thousand 
dollars, but average wage earners should expect to save hundreds or at 
most a few thousand dollars" --- would have punctured the illusion, 
but it also would have gotten Jones fired.

   The fact that network journalists ranked in the top 2 percent of 
the nation's population by income, argued longtime CBS News vice 
president Robert Chandler, was not easily squared with the supposition 
that the media were an institution dominated by liberals.  Offering a 
personal anecdote to illustrate the point, he recalled watching one of 
President Reagan's nationally televised speeches one night with his
wife.  As the President stressed the need to cut domestic spending in 
order to trim the federal deficit, Chandler's wife, whom he described 
as "a genuine liberal," burst out, "Oh, why not just tax the rich!"  
Chandler looked over at her.  "Hey, schmuck," he growled.  "That's 
us."

In addition to their wealth, top journalists and news executives also 
resembled the rest of the American establishment in age, gender
and racial identity.  Overwhelmingly, the top ranks of U.S. news 
organizations were populated by white, middle-aged men. ... ""
[Mark Hertsgaard]

Ron Balden
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