Just to be clear, I don't accuse Waxman of being a liar. She has a good reputation as a reporter and editor. Her recollection may be biased, but that's not malicious dishonesty. She has the same limits of memory and perspective as every other human being, her story should not be taken at face value, nor is it an all-for-nothing proposition in which her being fuzzy on one detail invalidates her entire story. The same applies to all the other players and witnesses.

I agree that is futile for me to apply this topic to a book I haven't read, though I did just get a copy and have had time to skim things. I'm not sure what to argue against. I think Chomsky is absolutely right to point out that American news outlets focus on American issues from an American perspective, and that news outlets, being for-profit companies, live-and-die by advertisers. It's not at all a coincidence -- nor does it require a conspiracy -- that a news outlet's focus and coverage reflect that of its staff and publishers. You get a college-educated mostly white staff, you'll get a lot of stories that are relevant/understandable by that demographic, which may be an OK thing if that's the news outlet's entire readership, even as it skimps on a greater moral mission to represent society's minority.

That's a valid critique, and the underlying incentives would seem to produce results that showed a consistent adherence to maintaining the status quo. I don't believe that Chomsky is the first to point this out (nor the first to do so in an empirical way), but if he's spreading the news about the realities of the news business, that's worthy enough work.

But skimming down to things in which Chomsky attempts to point out their fit in his model is less convincing. He acknowledges the "shining moments' of journalism, such as reporting the My Lai Massacre and Watergate. Chomksy says in the conclusion:

> In short, the very examples offered in praise of the media for their independence, or criticism of their excessive zeal, illustrate exactly the opposite. Contrary to the usual image of an "adversary press" boldly attacking a pitiful executive giant, the media's lack of interest, investigative zeal, and basic news reporting on the accumulating illegalities of the executive branch have regularly permitted and even encouraged ever larger violations of law

But the media's action on My Lai and Watergate don't really seem to demonstrate the "exactly the opposite" of an adversarial media. The exact opposite would seem to be a media that doesn't report on these things at all. But the fact is that they did and Chomsky's explanation seems to boil down to:

- The media didn't act as fast as it could (e.g. it didn't cover the My Lai massacre the day of or after it happened)

- The supposed scandals weren't even that big of a deal, e.g. My Lai was just one of many atrocities committed by the U.S. The Watergate break-in was nothing compared to what the FBI was doing to the Socialist Workers party.

- And the media didn't go far enough in its investigative reporting, e.g. if the media really cared about My Lai, then military officers higher than a Lieutenant would have been court-martialed.

I think there is value in critiquing the lesser-celebrated details of media action/inaction, including lionized narratives of media's finest moments. But as something that purports to point out how media/government/industry complicity can explain all or even most of media's self-interested behavior? Chomsky's arguments seem virtually unfalsifiable. There is no possible unselfish/noble/independent media action that could not be waved away with his logic. But his logic is inherently self-defeating. My Lai and Watergate weren't a big deal, and the media were slow as fuck to finally cover them...OK, then that leaves completely explained why news outlets wasted considerable resources on stories that were not only inherently hostile to the U.S. government, but boring and stupid and not even significant compared to all the shit that was really happening. That argument is pretty airtight!