Understanding Power: the indispensable Chomsky by Noam Chomsky, John Schoeffel, Peter R. Mitchell Page B
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be right after Iran-contra. And it’s very typical that after government scandals like these, there’s a period of relative openness in the media, which then closes up again. In fact, there are plenty of journalists who are very well aware of this fact, and who wait for government scandals to try to sneak through stories which they know they couldn’t get published at other times. I can give you examples of that, if you’d like. And it’s obvious why it’s going to happen: there’s a scandal, so the institutions want to legitimize themselves, and there’s popular pressure, so journalists who want to write about things like this have a little bit of an opening to do it. That may be the reason.
Incidentally, there are going to be some more exposures in the media in a week or two on the show Frontline —which if P.B.S. runs it (they’re now debating it), will be very interesting. It’s an episode on the Middle East by Leslie and Andrew Cockburn, and from what I’ve heard, it’s extremely well done. So it’s not that these systems are completely closed to dissidents—even on commercial television, there are possibilities. For instance, when Leslie Cockburn was working at C.B.S., she was able to expose information of real importance about U.S. government involvement in drug-running through the contras. I don’t know if some of you saw that, but this was on a national network program, West 57th —tens of millions of people were watching American pilots in jail testifying about how they would fly arms down to the contras and come back with their planes loaded with cocaine, land at Homestead Air Force base in Florida guided in by radar, then trucks would come up and unload the drugs and take them away, all right on the Air Force base. That was on C.B.S. 60
So there are openings for investigative reporting, and there are people in the media who look for them and find them. In fact, some of the top investigative reporters in the country are very conscious of the way the system works and play it like a violin, just looking for moments when they can sneak stories through. Some of the best-known of them are even more cynical about the media than I am, actually—but they just find ways to work within the system, and often they get out material that’s very important. So people will store up stories on topics they’ve researched, and wait for a time when it’s going to be a little bit more lax and they can put them in. Or they’ll look for the right editor, they write their points very carefully and frame them so they’ll just get by.
Remember, there really are conflicting values in these systems, and those conflicts allow for possibilities. One value is service to power; another value is professional integrity—and journalists can’t do their job of serving power effectively unless they know how to work with some integrity, but if they know how to work with some integrity, they’re also going to want to exercise that value in other areas. It’s extremely hard to control that conflict, and things certainly do get through sometimes.
Plus, you know, there also just is a need in the media to present a tolerably accurate picture of the world—and that also creates openings. So for example, take the Wall Street Journal , the prototypical business press: the editorial pages are just comical tantrums, but the news coverage is often quite interesting and well done, they have some of the best reporting in the country, in fact. And I think the reason for that is pretty clear. On the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal , the editors can scream and yell and foam at the mouth and nobody cares very much, but people in the business world have to have a realistic picture of what’s happening in the world if they’re going to make sane decisions about their money. Well, that also creates openings, and those openings can often be capitalized on.
So the main point is not total suppression of information by the
Incidentally, there are going to be some more exposures in the media in a week or two on the show Frontline —which if P.B.S. runs it (they’re now debating it), will be very interesting. It’s an episode on the Middle East by Leslie and Andrew Cockburn, and from what I’ve heard, it’s extremely well done. So it’s not that these systems are completely closed to dissidents—even on commercial television, there are possibilities. For instance, when Leslie Cockburn was working at C.B.S., she was able to expose information of real importance about U.S. government involvement in drug-running through the contras. I don’t know if some of you saw that, but this was on a national network program, West 57th —tens of millions of people were watching American pilots in jail testifying about how they would fly arms down to the contras and come back with their planes loaded with cocaine, land at Homestead Air Force base in Florida guided in by radar, then trucks would come up and unload the drugs and take them away, all right on the Air Force base. That was on C.B.S. 60
So there are openings for investigative reporting, and there are people in the media who look for them and find them. In fact, some of the top investigative reporters in the country are very conscious of the way the system works and play it like a violin, just looking for moments when they can sneak stories through. Some of the best-known of them are even more cynical about the media than I am, actually—but they just find ways to work within the system, and often they get out material that’s very important. So people will store up stories on topics they’ve researched, and wait for a time when it’s going to be a little bit more lax and they can put them in. Or they’ll look for the right editor, they write their points very carefully and frame them so they’ll just get by.
Remember, there really are conflicting values in these systems, and those conflicts allow for possibilities. One value is service to power; another value is professional integrity—and journalists can’t do their job of serving power effectively unless they know how to work with some integrity, but if they know how to work with some integrity, they’re also going to want to exercise that value in other areas. It’s extremely hard to control that conflict, and things certainly do get through sometimes.
Plus, you know, there also just is a need in the media to present a tolerably accurate picture of the world—and that also creates openings. So for example, take the Wall Street Journal , the prototypical business press: the editorial pages are just comical tantrums, but the news coverage is often quite interesting and well done, they have some of the best reporting in the country, in fact. And I think the reason for that is pretty clear. On the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal , the editors can scream and yell and foam at the mouth and nobody cares very much, but people in the business world have to have a realistic picture of what’s happening in the world if they’re going to make sane decisions about their money. Well, that also creates openings, and those openings can often be capitalized on.
So the main point is not total suppression of information by the
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