Just to keep current...

Mostly this is because I haven't posted anything in awhile ... explanations for that later. Here's one of the simplest, clearest, and most cogent paragraphs I've read in weeks:

"This book centers in what we call a "propaganda model," an analytical framework that attempts to explain the performance of the U.S. media in terms of the basic institutional structures and relationships within which they operate. It is our view that, among their other functions, the media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them. The representatives of these interests have important agendas and principles that they want to advance, and they are well positioned to shape and constrain media policy. This is normally not accomplished by crude intervention, but by the selection of right-thinking personnel and by the editors' and working journalists' internalization of priorities and definitions of news-worthiness that conform to the institution's policy."
Manufacturing Consent, Herman, E. and Chomsky, N.