Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media Page #13

You got that right.

Do you think the information you're getting

from this paper is biased in any way?

Oh, yeah.

I think, by and large, it's well done.

You get both sides of the stories.

You get the liberal side

and the conservative side, so to speak.

I don't think you get a very balanced picture

because they only have 20 seconds

for a news item, or whatever,

and they're going to pick out, a highlight.

Every network is going to cover the same

highlight. And that's all you're going to see.

You get what they want you to hear.

You think they're biased in some way, then?

Nah.

Here we go.

See you later.

Is it possible for the lights to get a little brighter

so I can see somebody out there?

Yeah, for the last hour and 41 minutes,

you've been whining about how the elite

and how the government have been...

using thought control

to keep radicals like yourself

out of the public limelight.

Now, you're here.

I don't see any CIA men waiting to drag you off.

You were in the paper. That's where everyone

here heard you were coming from, in the paper.

I'm sure they're going to publish your comments

in the paper.

In a lot of countries, you would have been shot

for what you have done today.

So, what are you whining about?

We are allowing you to speak.

I don't see any thought control.

First of all, I haven't said one word

about my being kept out of the limelight.

The way it works here is quite different.

I don't think you heard what I was saying.

The way it works here is,

that there is a system of shaping and control,

which gives a certain perception of the world.

I gave one example. I'll give you sources

where you can find thousands more.

And it has nothing to do with me.

It has to do with marginalising the public

and ensuring that they don't get in the way

of elites who are supposed to run things

without interference.

In a review of The Chomsky Reader,

it was written that,

"As he's been forced to the margins,

he's become strident and rigid."

Do you feel this categorisation

of your later writings is accurate

and that you've been a victim

of this sort of process you've been describing?

Well, the business about being forced...

Other people will have to judge

about the stridency. I won't...

I don't believe it.

But that's for other people to judge.

But the matter of being forced

to the margins is one of fact.

The fact is the opposite of what is claimed.

The fact is, it's much easier to gain access

to even the major media now

than it was 20 years ago.

You've dealt in such unpopular truths

and have been such a lonely figure

as a consequence of that.

Do you ever regret

either that you took the stand you took,

have written the things you have written,

or that we had listened to you earlier?

Er... I don't. I mean, there are particular things

which I would do differently.

Because you think about things differently.

- But, in general, I would say I do not regret it.

- Do you like being controversial?

No, it's a nuisance.

Because this medium pays little attention

to dissenters,

not just Noam Chomsky,

but most dissenters do not get

much of a hearing in this medium.

It's understandable. They wouldn't be

performing their societal function

if they allowed favoured truths to be challenged.

Now, notice that's not true

when I cross the border anywhere.

So I have easy access to the media

in just about every other country in the world.

That's for a number of reasons.

One is that I'm primarily talking about the US.

And it's much less threatening.

Your view there is that the militarisation

of the American economy

essentially has come about because there are

not other means of controlling the US people.

In a democratic society.

It may be paradoxical,

but the freer the society is,

the more it's necessary to resort to devices

like induced fear.

OK, I'll go along with that. Arguably, he is

the most important intellectual alive today.

And if my programme can give him

or three-quarters of a million people listening,

I'll be delighted.

OK, Professor, in your own time.

Wartime planners understood

that actual war aims should not be revealed.

A part of the reason why the media

in Canada and Belgium, etc are more open

is that it just doesn't matter that much

what people think.

It matters very much what the politically

articulate sectors of the population,

those narrow minorities,

think and do in the United States,

because of its overwhelming dominance

on the world scene.

But that's also a reason

for wanting to work here.

...what we might call the fith freedom -

the freedom to rob, exploit,

and dominate and to curb mischief

by any feasible means.

It's "conclude", not "include".

From the top.

The United States is ideologically

narrower in general than other countries.

Furthermore, the structure of the American

media is such as to pretty much eliminate

critical discussion.

Our guests are as far apart

on the Contra question

as American intellectuals can be.

If we had the slightest concern

with democracy,

which we do not, in our foreign affairs,

and never have,

we would turn to countries

where we have influence like El Salvador.

Now, in El Salvador,

they don't call the Archbishop bad names.

What they do is murder him.

They do not censor the press.

They wipe the press out. They sent the army in

to blow up the church radio station.

The editor of the independent paper was found

in a ditch, mutilated, and cut to pieces.

- Don't...

- May I continue? I did not interrupt you.

Don't you want to put a time value

on anything you say

or do you want to lie systematically on TV?

- I'm talking about 1980.

- You are a systematic liar.

- Did these things happen or not?

- Not in the context which you suggested.

You are a phoney, mister, and it's time

that the people read you correctly.

It's clear why you want to divert me

from the discussion.

No, it's not. We're getting tired of rubbish.

- But let's continue with...

- Except we can't. We're out of time.

Let me thank you,

John Silver and Noam Chomsky.

OK.

Last time you were here,

you spoke about how, when you go overseas,

you are given access to the mass media.

But here, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Has that changed at all?

Have you ever been invited

to appear on Nightline or Brinkley?

Yes, I have a couple of times

been invited to speak on Nightline.

I couldn't do it.

I had another talk and something or other.

To tell you the honest truth,

I don't really care very much.

FAIR, the media monitoring group,

published a very interesting study of Nightline.

It shows that their conception of a spectrum

of opinion is ridiculously narrow,

at least by European or world standards.

Let me tell you a personal experience.

I happened to be in Madison, Wisconsin,

on a listener-supported radio station,

a community radio station, a very good one.

It was an interview with the news director.

I'd been on the programme dozens of times,

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