Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media Page #14

usually by telephone.

And he's very good, he gets all sorts of people.

He started the interview by playing for me

a tape of an interview that he had just had

and had broadcast with a guy who's...

some mucky-muck in Nightline.

I think his name is Jeff Greenfield

or some such name.

Does that name mean anything?

I'm Jeff Greenfield from Nightline in New York.

We've got just a selection of guests

to analyse things.

Why is Noam Chomsky never on Nightline?

I couldn't begin to tell you.

He's one of the world's

leading intellectuals.

I have no idea.

I mean, I can make some guesses.

He may be

one of the leading intellectuals who...

...can't talk on television.

You know,

that's a standard that's very important. To us.

If you've got a 22-minute show,

and a guy takes five minutes to warm up...

Now, I don't know

whether Chomsky does or not.

...he's out.

One of the reasons

why Nightline has the usual suspects is,

one thing you have to do

when you book a show

is know that the person can make the point

within the framework of TV.

If people don't like that,

they should understand

it is as sensible to book somebody

who takes eight minutes to answer

as it is to book somebody

who doesn't speak English.

In the normal given flow,

that's another culture-bound thing.

We've got to have English speakers

and concision.

So Greenfield or whatever his name is

hit the nail on the head.

The US media are alone

in that you must meet the condition of concision.

You've got to say things

between two commercials

or in 600 words.

And that's a very important fact.

Because the beauty of concision,

you know, saying a couple of sentences

between two commercials...

The beauty of that is

that you can only repeat conventional thoughts.

I was reading Chomsky

Didn't he co-author a book called Engineering

Consent or Manufacturing Consent?

I mean, some of that stuff, to me,

looks like it's from Neptune.

This is the first time the Neptune system

has been seen clearly by human eyes.

These pictures,

taken only hours ago by Voyager-2,

are its latest contribution.

You know, he's perfectly entitled

to say I'm seeing it through a prism, too.

But my view of his notions about the limits

of debate in this country is absolutely wacko.

Suppose I get up on Nightline, say.

And I'm given whatever it is, two minutes.

And I say Gaddafi is a terrorist,

Khomeini is a murderer, you know, etc, etc.

The Russians, you know, invaded Afghanistan.

All this sort of stuff.

I don't need any evidence. Everybody just nods.

On the other hand, suppose you say something

that just isn't regurgitating conventional pieties.

Suppose you say something that's the least bit

unexpected or controversial. You say:

The biggest international terror operations

that are known

are the ones that are run out of Washington.

Or suppose you say:

What happened in the 1980s is,

the US government was driven underground.

Suppose I say the United States is invading

South Vietnam, as it was?

The best political leaders

are the ones who are lazy and corrupt.

If the Nuremberg laws were applied,

then every post-War American President

would have been hanged.

The Bible is probably the most genocidal book

in our total canon.

Education is a system of imposed ignorance.

There's no more morality in world affairs

than there was in the time of Genghis Khan.

There are just different... You know, there are

just different factors to be concerned with.

Noam Chomsky, thank you.

Well, you know, people will quite reasonably

expect to know what you mean.

"Why did you say that?

I've never heard that before.

If you said that, you'd better have a reason,

better have some evidence.

In fact, you'd better have a lot of evidence

because that's a pretty startling comment".

You can't give evidence

if you're stuck with concision.

That's the genius of this structural constraint.

And in my view, if people like, say, Nightline,

MacNeil, Lehrer and so on were smarter,

if they were better propagandists,

they would let dissidents on,

let them on more, in fact.

The reason is that they would sound like

they were from Neptune.

Then our conversation

on the Middle East crisis

with the activist, writer and professor,

Noam Chomsky.

Again, there has been an offer on the table

which we rejected,

an Iraqi offer of last April...

OK, I have to...

...to eliminate their chemical

and other unconventional arsenals

if Israel were to simultaneously do the same.

- We have to end it there.

- That should be pursued as well.

Sorry to interrupt. I have to end it. That's the

end of our time. Professor Chomsky, thanks.

AT&T has supported

the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour since 1983

because quality information

and quality communication

is our idea of a good connection.

AT&T - the right choice.

- Thank you.

- Could you just sit there for half a second?

It's just for a two-shot, that's all.

Then we can do anything else with that. OK.

Yeah, what about the mic? Is that a problem?

OK, right.

The idea of this one is it's just a shot

where I'm seen talking to you.

I'll ask you, though, not to speak to me or move

your lips, so I can be seen to ask a question.

The reason for the shot is simply this.

OK, just don't talk to me and I'll keep going.

The reason for the shot - I'll explain it

because I find that's the easiest way to do it -

is I need a shot where you're sitting and seeing

and listening while I'm asking you a question.

We can use the shot to introduce you, explain

who you are, where you fit into my piece.

But if you don't speak to me, I can also use...

Got it? OK, thanks for your time.

If there is a narrower range of opinion

in the United States

and it is harder to express

a variety of different opinions,

why do you live in the US?

Well, first of all, it's my country,

and secondly, it's in many ways -

as I said before -

it's the freest country in the world.

I think there's more possibilities for change here

than in any other country I know.

But again, comparatively speaking,

it's the country

where the state is probably most restrictive.

Isn't that what you should look at comparatively

rather than in absolute terms?

You don't give that impression.

Maybe I don't give the impression.

I say it oten enough.

What I've said over and over again,

I've said it tonight, I've written it a million times,

is that the United States is a very free society.

It's also a very rich society.

Of course, the United States is a scandal

from the point of view of its wealth.

Given the natural advantages

that the United States has,

in terms of resources

and lack of enemies and so on,

the United States should have a level

of health and welfare and so on

that's, you know, on an order of magnitude

beyond anybody else in the world.

We don't. The United States is last among

That's a scandal of American capitalism.

And it ends up being a very free society

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