It was endorsed by the right-wing media-monitoring organization Accura...
Citations (1)
- Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media whole source · open book
It was endorsed by the right-wing media-monitoring organization Accuracy in Media in its hour-long “Vietnam Op/Ed” aired by public television in response to its own thirteen-part series on the war.2 According to a more “moderate” expression of this view, the media had become a “notable new source of national power” by 1970 as part of a general “excess of democracy,” contributing to “the reduction of governmental authority” at home and a resulting “decline in the influence of democracy abroad.” “Broader interests of society and government” require that if journalists do not impose “standards of professionalism,” “the alternative could well be regulation by the government” to the end of “restoring a balance between government and media.”3 Freedom House Executive-Director Leonard Sussman, commenting on Big Story, the study of media coverage of the Tet offensive sponsored by Freedom House, describes the “adversarial aspect” of the press-government relation as “normal,” presupposing without argument that it has been demonstrated, but asks: “Must free institutions be overthrown because of the very freedom they sustain?”4 John Roche proceeds further still, calling for congressional investigation of “the workings of these private governments” who distorted the record in pursuit of their “anti-Johnson mission,” although he fears Congress is too “terrified of the media” and their awesome power to take on this necessary task.5 New York Times television critic John Corry defends the media as merely “unmindful,” not “unpatriotic” as the harsher critics claim.
chapter: 5 The Indochina Wars (I): Vietnam