Els professors de química han encantat als estudiants durant molt de temps mostrant com es poden produir estructures simètriques gairebé perfectes abocant un gran nombre de boles petites en una caixa quadrada, amb la qual cosa es produeix inevitablement una piràmide perfecta. Les boles aterren en una posició de construcció de piràmides, reboten en aquesta posició o reboten fora de l'estructura. La piràmide resultant, com les estructures cristal·lines que es troben al món natural, sembla que tot el món hagués estat dissenyat amb cura; de fet, és només una conseqüència del flux aleatori de petits objectes rodons sobre un marc quadrat.
Creiem que el flux de periodistes dins i fora de l'estructura d'enquadrament dels mitjans corporatius principals explica, d'una manera aproximadament anàloga, els patrons notablement uniformes que es troben en la informació generalitzada. Com hem demostrat en Alertes de mitjans anteriors, els mitjans corporatius estan estructurats de manera que protegeix i promou els interessos del poder estatal-corporatiu en absència de cap conspiració, o fins i tot d'interferències obertes. La uniformitat dels informes simplement es deriva de la interacció de la naturalesa humana amb les estructures d'enquadrament del capitalisme corporatiu estatal: els periodistes amb les opinions, les prioritats i els objectius correctes "encaixen" a la piràmide mediàtica, mentre que altres reboten (o són rebutjats) fora. .
This does not mean that there is no dissent in the mainstream; on the contrary the system strongly requires the appearance of openness. In an ostensibly democratic society, a propaganda system must incorporate occasional instances of dissent. Like vaccines, these small doses of truth inoculate the public against awareness of the rigid limits of media freedom. The honest dissident pieces which occasionally surface in the mainstream are quite as important to the successful functioning of the propaganda system as the vast mass of power-friendly journalism. Dissidents (a tiny number of them) also have their place in the pyramid – the end result, however, is an overall performance that tends to mould public opinion to support the goals of state-corporate power. Consider, for example, the remarkable conformity of mainstream criticism of dissident output.
A The Guardian, el columnista Roy Hattersley va revisar recentment l'últim llibre de John Pilger, The New Rulers of The World. Hattersley va escriure:
“But, although his descriptions are vividly coloured, his judgments are predictably black-and-white. The notion that those he exposes and denounces might have any merit has never entered his head.” (Hattersley, ‘In the right, but irritating – Roy Hattersley on John Pilger’s judgmental journalism’, the Guardian, July 20, 2002)
Res estrany en això, podríem pensar. Però ara considereu l'única altra revisió del llibre de Pilger que ha aparegut al corrent nacional des de la seva publicació el 20 de maig. A The New Statesman, Stephen Howe escriu sobre Pilger:
“There is very little light and shade in his world-view. No situation is morally ambiguous, no history is complex and contested. There are only heroes (the title of one of his previous books) and villains.” (Howe, ‘A bitter pill’, The New Statesman, June 24, 2002)
Joe Joseph del Times té una visió similar de la producció de Pilger:
“The world, according to Pilger, is pretty much black and white: his journalistic retina doesn’t recognise shades of grey.” (Joseph, ‘Views of Iraq from the moral high ground’, The Times, March 7, 2000)
El lector de notícies del Canal 4, Jon Snow, aporta més llum:
“Some argue the ends justify his means, others that the world is a more subtle place than he [Pilger] allows”. (Snow, ‘Still angry after all these years,’ February 25, 2001)
Per descomptat, és possible que aquestes opinions només reflecteixin el consens racional; això podria ser un conformisme basat, no en condicions d'enquadrament, sinó en el sentit comú. Tornant a un altre lloc, però, descobrim una ressenya d'un dels llibres recents de Chomsky de Steve Crawshaw. El títol de la peça de Crawshaw és estranyament familiar:
“Furious ideas with no room for nuance”. (Crawshaw, the Independent, February 21, 2001)
Crawshaw percep una estranya contradicció en l'obra de Chomsky:
“Chomsky knows so much, but seems impervious to any idea of nuance.”
Like Pilger, then, Chomsky suffers from a “black and white” view of the world. Lambasting his criticism of the NATO bombing of Serbia, and echoing Hattersley and Howe, Crawshaw expands:
“Misguided isn’t enough [for Chomsky]; the policy must be plain evil.”
Escrivint al Guardian, Martin Woollacott va observar de Chomsky:
“Those who direct American policy… are allowed no regrets, no morals, no feelings, and when they change their policies they appear to do so for entirely Machiavellian reasons… [Chomsky] seems to deny the complexity of human affairs by setting up too rigid an antithesis between an inherently amoral elite and an inherently moral mass.” (Woollacott, ‘Deliver us from evil’, The Guardian, January 14, 1989)
Pilger torna a compartir la mateixa discapacitat, tal com assenyala Hattersley:
“Pilger can never end his criticisms and condemnation at the point when most people would think it reasonable to stop.”
Implicit (and often explicit) in these reviews is the suggestion that both Pilger and Chomsky are victims of the blinkering effects of anger: Chomsky with his “Furious ideas”; Pilger, “still angry after all these years”, with arguments that are “longer on anger than on analysis”. (Howe)
Un altre dels nostres dissidents destacats, Harold Pinter, està afectat per aquestes mateixes malediccions. Escrivint a l'Observer, Jay Rayner cita Timothy Garton Ash:
“He [Pinter] has this terribly imaginative vision of the world and everything has to fit it.” (Rayner, ‘Pinter of discontent’, The Observer, May 16, 1999)
Again anger is to blame: “Late Pinter is all about sound and fury”, Rayner notes.
Una vegada i una altra, amb una coherència notable, els periodistes "liberals" segueixen la mateixa línia: els escriptors dissidents tenen molts mèrits, però la seva obra es veu fatalment deteriorada per la seva visió del món en blanc i negre, enfadada i enfadada.
Why do journalists continuously reproduce this pattern? Again, it could simply be that they are right. But anyone who has read Pilger and Chomsky is surely struck above all by the calm and powerful rationality of their analyses – vitriol is certainly added, but often humorously, or for effect (as a way of waking us up from our mainstream slumber) – there is never any sense that their basic rationality is distorted by anger. What dissidents like Pilger and Chomsky have to say is so completely contrary to what most people believe, and to what many people would like most people to believe, that they would be instantly dismissed as lunatics by public and critics alike but for the fact that they present extremely powerful arguments. Dissidents, of course, know this only too well, which is why their standards of reporting are generally far higher than the crude productions of the hacks who, as one media insider told us, “really just bash it out”. Mainstream journalists promoting the interests of the powerful and privileged have nothing to fear – they know they can get away with journalistic murder.
The real explanation for the apparent contradiction in mainstream reviews is found in the fact that writers like John Pilger, Noam Chomsky, Ed Herman, Gore Vidal et al are telling the truth, but they are telling truth that conflicts with the “necessary illusions” of society, media society included. The problem for the “journalists of attachment” is that dissidents write with undeniable rationality, their arguments are backed up by, and indeed often based on, a vast array of highly credible sources. For this reason their work simply cannot be dismissed as nonsense. Thus Hattersley writes: “The brilliance of John Pilger’s reporting is, or ought to be, beyond dispute.” Thus Crawshaw writes of how “Chomsky knows so much”. Thus Woollacott writes of Chomsky’s “rare combination of moral vision and intellectual rigour”.
També hi ha el fet de la popularitat de Chomsky i Pilger entre el públic: el públic que se suposa que han de servir els mitjans. Chomsky és l'escriptor de política internacional més llegit del món. El seu llibre 9-11 ha venut més de 100,000 còpies, malgrat les interminables taques i la negligència de la seva obra. L'últim llibre de Pilger ha estat en tres llistes de best-sellers, inclòs el del Guardian, tot i haver estat revisat i difamat només dues vegades als mitjans nacionals. Els periodistes han de reconèixer aquests èxits si volen mantenir la credibilitat.
But the structural demands of the mainstream are such that it is sheer folly for reviewers to be seen to fully endorse those who powerfully expose the deceptions on which the mainstream itself depends. Thus in an apparently stunning self-contradiction, Hattersley talks of Pilger’s brilliance but then writes, “Reading The New Rulers [sic] makes it easy to understand why so many people say: ‘If Pilger’s for it, I am against it.'” This, Hattersley explains, is because Pilger is “right but irritating”.
It’s worth examining just what is being argued here. Leaving aside the question of just which opinion polls Hattersley is referring to when he talks of “so many people” rejecting Pilger’s work (he actually, of course, means the political and media elites he mixes with) consider that Pilger is all but unique in the UK mainstream for the depth and breadth of his criticism of ruthless power. Pilger has, for example, tirelessly reported Western responsibility for genocide in Iraq, while the Guardian, the Observer, the Independent, the BBC and ITN, have all but turned a blind eye.
Given that Pilger has been one of a tiny number of journalists willing to communicate credible accusations of our responsibility for genocide, what sane individual would respond to his efforts with the observation that he is “right but irritating”? If on September 10, a lone individual had burst into FBI offices presenting highly credible evidence for an impending terrorist attack against thousands of civilians in the World Trade Centre, what would we have made of someone who responded that he was “right but irritating”? We would assume that they were completely alienated from the reality of human suffering and the idea that we might be responsible for doing something about it. But Pilger has long performed a comparable role in warning of infinitely greater horrors that are being perpetrated now, in our names, in Iraq, and all around the world.
Per mantenir el seu lloc a la piràmide, els periodistes principals han de posar en dubte les opinions "irracionals" i "extremes" d'aquells que destaquen precisament per la seva racionalitat i objectivitat. Han d'admetre que el treball dissident té mèrit, però també han de proporcionar un forat per als editors i altres periodistes que tracten el treball dissident amb menyspreu. "Sí, Chomsky té mèrit, però és exagerat: no podem seguir publicant aquest tipus de visió distorsionada". "Sí, Pilger és genial, però és molt irritant: només podem aguantar tant".
Despite his enormous popularity with the public, Pilger has appeared just four times in the Guardian since 1999, once in the Observer, and not once in the Independent. Recently, to the shame of the ‘serious’ broadsheets, Pilger has begun reaching an enthusiastic audience through a tabloid, the Daily Mirror. Chomsky is all but ignored by the Guardian/Observer, with four articles published by them since September 1998 (with just one of these published since October 1999). He has appeared once in the Independent since January 1999, and is ignored by BBC TV, ITV and Channel 4. Figures like these make a mockery of the idea that we have a free press. Other major writers like Edward Herman and Howard Zinn appear to be completely unknown to the British mainstream.
Tinguem clar que persones com Chomsky i Pilger són brillants perquè tenen una gran habilitat per reunir i presentar proves proporcionades per fonts altament creïbles. Els lectors de ment oberta descobreixen que aquesta evidència enderroca les il·lusions propagades pel poder de les empreses estatals: les personalitats i les emocions dels dissidents són problemes secundaris al costat d'aquest èxit fonamental. Les perennes advertències abusives són una mentida, una racionalització, una difamació necessària imposada, en última instància, per les condicions de marc del funcionament dels mitjans corporatius dins de la societat capitalista estatal-corporativa.
David Edwards is co-editor of Media Lens. Sign up for free Media Alerts at www.medialens.org
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