Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman

Through his various projects, Herman forged links with various like-minded thinkers, who formed networks that shared information and insights not readily available in the mainstream press. That study found that, as those historic events unfolded, the newspaper published what it wished to see, rather than what was.

But his best work displayed a thoroughness of research, and a clarity of thought, reminiscent of A Test of the News, Walter Lippman’s classic 1920 study of The New York Times’s coverage of the Russian Revolution. The conclusions of Herman’s media criticism were not always convincing. “I never had the resources to build it into something big,” he said, “although I still think this is a great idea – it should be done for each local monopoly paper and maybe TV station.” He argued that the mainstream press, and in particular The New York Times, had accepted US charges against Unesco, and ignored the credible alternative view that Reagan was acting to safeguard US unilateralism.īy the late 1990s, Herman had launched InkyWatch, an online journal following the same model of regularly critiquing a particular newspaper – in this case the local Philadelphia Inquirer. In an especially incisive piece, Herman attacked media coverage of the Reagan administration’s decision to pull the US out of Unesco. The publication garnered 5,000 subscribers, he said. In the first half of the 1990s, he edited and wrote profusely for Lies Of Our Times, or LOOT, a weekly journal publishing sharp takedowns of articles appearing in The New York Times. In the following years, Herman continued his critical study of the mainstream press.

Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman