The Unseen Lies: Journalism As Propaganda
BY JOHN PILGER
DATELINE August 8, 2007
WITH A BONUS PIECE BY ERIC ALTERMAN (THE NATION)
The truth about most modern journalism: You first become a career media worker, you start climbing the ladder, and then you prostitute yourself. It’s as common as it’s straightforward.
The following is a transcript of a talk given by John Pilger at Socialism 2007 Conference in Chicago this past June:
The title of this talk is Freedom Next Time, which is the title of my book, and the book is meant as an antidote to the propaganda that is so often disguised as journalism. So I thought I would talk today about journalism, about war by journalism, propaganda, and silence, and how that silence might be broken. Edward Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, wrote about an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. He was referring to journalism, the media. That was almost 80 years ago, not long after corporate journalism was invented. It is a history few journalist talk about or know about, and it began with the arrival of corporate advertising. As the new corporations began taking over the press, something called “professional journalism” was invented. To attract big advertisers, the new corporate press had to appear respectable, pillars of the establishment-objective, impartial, balanced. The first schools of journalism were set up, and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around the professional journalist. The right to freedom of expression was associated with the new media and with the great corporations, and the whole thing was, as Robert McChesney put it so well, “entirely bogus”. [Read more →]
