To facilitate understanding, I think the point was that Bremmer’s Eurasia Group is not a media outlet, far less a
mass media outlet, it’s a consulting firm using media outreach for business purposes. (Though its “GZero” subsidiary would be a tiny media outlet, with the same goal of advertising Eurasia Group’s consulting services.) Hence Bremmer’s/Eurasia Group’s
media appearances do not constitute mass media attention to the Hersh story. The glaring lack of which was the focus of the RS article.
As the author of the attached book, it bothers me immensely that the media-politics relationship is finally getting a lot of attention – seemingly since the start of the Trumpocene – but it’s overwhelmingly naïve, innocent of the vast literature
on political economy of media. (Not to mention social and political psychology, which is the only real added value in my book – I merely summarized a lot of the political economy of media literature, rather than adding anything new.) Public service media like
the BBC/PBS get minimal audiences in the US; but more than the even smaller audiences that tune into RT or read the Greyzone. They’re all part of the media, but they’re not
mass media – only radio, national newspapers, broadcast and cable TV, and their internet offshoots reach a mass audience.
The worst form of this media naivete to me is the taboo imposed on ideologically dissonant media outlets (in the U.S., none of them are
mass media outlets), as if they contain some kind of black magic capable of brainwashing audiences. Best to protect our delicate brains by ignoring such outlets, maybe even banning them outright. At the very least: reflexively assume that anything contained
within them is entirely false, down to their weather reports. In a media system appropriate to a democracy – a media system that in my view is a
sine qua non of democracy itself – the perspectives offered on such outlets, and the evidence on which these perspectives are based, would be in constant debate and discussion with the dominant perspectives on offer in mass media outlets: the outlets
tens of millions, rather than tens of thousands, actually use to inform themselves.
Couldn’t put it better than Judge Learned Hand: “The First Amendment … presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many this is, and
will always be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all.” I’d only add that “authoritative selection” comes in many forms; not just government selection, but selection via audience demand, advertiser demand, or groupthink. We
have staked upon it our all; only problem is, we don’t have it.
Best,
Peter
Peter Beattie
Assistant Professor; Assistant Programme Director, MSSc in Global Political Economy
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
+852 3943 9794
www.beatt.ie
Social Evolution, Political Psychology, and the Media in Democracy:
The Invisible Hand in the U.S. Marketplace of Ideas
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030028008
From: Salon <salon-bounces@listserve.com> On Behalf Of
Edward Hughes via Salon
Sent: Friday, February 17, 2023 3:10 AM
To: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>; Buddy Nicklin <walter@rappnews.com>; Kelley Vlahos <vlahos@quincyinst.org>; Chas Freeman <salon@listserve.com>
Subject: [Suspicious URL]Re: [Salon] The Sy Hersh Effect
I don't understand. Most media in the world, besides those publicly funded corporations like BBC, RAI and PBC and outside of outlets under authoritarian regimes, are "for-profit." You post extensively from
RT, Sputnik and other Russian government organs whose independence has to be shaded by restrictions imposed by the government they serve. Hersh made his bones (Mai Lai, Abu Ghraib) while working for a "for-profit" organization. You also publish extensively
from Greyzone and Moon Over Alabama that are blogging sites not usually considered part of the "media".
I would think highlighting disagreeing perspectives on Hersh's important article would be a highly desirable aspect of widening the "Overton Window".