See, this is why I call CNN the Chicken Noodle Network:
Anderson Cooper is shocked, SHOCKED to learn that his fellow CNNer, Jessica Yellin, who worked for a time at ABC, was pressured by network execs during her ABC days not to do hard-hitting pieces on the war, the White House, and its scurrying cockroach inhabitants.
Why so shocked, AC? Journalists face this kind of pressure all the time in the corporate media. Remember Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, who used to work for FOX in the “hard-hitting investigation” mode? They did a story on the dangers of bovine growth hormone, and suffered tremendous corporate pressure from Monsanto, the maker of the dangerous (and highly profitable–for them) Posilac BGH–first to shut up, then to alter their story, and when that failed, to get the network to take them off the air altogether. That last one did it; it also turned into one hell of a court battle. It was the most visible, and acrimonious, example of how Corporate America effectively silences the media whenever it gets too close to the bone on anything you’re not supposed to examine more closely. You’re not supposed to read the fine print, Citizen–you’re just supposed to buy, eat, and shut up.
Same goes for the war. You’re not supposed to know how this war is as bad for the Iraqis as Posilac is for cattle and humans. You’re just supposed to buy it, eat it up, shut up–and applaud on Pavlovian cue when the sign lights up.
I’m sure the Chicken Noodles in the network alphabet soup are also shocked by this latest development. Former White House flack Simple Scotty has written a tell-all, and suddenly he’s an unperson:
It’s hardly surprising the White House attack machine would furiously mobilize to turn Scott McClellan into a pariah. Now that he’s off message, he never existed.
Dana Perino, who graces McClellan’s old podium, issued a statement calling him “disgruntled” and wondering what happened to “the Scott we knew.”
Well, it stands to reason that Moonunit Perino is shocked, SHOCKED, too. She’s highly paid to be just that–shocked by the truth, and eager to cover it up (with her trademark high-speed babble) at all costs, lest she, too, end up an unperson like Simple Scotty, the man who probably said “I dunno” more than anyone else in the history of the White House Press Room. Now we know why he said it–it was the only thing he COULD say without blurting out the truth.
You can’t tell the truth, Citizen–there’s a war on! If you can’t stay on message, don’t give any message at all, lest you become an unperson, too.
Indeed, folks like Jessica and Scott are intelligent–but the pressures and the perks are so great they simply become willfully ignorant/complicit that they just comply with the pressure.
To her credit, she does understand the modes through which this pressure is engaged.
As a student of Chomsky, Parenti, and Zinn since the mid-1990’s I was effectively innoculated–the propaganda appeared to be what it was.
However, I meet people all the time (professionals) that fall for corporate propaganda as a matter of course.
Chomsky’s propaganda model is as cogent as it ever was.