Michael: Everyone argues about whether the news is biased left or right. We see it online, at the family dinner table... it's the default debate. Kevin: Absolutely. It’s the entire political spectator sport. Is this channel too conservative? Is that paper too liberal? Michael: What if that’s the wrong debate entirely? The most powerful bias in media might not be political, but economic—a system designed to make you agree with the powerful, without you even noticing. Kevin: Huh. That’s a bold claim. You’re saying we’re all looking in the wrong direction. Michael: That's the explosive idea at the heart of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. Kevin: A classic. And it's fascinating that one of the authors, Herman, wasn't a journalist but a finance professor at Wharton. He came at this from the money side, looking at the corporate structure. Michael: Exactly. And that unique perspective, combining finance with Chomsky's political analysis, earned them the Orwell Award. They argued the media functions as a propaganda system, not through some grand conspiracy, but through the basic, boring mechanics of business. Kevin: So no secret meetings in smoke-filled rooms, just... spreadsheets and corporate policy? Michael: Precisely. And they lay out exactly how it works with something they call the Propaganda Model.

Kevin: Okay, Propaganda Model. It sounds a little intense, a little conspiratorial, which is a criticism I know the book has faced. How does it actually work? Michael: It’s surprisingly straightforward. The model proposes five filters that news has to pass through before it ever gets to us. The first one is the most obvious: Ownership. The dominant media outlets are massive corporations. Kevin: Right, owned by even more massive parent companies. We’re talking about a handful of conglomerates controlling what most people see and hear. Michael: And these corporations have a primary goal that overrides everything else: profit. They are beholden to shareholders and the bottom line. This isn't a public service; it's a business. That simple fact immediately sets the parameters for what kind of news gets produced. Kevin: I can see that. But how does the second filter, Advertising, play into this? I always thought advertisers just want as many eyeballs as possible. They don't care what the content is, as long as people are watching. Michael: That’s the common misconception. The book argues that for the media, the real product isn't the news they sell to you; the real product is you, the audience, which they sell to advertisers. And advertisers are very picky customers. Kevin: What do you mean picky? Michael: They don't just want any eyeballs; they want the right eyeballs. They want affluent audiences in a positive, consumption-oriented frame of mind. This means a media outlet that produces challenging, deeply critical, or depressing content about systemic problems is going to be a much harder sell for a luxury car or a new smartphone. Kevin: Ah, so it creates a subtle pressure. Don't make the readers or viewers feel too bad about the state of the world, because they might not want to go shopping afterwards. Michael: Exactly. It creates an environment where light, entertaining, or pro-business content is inherently more valuable. It also explains why working-class or radical newspapers have always struggled. They can’t attract the big-ticket advertisers. This leads us to the third filter: Sourcing. Kevin: Where the news actually comes from. Michael: Think about the economics of a newsroom. They have limited staff, limited time, and a constant demand for content. Where do they go? They station reporters at the White House, the Pentagon, police headquarters, and corporate headquarters. Kevin: The places where news is guaranteed to happen. Michael: More than that, these institutions have massive public relations budgets dedicated to feeding the media a steady stream of information—press releases, official statements, expert reports. They are, in effect, subsidizing the news. It's cheap, reliable, and pre-packaged. A small, independent group trying to challenge a government narrative has to fight tooth and nail for a sliver of attention. Kevin: That makes so much sense. The path of least resistance for a journalist on a deadline is to report the official statement. It’s credible, it’s available, and it won't get you in trouble. Michael: Which brings us to the fourth filter: Flak. Kevin: Flak? What exactly is 'flak'? Is that just getting angry comments on Twitter? Michael: It's the sophisticated, weaponized version of that. Flak is negative, organized response. When a media outlet or a journalist publishes a story that is inconvenient for a powerful interest, that interest can unleash a storm. We're talking about letters, lawsuits, congressional complaints, and campaigns from corporate-funded think tanks or "media watchdog" groups. Kevin: So it’s a disciplinary mechanism. Michael: A very effective one. It’s costly and time-consuming to defend against. Over time, editors and journalists learn which stories will generate a massive flak response and which won't. It creates a powerful incentive to self-censor, to avoid stepping on the wrong toes. Kevin: Okay, so we have Ownership, Advertising, Sourcing, and Flak. What’s the fifth and final filter? Michael: The fifth filter is Ideology. When the book was written in the late '80s, the authors called it "Anticommunism." It was the national religion, the ultimate control mechanism. Any person or policy could be discredited by linking them to communism. Kevin: And today? Communism isn't the same boogeyman. Michael: Right, but the filter adapts. Today, you could call it "The War on Terror," or a belief in "free market" principles, or any overarching national ideology that sets the bounds of acceptable thought. It’s the air everyone breathes, the unquestioned consensus. If a story challenges that core ideology, it's immediately framed as radical, naive, or unpatriotic. It's the ultimate trump card. Kevin: Wow. So when you put all five together, it's a pretty formidable system. It’s not one person making a decision to censor something. It’s a series of structural pressures that collectively shape the news so that, by the time it reaches us, it’s already been molded to support the status quo. Michael: That's the core of the model. It’s a system of self-censorship where everyone acts rationally within the constraints of the system. And the results of this filtering process are, frankly, chilling when you see them in action.

Kevin: Okay, that model is a powerful framework. It's a bit abstract, though. How does it actually play out? Does it create a tangible difference in the stories we see? Michael: It creates a night-and-day difference. And the most chilling example from the book is the concept of "Worthy and Unworthy Victims." The theory is that the media will treat victims of atrocities completely differently based on their political utility. Kevin: Political utility? That sounds cold. Michael: It is. Let me tell you a story from the book. In 1984, a Polish Catholic priest named Jerzy Popieluszko was brutally murdered by the secret police of Poland's communist government. Kevin: I can already see where this is going. A priest, murdered by communists during the Cold War. That's a headline that writes itself. Michael: It was a massive international story. The U.S. media covered it with intense, sustained, and righteous indignation. There were front-page stories, editorials, deep dives into the brutality of the communist regime. Popieluszko became a martyr, a symbol of freedom against tyranny. He was a "Worthy Victim." Kevin: Because his story served a clear foreign policy goal: to highlight the evil of a U.S. enemy. Michael: Precisely. Now, let's look at the other side of the coin. During that exact same period, in U.S. client states in Latin America—countries like El Salvador and Guatemala, whose right-wing governments were heavily funded and supported by the U.S.—a similar, but much larger, tragedy was unfolding. Kevin: What happened there? Michael: It wasn't one priest. It was an Archbishop, Oscar Romero, gunned down while saying Mass. It was four American churchwomen who were raped and murdered by Salvadoran National Guardsmen. In total, the book documents over one hundred religious figures who were assassinated by U.S.-backed forces in Latin America during that time. Kevin: A hundred? Including an Archbishop? That’s horrifying. The coverage must have been overwhelming. Michael: It was the opposite. Near total silence. The book provides the data, and it's staggering. For the single murder of Father Popieluszko in Poland, the New York Times, Time, and Newsweek ran a combined total of 149 articles. For the one hundred religious victims in Latin America, including Archbishop Romero? A tiny fraction of that. Kevin: Wait, let me get this straight. One murder by an official enemy gets endless, front-page coverage. A hundred murders by official friends get... a footnote? Michael: That's the propaganda model in its starkest form. The victims in Latin America were "Unworthy Victims." Their deaths were not politically useful. In fact, they were deeply inconvenient because they exposed the brutality of the regimes the U.S. was propping up. Kevin: So let's run this through the filters. The sourcing for the Latin American story would have to come from human rights groups, not the U.S. government, which was trying to downplay it. Michael: Correct. And any journalist who pushed the story too hard would face immense flak from the Reagan administration, which was trying to secure funding for these regimes. They'd be accused of being soft on communism. Kevin: And the overarching ideology was anti-communism, so the crimes of communists were the only ones that truly mattered. The crimes of anti-communists, no matter how brutal, were swept under the rug. Michael: It's a perfect, tragic illustration. The media didn't need an order from the government to ignore the unworthy victims. The structure of the system—the five filters—ensured it would happen automatically. The story of their deaths was filtered out before it could ever generate widespread public outrage. Kevin: That is deeply unsettling. It means our sense of global morality, our very empathy, is being curated for us based on political agendas. We're being taught who to cry for. Michael: And just as importantly, who to ignore.

Kevin: So this whole model... it's not a conspiracy theory, is it? It's just... the system working as designed. The incentives all line up to produce this outcome. Michael: Exactly. Herman and Chomsky's core point is that you don't need a secret meeting in a smoke-filled room. The economic structure of the media naturally manufactures consent for the powerful. The bias is baked into the business model, not just the political leanings of a few journalists. Kevin: And it makes you realize the most important news might be the stories you never hear. The patterns of silence are more revealing than the headlines. The murder of one priest becomes a global tragedy, while the murder of a hundred others becomes a non-event. Michael: It forces you to become a more active, more critical consumer of information. It's not just about fact-checking what's there; it's about investigating what isn't there. Kevin: That’s a powerful thought to leave our listeners with. It completely reframes how I'll look at the news tonight. Michael: It forces you to ask a really uncomfortable question every time you consume news: Whose voice is missing here? And why? Kevin: A question we should all be asking. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Does this model still hold up today in the age of social media and citizen journalism? Find us on our socials and let us know what you think. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.