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From the ZNet web site:
Edward Herman is a Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, an economist and media analyst, with a specialty in corporate and regulatory issues as well as political economy and the media. He is the author of numerous books, including Corporate Control, Corporate Power (1981), Demonstration Elections (1984, with Frank Brodhead), The Real Terror Network (1982), Manufacturing Consent (1988, with Noam Chomsky), Triumph of the Market (1995), and The Global Media (1997, with Robert McChesney). He is just going to press with The Myth of The Liberal Media: an Edward Herman Reader (1999).
Edward Herman is a frequent commentator on both domestic politics and foreign policy. His book "Manufacturing Consent", co-authored with Noam Chomsky, is an insightful analysis of the means by which the "free press" is controlled by the political and economic elite for their own purposes. Recently, Prof Herman has written an article published by Z Magazine entitled The New York Times Versus The Civil Society in which he comments on the role of the New York Times in promoting "establishment ends". From the article:
Of course the media defend their heavy and largely uncritical dependence on the primary definers for news on the ground that they make the news and define the reality, so that giving them the floor is justified on grounds of inherent relevance. What this ignores is that the media may be helping these primary sources accomplish their goals by serving as conduits of assertions and claims that may be false, misleading, and designed to manipulate the public; effectively, by allowing themselves to be managed. Substantive, as opposed to nominal, objectivity calls for examining and possibly contesting these claims, providing valid information to the public, and serving as watch-dogs rather than lap-dogs. Regrettably, we have moved into the age of the lap-dog, nowhere more clearly than in the case of the New York Times.
Prof Herman also writes for inkywatch.org, which "monitors the Philadelphia Inquirer for bias and deception."
Of related interest is the article How The Liberal Media Myth Is Created on eRiposte.
Last night, at about midnight Pacific time, Stanley Tookie Williams was executed in California. (Democracy Now has covered this story extensively, including today's show) From Democracy Now:
He was 51 years old. A co-founder of one of the country's most notorious street gangs, the Crips, Williams spent 24 years on death row after being convicted of four murders. During this period he became a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, children's author and a vocal advocate against gang violence. He maintained his innocence up until his death. Williams' fate was sealed Monday afternoon when California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected a final appeal for clemency.
There was tremendous outporing of support for Williams, including demands that Schwarzenegger grant clemency. In a written statement explaining his rejection of clemency, Schwarzenegger explained that the dedication in Williams' children's book indicated that Williams had not renounced violence. This was because the dedication included some other notorious prisioners on death row. The irony of using this as an excuse for using the ultimate violence seems to have escaped the Governator.
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