Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> ylle521 at highstream.net wrote:
> >
> > Chomsky has been warring with the NYT for decades, but he still reads
> > it religiously. Carrol seems to be saying the Times, and newspapers
> > in general, likely have no (positive?) influence or effect because
> > they don't reach the masses.
>
> For the record, Carrol has made no general or analytic statement at all
> about what newspapers do and do not do. He questioned what one
> particular story in the NYT did or didn't do?
I have copied my original post below.
I clearly didn't say they did not reach the masses. Rather I specified the way in which they reached the masses (if they did). I did deny that newspapers could have much effect on a specific issue at a specific time. I'm awaiting some actual evidence to the contrary. And that Chomsky reads it is not to the purpose of this discussion. I would read it cover to cover every day if I were attempting to write the books Chomsky writes, because those books depend on convicting the 'establishment' out of its own mouth. That is the right way to go about it. That is my reason for attacking conspiracy theories so viciously -- they fuck up politics by depending on abstruse sorts of evidence which even if accurate only confuses things and serves reaction.
I don't have to read the NYT because Chomsky has synthesized everything of any importance in it.
Carrol
Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> Michael Pollak wrote:
> >
> > By NYT standards, this is a very decent editorial. Now if they could only
> > put this on the first page where it belonged, there might be hope for
> > American journalism. But of course there's the rub: they can't.
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/opinion/28thu1.html
> >
> > Which is a large part of why the bill will pass -- because w/o this on the
> > front page, all the reams of coverage are worse than white noise -- they're
> > normalizing white noise, legitimizing white noise.
>
> Just out of curiosity:
>
> 1. What percentage of the entire u.s. electorate (not to speak of the
> other half of the population) reads as much as the headlines on the
> front page of the NYT?
>
> 2. hat percentage of the entire u.s. electorate (not to speak of the
> other half of the population) reads as much as the headlines on the
> front page of _any_ newspaper?
>
> I would think that newspapers make a difference, if they do make a
> difference, only collectively, over a considerable amount of time, on
> general response to the world, but make no difference whatever on
> specific issues on a specific occasion. It would be interesting to try
> to formulate The Message which u.s. papers, collectively, over periods
> of years or decades, issue. That formulation would be the answer to the
> question, "What difference do newspapers make?"