> How do you even measure that?

All this sort of stuff is claimed under Manufacturing Consent. Chomsky's point is often why don't we hear about these other incidents .. because the news isn't balanced and the government is trying to fashion a narrative and they use the media to do this by selectivly choosing what we hear and see.

One of the points of Manufacturing Consent is that it's not necessarily the government directly choosing a narrative (that sometimes does happen, especially through selective leaks) but that the news media itself and the people who end up doing editorial policy are largely aligned with the government to begin with.

It's not that they are aligned with the government, necessarily. Rather, they are aligned with large advertisers, and those tend to be powerful companies and conglomerates with global interests.

Essentially, if you're a media outlet, you'll try hard to not piss off the hand that is feeding you, and Chomsky's assertion is that this is how the media manufactures consent (for all the horrible things the government does to defend the interests of those advertisers abroad).

That is one aspect, but there is even more: in general, people who rise in positions of power, such as editorial positions on major media outlets, or political power, or capital, tend to have similar beliefs and interests. This is because of things like common education institution and social bonds.

Essentially, if your opinions are significantly different from those of most politicians (on the important topics), you're unlikely to rise up through the ranks in most major institutions.

Can you tell me a major news event that I haven't heard about?

For starters: "NSO (Israel) hacked Jamal Kashoggi's contact via WhatsApp & passed whereabouts of Kashoggi to Saudi Arabia which eventually led to his death." I've never heard of this news until I read this thread today, even though it was covered by NYT to some extent.

Not only negative news about some countries don't emerge in the Western society, but also positive news debunking the falsehoods and stereotypes about the "blamed" countries don't show up neither: https://theintercept.com/2019/08/14/trump-iran-worst-lies

A major problem of our global society is that public perception is biased towards the "winners" and we learn the truth, if we are lucky, about their negative impact long after the damage was done. Example: the US invasion on Iraq was based on the false narrative about the weapons of mass destruction. Again, there were some news outlets that were telling the truth, but it was ignored.

You're proabaly up to date with the war in Syria but why not Yemen? Why is Syria vastly more newsworthy than Yemen? Because this is what the column inches suggest.

The Yemeni Civil War makes it appear as if there is very little involvement from the three global superpowers, while the Syrian standoff was worryingly similar to a cold war era proxy war. Also quite close to Europe, thus more important for our media and upcoming elections.

Though with the Syrian conflict dying down, I'd expect others like Yemen to get more attention by filling the "war" slot in media.

Not that I totally disagree with the gist of your comments, but the Syria situation seems much more relevant internationally, with Syria involving direct military actions in of two world powers and a NATO member. Not to say that any of the attrocities are to be ignored...

Just as a non-anecdotal proof [0] that just because it's counter-intuitive doesn't mean it's not correct. Sometimes it's the most obvious absence of evidence that shouts the loudest. Looking at those planes there was absolutely no proof that some parts ever get hit and it would be crazy to even suggest that they do. Based on what evidence?

The US tends to come out with almost no bullet holes from SA and Israel but when one is found it's a howitzer. Every time something related to them really blows up you get to how deep they went and it becomes almost unbelievable to assume there were no signs whatsoever to the US and no reporting could have been done by the media.

WaPo has a vested interest in covering SA especially after Khashoggi and the Bezos blackmail incident. But the US and rest of the media are not as vocal as say when talking about anything related to China or Iran, where every piece of gossip is news, where every allegation becomes a sanction. The point to take from here is that "punishment fitting the crime" seems to be a very fluid concept also at country level and the questions to worry about are "Why are some getting a free pass? What are the strings?".

[0] https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/09/counterintuit...

The Communications Chief of Time Warner and former EVP at News Corporation writes speeches pro bono for the Prime Minister of Israel.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Ginsberg

This is the opposite of the HN I encounter most days. It takes work to keep it that way, and off-hand sarcasm won't get you there.