Manufactured consent, anybody...?

Former journalist here.

Spot. On.

Can you recommend primers, explainers, autobiographies, collection of war stories? Something accessible to laypersons like me?

After my own unsuccessful efforts, I started collecting books and articles about lawmaking (legislation). It'd be really great to have similar resources for investigative journalism.

Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky

Various works by many of these individuals: https://freedom.press/about/board/

Hmmm.

I guess what I'm hoping to find is a playbook for how to get stories published. Proven effective methods.

I accept everything I've read from Chomsky and others. But I am still no smarter on what to do about it.

For an analogy, Camp Wellstone teaches how to strategize policy work using tools like Power Maps.

Trump mentions Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, all the time. But of course journalists themselves also have power. The power to decide what information reaches their readers, how it is presented - that is power. Not bossing around mail clerks.

Name one investigative report that was published against the wishes of the hierarchy.

Whereas stories like this are innumerable:

Whistleblowers punished for attempting to report unlawful rBGH in milk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre#Whistleblower_lawsui...

Ronan Farrow’s investigation of Harvey Weinstein was nearly squashed by NBC, where he worked at the time. He had to take it to The New Yorker.

Farrow is a terrific example. He's like the next Seymour Hersh.

Edit: The New Yorker was Hersh's home too. Of course. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh

But journalists do not typically have that power. What stories reach readers and how it is presented is power of the editors and board, like the parent pointed out.

If your bosses don't want a story covered (in a specific way), it's not going in the newspaper.

The workers are always the easy targets.

The software engineers, the police, the journalists etc.

Meanwhile the puppeteers sit behind the curtains pulling the strings creating the system for everyone to be at each other's throats and no one even questions them.