Manufacturing Consent_ The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman [122]
Initially, the other major media performed quite uniformly in the same mold—uncritical, trivial, working solely within the bounds of the SHK model, and entirely bypassing all the hard but obvious questions raised by the “alternative” model. Of the thirty-two news articles on, or closely related to, the plot that appeared in the New York Times between November 1, 1982, and January 31, 1983, twelve had no news content whatever but were reports of somebody’s opinion or speculation about the case—or refusal to speculate about the issue. (The Times carried one news article whose sole content was that President Reagan had “no comment” on the case.) More typical was the front-page article by Henry Kamm, “Bonn is Fearful of Bulgaria Tie with Terrorists” (Dec. 12, 1982), or Bernard Gwertzman’s “U.S. Intrigued But Uncertain on a Bulgarian Tie” (Dec. 26, 1982). In “news report” after news report, unnamed individuals are “intrigued,” their interest is “piqued,” evidence is said to be “not wholly convincing,” or “final proof is still lacking.” Four of the news articles in the Times were on peripheral subjects such as smuggling in Bulgaria or papal-Soviet relations. Of the sixteen more direct news items, only one covered a solid news fact—namely, Antonov’s arrest in Rome. The other fifteen news items were trivia, such as Kamm’s “Bulgarians Regret Tarnished Image” (Jan. 27, 1983), or another Kamm piece entitled “Italian Judge Inspects Apartment of Suspect in Bulgarian Case” (Jan. 12, 1983). All of these expressions of opinion, doubts, interest, suppositions, and minor detail served to produce a lot of smoke—which kept the issue of possible Soviet involvement before the public. They steered quite clear of substantive issues that bore on motives, quality of evidence, and Turkish and Italian context.
During the years that followed, to the end of the trial in March 1986, the mass media, with only minor exceptions, adhered closely and uncritically to the SHK framework.26 They not only failed to press alternative questions, they also refused to examine closely the premises, logic, or evidence supporting the SHK case. Part of the reason for this was the media’s extraordinary reliance on Sterling and Henze as sources (and Kalb’s position as a news reporter on NBC-TV), and their unwillingness to ask these sources probing questions.
4.5. BIASED SOURCING
Sterling and Henze, and to a lesser extent Michael Ledeen, dominated perceptions of the Bulgarian Connection in the U.S. mass media to a remarkable degree. Moreover, they affected the course of events in Italy, as their version of Bulgarian guilt was aired in the Italian media before Agca named the Bulgarians and may have influenced Martella as well.27 Sterling and Henze dominated media coverage by virtue of the very wide distribution of their articles and books on the case, and by their extensive and uncritical use as experts by the elite press, news magazines, and television news and talk shows.28 Sterling, in addition to her Reader’s Digest article, had three substantial pieces in the Wall Street Journal and several articles in the New York Times. Her views were given repeated airing on CBS News, without rebuttal. Henze accounted for twelve of the fourteen articles on the Bulgarian Connection case in the Christian Science Monitor between September 1982 and May 1985, and his articles were used widely elsewhere. The only opinion piece on the Bulgarian Connection that appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer during that same period was by Michael Ledeen. Sterling, Henze, and Ledeen together accounted for 76 percent of the time in three