Manufacturing Consent_ The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman [258]
97. Then and now, former dissidents are portrayed as especially valuable experts for the seeming authenticity they can bring to the mistakes of their former associates. The fact that their claims are often fraudulent is not a problem because the mass media refuse to point this out. Thus Jean Lacouture lent credence to his criticisms of the Khmer Rouge by claiming to have been a former sympathizer—not only a falsehood, as he was pro-Sihanouk, but an absurdity, as nothing had been known about the Khmer Rouge. David Horowitz added to his value as a born-again patriot by claiming that along with protesters against the Vietnam War generally, he came “to acquire a new appreciation for foreign tyrants like Kim Il Sung of North Korea” (Peter Collier and David Horowitz, “Confessions of Two New-Left Radicals: Why We Voted for Reagan,” Washington Post National Weekly Edition, April 8, 1985). Robert Leiken became more potent as a critic of the Sandinistas as an alleged former peace-movement activist and early supporter of the Sandinistas. Each of these claims was a fabrication, but this fact went unmentioned in the mass media. On Leiken’s claims, and the “special force” his anti-Sandinista writings gained by his alleged conversion from “fan of the Sandinistas,” see Michael Massing, “Contra Aides,” Mother Jones (October 1987). While dismissing this pretense, Massing credits Leiken’s claim that he “was active in the antiwar movement,” but that is highly misleading. Activists in the Boston area, where he claims to have been an antiwar organizer, recall no participation by Leiken until about 1970—at which time McGeorge Bundy could also have been described as an activist leader.
98. See above, note 55.
99. See “The Business Campaign Against ‘Trial by TV,’” Business Week, June 22, 1980, pp. 77–79; William H. Miller, “Fighting TV Hatchet Jobs,” Industry Week, January 12, 1981, pp. 61–64.
100. See Walter Schneir and Miriam Schneir, “Beyond Westmoreland: The Right’s Attack on the Press,” The Nation, March 30, 1985.
101. An ad widely distributed by United Technologies Corporation, titled “Crooks and Clowns on TV,” is based on the Media Institute’s study entitled Crooks, Conmen and Clowns: Businessmen in TV Entertainment, which contends that businessmen are treated badly in television entertainment programs.
102. John Corry, TV News and the Dominant Culture (Washington: Media Institute), 1986.
103. See S. Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda Lichter, The Media Elite (Bethesda, Md.: Adler & Adler, 1986). For a good discussion of the Lichters’ new center, see Alexander Cockburn, “Ashes and Diamonds,” In These Times, July 8–21, 1987.
104. Louis Wolf, “Accuracy in Media Rewrites News and History,” Covert Action Information Bulletin (Spring 1984), pp. 26–29.
105. AIM’s impact is hard to gauge, but it must be recognized as only a part of a larger corporate–right-wing campaign of attack. It has common funding sources with such components of the conservative labyrinth as AEI, Hoover, the Institute for Contemporary Studies, and others (see Saloma, Ominous Politics, esp. chapters 2, 3, and 6), and has its own special role to play. AIM’s head, Reed Irvine, is a frequent participant in television talk shows, and his letters to the editor and commentary are regularly published in the mass media. The media feel obligated to provide careful responses to his detailed attacks on their news and documentaries, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting even helped fund his group’s reply to the PBS series on Vietnam. His ability to get the