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With help from none other than Hugo Chavez, who praised Chomsky's work in Chavez's red hot U.N. speech, Noam Chomsky is back in the forefront of political discourse.

As valuable as the books are that Chavez helped skyrocket to bestsellers long after their publication, BuzzFlash has wanted for sometime to offer the DVD documentary, "Manufacturing Consent."

This riveting film is based on a book that Chomsky co-authored which nailed why the American media enables the propaganda and spin of the status quo (and especially the Republican Party, which is the primary party representing the corporate world.)

"Presenting an analysis its authors call the 'propaganda model,' the book argues that since mass media news outlets are now run by large corporations, they are under the same competitive pressures as other corporations. According to the book, the pressure to create a stable, profitable business invariably distorts the kinds of news items reported, as well as the manner and emphasis in which they are reported. This occurs not as a result of conscious design but simply as a consequence of market selection: those businesses who happen to favor profits over news quality survive, while those that present a more accurate picture of the world tend to become marginalized.

The book further points out issues with the dependency of mass media news outlets upon major sources of news, particularly the government. If a particular outlet is in disfavor with a government, it can be subtly 'shut out,' and other outlets given preferential treatment. Since this results in a loss in news leadership, it can also result in a loss of readership/viewership. That can itself result in a loss of advertising revenue, which is the primary income for most of the mass media (newspapers, magazines, television). To minimize the possibilities of lost revenue, therefore, outlets will tend to report news in a tone more favorable to the government and giving unfavorable news about the government less emphasis."

The amazing thing is that the book was written in 1988, and this documentary first made in the early '90s. It was released as a DVD, with extras, in 2002.

Watching it, however, we found it as eye-opening as if it were produced yesterday. It provides a full context as to why the corporate media has become a megaphone for politicans who can improve the earnings of the corporation, however damaging their "news negligence" is to the nation and the world. The real news is far down on the list of their concerns.

"This film showcases Noam Chomsky, one of America's leading linguists and political dissidents. It also illustrates his message of how government and big media businesses cooperate to produce an effective propaganda machine in order to manipulate the opinions of the United States populous."

A review from the Austin Chronicle heaps praise upon the documentary: "As the title suggests, this nearly three-hour long documentary focuses on the work of MIT linguistics professor Chomsky, a man who is not only one of the most brilliant intellectuals of our time, but also a strident political activist, so much so that he has been more or less sidelined by the press and his colleagues for his (seemingly) radical viewpoints. As this engrossing, exciting film reveals, though, there's really nothing radical about Chomsky's ideas in the first place: he's simply honest enough to call our attention to the obvious flaws in the American system of living and offer examples of how we might, well, fix things. Chomsky's theories of “intellectual self-defense,” that is, the notion that people must arm themselves with both knowledge and cogent thinking in order to take the country back from its current, less-than-glorious state, sounds so obvious that it's a wonder anyone should even have to bring up the idea in the first place. Split into two halves with an intermission in the middle, directors Achbar and Wintonick wisely include ample footage of Chomsky's critics (a piece with William F. Buckley is especially sardonic, what with Chomsky's Everyman armor repelling the unctuous, vitriolic barbs the columnist sends his way), as well as endless scenes of the Master Linguist speaking in crowded lecture halls and to journalists around the world. This is not to say that the film is in any way boring, it's far too well-assembled to be that. In fact, as far as “educational” documentaries go, this may be one of the best. Not only is it consistently entertaining and occasionally downright hilarious, it honestly makes you think. What more could a documentary do?"


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