With all that ideological money, institutional heft, coordination, and credentialing, the right has perfected what the CIA used to call a "mighty Wurlitzer" -- a propaganda machine that can hone a fact or a lie, broadcast it, and have it echoed and recycled in Fox News commentary, in Washington Times news stories, in Wall Street Journal editorials, by myriad right-wing pundits, by Heritage seminars and briefing papers, and in congressional hearings and speeches. Privatization of Social Security, vouchers for school, Vince Foster's supposed murder, Hillary's secret sex life, you name it -- the right's mighty Wurlitzer can ensure that a message is broadcast across the county, echoed in national and local news, and reverberated in the speeches of respectable academics as well as rabid politicians

Article by David Borosage in the American Prospect Online

For related reading, see the following reviews:

Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth
by Joe Conason

Amazon.com review excerpt:

Conservative talk show hosts and newspaper columnists have made an industry out of incessantly deriding the American left, citing liberals for everything from moral decay to bad economic policy to a soft approach on terrorism. Often these accusations are bound in book form and sell quite well. Only one problem, according to Salon.com and New York Observer writer Joe Conason: the charges they're leveling just aren't true. In Big Lies, Conason dissects 10 of the most persistent, and--according to him--glaringly incorrect, arguments made by conservatives. Each chapter begins with a quotation ("Liberals control the media and misuse their influence to promote left-wing politics," "Conservatives are the only true champions of free enterprise"), which is then picked apart using statistical evidence and detailed historical research and rejected. The modern right wing, in the opinion of Conason, is not the bastion of virtue and defender of the common man it claims to be. Rather, it is a calculating and shrewdly efficient group of propagandists fueled by revenues generated by a system that rewards cronyism. Granted, it doesn't take much to deflate the bombast of shrill political talk show hosts whose very living depends on making shocking accusations about public figures, a couple of raw facts usually does the trick, but Conason offers more than simple refutation, going deeper to challenge the presumptions that generate such platitudes.

What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News
by Eric Alterman

Amazon.com review excerpt:

Much of Alterman's argument comes down to this: the conservatives in the newspapers, television, talk radio, and the Republican party are lying about liberal bias and repeating the same lies long enough that they've taken on a patina of truth. Further, the perception of such a bias has cowed many media outlets into presenting more conservative opinions to counterbalance a bias, which does not, in fact, exist, says Alterman.

Better yet, read the books. While you're at it, pay attention to those troubling facts which help refute the lies.

Finally, finish your reading with This is Your Brain on Propaganda by Maureen Farrell at BuzzFlash.com.

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One of the biggest lies eminating from the Mighty Wurlitzer is the notion that the media is liberal. Far from being liberal, the media instead trumpets a relentless chorus of right-wing propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation meant to mislead the hapless masses who cling to the misguided notion that our vaunted Free Press is telling them the truth.

...the biggest of the big lies the Right has repeated ad nauseum, to the point where the gullible and ill informed have actually bought them. The very notion that the media, owned by conservative international corporations would be liberal is absurd.

Indeed the media serves interests which coincide with those of the Military-Industrial Complex, so we should hardly be surprised that it is not going to tell us all the truth, all the time.

As always, the telling question is cui bono? - who profits? The simple fact of the matter is that war is good for business. Can there be any surprise - or doubt - which masters the media serve?

S