Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance. Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.

    Gellhorn's ability to get to the truth of a situation heard makes her writing transcend the short shelf life of most reportage.

    It's very instructive about the way Washington still works. For instance, Brinkley tells us that in September 1941, while FDR was still wavering about where to put the military's new headquarters building, an Army general told the contractor to get started. By the time Roosevelt found out about this a month later, the foundations for the Pentagon had already been put in place.

    This is the era in which Roosevelt and Matisse die, Françoise Sagan bursts on the literary scene, and Josephine Baker stages a comeback. Index.

    The torture-murder of Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1985, is still an unresolved case.

    Murrow (1908-65) virtually invented modern radio & television journalism. He served, in turn, as CBS's European director, war correspondent, vice president & director of public affairs, news analyst, producer & broadcaster of the groundbreaking See It Now & Person to Person tv programs, & director of the US Information Agency. His name has become synonymous for quality, courage & integrity in broadcast journalism. Whether reporting from the rooftops of London during the blitz & at the gates of Buchenwald by war's end or exposing Senator Joseph McCarthy on See It Now, Murrow's broadcasts (the best of which have been collected in In Search of Light, available from Da Capo Press) shaped the way the American public saw the world. Edward R. Murrow reveals the exciting events behind his provocative reporting while letting readers witness the inner life of a legendary journalist. Like its subject, this biography sets the standard.

    Portraying a world both visceral and majestic, Deep Enough for Ivorybills establishes Kilgo not only in the sporting lineage of Robert Ruark and William Faulkner but also in the naturalist tradition of Annie Dillard and Loren Eisley.

    Much of it has been collected between the covers of this well-packed book. Since these pieces originally appeared in journals as wide-ranging as the TLS, Grand Street, Harper's, Mother Jones, The Nation & Spectator, only the most avid admirer would be likely to have come across them all. In addition to the predictable, eloquent Reagan-bashing, there are thoughtful essays on Paul Scott & his Raj Quartet, the contradictions of George Orwell, the Brideshead phenomenon, that very independent-minded Israeli Professor Israel Shahak, Conor Cruise O'Brien, even something as up-to-date as a perceptive review of Bonfire of the Vanities. Hitchens writes clearly, from a well-stocked mind, & is free of the cant that affects many political journalists. Why the kinds of views that he & his very kindred spirit Alexander Cockburn express so well never receive an airing on TV, where they'd reach a much wider audience, remains a source of shame to a supposedly free medium. In any case, book & magazine readers can feel fortunate that publishers suffer no such self-imposed restraints. -- Publishers Weekly

    During those four years, she took covert notes, bearing witness to the rise of Hitler and the German people's adulation of him. In 1938, security agents intercepted a portion of her manuscript en route to publishers in London and she and her husband were given 24 hours to leave Germany. She rewrote the book in England and when it became a bestseller in America, Himmler seized the children of Waln's friends. She offered herself in exchange for their freedom, but Himmler would only consent if she promised not to write about Germany, an offer which Waln refused.

    Journalist Alanna Nash speaks in candid interviews with performers about Nashville's music industry, changes in the country audience over the past thirty years, and their own releationships to their music. Nash's interviews showcase the diversity of the performers (from college-educated professionals to ex-convicts) and their audiences. Interviewees include Tammy Wynette, Merle Haggard, Brenda Lee, Reba McEntire, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Conway Twitty, Naomi and Wynonna Judd, Bill Monroe, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Hank Williams Jr., Chet Atkins, and Willie Nelson.

    

    In this collection of four new and thirty-one previously published essays, the author offers his observations on a remarkably broad range of topics, including life, love, marriage, children, suffering, the city, and isolation

    This portrait of a city and an era is drawn from the the author's celebrated "Letter from Paris," a series that appeared in The New Yorker from 1925 to 1975 over the signature "Genêt." Edited by William Shawn; Index.

    

    A retrospective of England's underground culture of the 1960s, through the recollections and reflections of 101 people who were part of it.

    A Gathering of Saints is an astonishing report on one of this century's most puzzling, cunningly executed crimes. 16 pages of photos.