Reading the Media — Season 1, Episode 3: Noam Chomsky Reads the New York Times
38 min • 1 season, 5 episodes
Episode synopsis
Linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky discusses U.S. foreign policy towards Central America through deconstruction of an article published in The New York Times on the Nicaraguan conflict of the mid-1980s. By examining this article against the reality of the conflict, Chomsky illustrates propagandistic strategies which The New York Times, still perhaps the most regarded English-language newspaper, utilizes in order to support antidemocratic and often violent U.S. foreign policy towards Central America.
About Reading the Media
Founded by a collective of radical media makers in 1981, Paper Tiger Television pioneered edutainment. Broadcast on public access television, the collective took a grassroots, DIY approach to media production that showcased how television was made through television, while critiquing corporate media and attempting to build a more equitable form of moving image. As one of the founders put it: “It is one thing to critique the mass media and rail against their abuses. It is quite another to create viable alternatives.” Punk and experimental, Paper Tiger Television was such an alternative. The series, Reading the Media, featured all manner of intellectuals, artists, and activists analyzing, and satirizing newspapers, magazines, and even cigarette ads to decipher their hidden codes, messages, and ideologies.