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Are the news media manufacturing consent for Elizabeth Warren?
By Kent R. Kroeger (September 27, 2019)
Acknowledging the news media is largely responsible for turning Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren’s into the leading challenger to Joe Biden in no way suggests she is not worthy. She is.
But it also reminds us that underestimating the power of the news media to play political kingmaker is unwise.
Some social theorists have even suggested that the nation’s most powerful elites control the political process by manufacturing consent through their control of the mass media.
Using the oft-cited Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky definition, manufacturing consent is the acceptance of government policies by citizens on the basis of incomplete information provided by the mass media; and, denying them access to conflicting information that might challenge the views of those in power.
No conspiracy theory is required in claiming that the cable news networks are manufacturing consent for the ascension of Warren to the Democratic presidential nomination. And we would be having this conversation about Kamala Harris instead, had it not been for the Tulsi Gabbard-spun black hole Harris disappeared into at the 2nd Democratic debate. The news media can make candidates overnight, and kick them to the gutter just as…
