‘It is a bitter irony of source journalism … that the most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. Unofficial information, or leaks, give the impression of investigative journalism, but are often strategic manoeuvres on the part of those with position or power (Ricci 1993: 99). In return for this loyalty, their sources occasionally give them good stories, leaks and access to special interviews. Otherwise they risk losing them as sour ces of information. Journalists who have access to highly placed government and corporate sources have to keep them on their side by not reporting anything adverse about them or their organizations. The job of media is not to inform, but to misinform: Divert public attention from important issues and changes decided by the political and economic elites, by the technique of flood or continuous flood of distractions and insignificant information. Issues such as garbage and sewage sludge only get coverage, despite their importance, when there is a fight over the siting of a landfill or incinerator and the coverage is then on the ‘anger and anguish of affected citizens, or the conflicting claims of corporate spokesmen, government regulators and environmental activists’ rather than the issues and technical background to them (Gersh 1992: 16).

The journalistic tendency to balance stories with two opposing views leads to a tendency to ‘build stories around a confrontation between protagonists and antagonists’ (Ricci 1993: 95).

Media control by noam chomsky