Special Reports

Toward Freedom is in Caracas at the World Social Forum to organize a panel on the hopes and challenges of independent media, to participate in the forum’s events and learn more about Venezuela’s political process. On this page we’ll be posting regular dispatches and photos from this experience.

12/30: Fireworks, Politics, Globalized Stew

1/25: The Social Architecture of Caracas

1/25: Information on Panelists, Time and Location of Toward Freedom’s Panel on Independent Media  read more

Mass Media, Globalization, and the Public Mind

Q: How important is it for the mass media, to control the public mind?

CHOMSKY: We always have to ask: important for whom? For the public, it’s important that they not control the public mind. For the public, it’s important for them to prepare, to present a free arena for discussion and debate and an honest acount, as much as one can, of issues that are important and significant. But that’s for the public. For the media themselves, that is the owners, the managers, their market, which is advertisers, and other power systems in the society, control of the public mind is extremely important. read more

Anti-war TV challenges the corporate media “consensus”

By March 19, the major TV networks had done their advance work well. After months of promotion, millions of US viewers were eagerly anticipating a prime time extravaganza. Anxious for the catharsis of a neatly crushed Iraqi military, they watched with “shock and awe” as US and British forces launched their long-awaited sequel – Gulf War II. 

However, there’s another US public, one not so eager or united. Due largely to advances in personal computing and electronic communications, opposition to the latest US-led war spread rapidly before it began. Although much has been written about the impact of the Internet on anti-war organizing, relatively little has been said about the advent of anti-war TV. Yet this recent development has informed, expanded, and mobilized the ranks of the movement while engaging millions who otherwise would be forced to rely on the empty, often inaccurate drivel of mainstream TV. read more

Not content with controlling wartime news, the US turns propaganda into entertainment

In drafting the US Constitution, one of the central goals was to insure a separation of powers. The basic idea was that each branch would be checked and balanced: executive power overseen by the legislature, legislative power evaluated by the judicial branch, a judiciary appointed by the executive but confirmed by the legislature, and so on. The approach was meant to maximize democratic rule by and for the people. read more