Mea Culpa and more Propaganda Model

Ok, so the promised follow-up post on Ron Paul never materialized. Months later, it's no longer such a pressing issue, as McCain has sewn up the nomination. Obama has all but sewn up the Democrats'. Ron Paul has once again been relegated to the sidelines (where he belongs, IMO, but not for the reasons he's been relegated there). But Glenn Greenwald posted something a couple weeks ago (I don't have regular internet access, so I'm having to play catch-up) which I think highlights a favorite topic of mine when it comes to media behavior, namely Chomsky and Herman's propaganda model of journalism. To wit, on July 21st, Glenn wrote

There are all sorts of reasons why our presidential elections center on personality-based sideshows (even Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell said as much about her own paper's coverage today). Those gossipy matters are easier for our slothful, vapid media stars to digest and spout. They require very few resources to cover. The campaign consultants who run national political campaigns are experts in P.R. strategies for packaging personalities and indifferent to policy debates, etc. etc.

(emphasis mine).

This is my obligatory plug for this theory that I find so powerful a tool for understanding why the major commercial media outlets so such an execrable job of covering politics. See my first post for a summary of the theory. What Glenn talks about in his post fits right in with the "official sources" filter that Chomsky and Herman posit as part of their model. Because media outlets are for-profit, in our stock-market-driven economy, their parent companies do everything they can to reduce the cost of doing business while maximizing revenue (mostly selling ads) because their shareholders demand it. Forget long-term sustainability; we're after the most bang for our buck now, before the market goes south on us again (because it inevitably will). Who wants to wait ten or twenty years to see a good return on their investment, when there are so many more profitable investments to be made in the interim?

This provides me with a neat segue to my next topic, Chevron profits and why they're not enough...