a point seemed to be made in 3.20 minutes though

touché...however, concision in the media isn't very controversial, whereas the statements made by Chomsky would need more than 3 minutes to explain. The video also benefits from editing; for example, the video is set up with a segment of a producer from Nightline explaining the need for concision.

an uninquiring TV mind would have switched off after about 20 seconds. noam who? never heard of him, therefore not credible. "intellectual" you say? get a REAL job.

the bbc do this kind of thing, it's like if you're not PRO or CON and you want to make a subtle point about the middleground they just cut you off, or extrapolate your argument to some ridiculous extreme and batter you with it. then they waste time reading out uninformed "comments" from members of the public, always carefully choosing the short, kneejerk soundbites from each extreme.

that's without advertising.

it's the nature of rolling news that you have 3 stories and you do them 20 times an hour. if viewers don't take the time to sit and listen to a difficult discussion for 30 minutes, this is what they get.

Please Mink, I can't read a comment that long.

You crazy bastard.

MINK's right...the medium is defective...for the purposes of actually passing on usuable, meaningful information.....the television is a tool....in the hands of fucks

What he is talking about should not be seen as a problem with Western media, it's his misunderstanding of human nature.
When you have people choosing what they want to watch, it's true that most people will not give time for radical ideas and will not want to hear things that they do not agree with. Nightline or whatever, has to be competitive, and what they go for is ratings entirely, which is exactly what they should go for. What is on TV is what people want to watch, you can't complain about that because it's not what you feel people SHOULD watch, thats not a free market. Thats exactly what Chomsky is doing here, he claims to be about freedom when the solution to the problems he is talking about implies we must CONTROL the media.

I can't stand Chomsky just because he is not a libertarian as he claims, he another leftist political activist, only complaining about what he sees as the lack of morality in world politics and problems with equality.
This is said a lot about him, but all he does is talk about problems, he never gives solutions. The solutions that are implied require someone controlling the media, or controlling democracy. The problem is he has the wrong idea of human nature, and doesn't realize when you give people complete freedom, THIS is how the world is, it's not perfect, it's not moral, and it's not equal.

"... when you give people complete freedom, THIS is how the world is, it's not perfect, it's not moral, and it's not equal."

You are confusing freedom with power.

Seems a little confused this guy. Some good points and some ridiculous.

"will not give time for radical ideas"...."will not want to hear things that they do not agree with"..."eftist political activist, only complaining about what he sees as the lack of morality in world politics and problems with equality."....kinna like an editorial, or long-winded diatribe????

"What is on TV is what people want to watch, you can't complain about that because it's not what you feel people SHOULD watch, thats not a free market."

no, there is a feedback loop that completely screws this up and results in a race to the bottom, and there are powerful people editing TV that have interests different to those of the viewer.

compare to youtube... full of crap, but also with loads of stuff that would never be on TV... i.e. more choice on youtube, less editing.

then you spontaneously set up communities like videosift to help you get through the crap. if you don't like videosift you can go somewhere else.

it's all very libertarian.

I am sure that Chomsky is not suggesting an authoritarian solution to the problem of weak or corrupt television content. He would simply never trust anyone with this power. His point is that people ought not to look to television as their source of information about the world (or possibly anything else). They ought to think for themselves and question authority. I've never heard him suggest that the answer (to anything) lies in coercion.

He talks a lot about politics, but he is not a politician and is rarely, if ever, recommending policies. What he does is to examine people's motives and point out when these are in direct conflict with their stated ethics or goals. He asks us to question authority and look for reasons why people in power do what they do and compare these to their stated reasons.

Chomsky asks us to wake up and pay attention. He points out that if we are waiting for the powers that be to explain to us what our own best interests are, we are likely to be disappointed. We should rather expect them to be pursuing their own interests while dressing up their actions as though they are somehow moral or best for everybody. I am sure he would be very encouraged to see all of the posts here applying this same standard to him and his statements. He would then ask you to take a step back and apply the same to your own and everybody else's too.

I am sure he is aware of human nature--he's a bloody linguistics professor. This is why you do not hear him suggest that television content be forcibly regulated to include multi-hour intellectual debates with extensive footnotes. Most people want to come home from work and be entertained--and there's nothing wrong with that--but he hopes that people will pay more attention when that entertainment begins to act like a politician. People say he's better at pointing out problems than proposing solutions and use that as an excuse to dismiss him. I think this is a misguided conclusion based on the fact that he does not suggest the usual type of solutions that are based on institutions or application of authority--he simply has no confidence in these methods. He tries to appeal to each listener's own sense of reason and to encourage people to develop this sense. I think that in this way he is actively demonstrating the solution in the only way he can think of that is consistent with both his ideals and human nature--he hopes that by promoting rational, ethical thinking and enlightened self-interest, then events may eventually sort themselves out for the better.

He describes himself as an anarchist (which he further describes as left-wing libertarianism or anarcho-socialism). This might not be what you think of when you think of libertarianism, but that is not because he is trying to hide strong leftist opinions or that he thinks these are incompatibly with anarchism. This philosophy informs his ethics, but I have never seen him present it as a set of policies to be inflicted upon the population--this would be the opposite thing.

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