If you’re like me, you cringe whenever anyone forwards the idea that the American media is in some way liberal and soft on left-wing ideas and activities. And yet also, if you’re likeme, you do not have the hard facts to back up these gut feelings that the media isn’t liberal at all. This collection of essays by Herman does a great job of meticulously picking apart media coverage of majorly politicized news stories and explaining the slants that he finds [often right-wing but always supporing the corporate/capitalist agenda] and explaining where he thinks they come from

Herman isn’t a conspiracy theorist and he does not feel that the heads of major media get together and decide to cover certain topics and let other topic lie. Rather he explains how publicly held companies, with their mandate to bring profits to shareholders, have an obligation to cover news and highlight issues that are advantageous to their corporate owners and, most of all, advertisers. And, in being pro-business and pro-advertiser, they wind up, in many ways supporting an anti-left stance. Fascinating and not easy reading, this is one of the best political books I’ve read.