Edward S. Herman
Edward Samuel Herman | |
---|---|
Born | Edward Samuel Herman April 7, 1925 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Died | November 11, 2017 | (aged 92)
Education | University of Pennsylvania University of California, Berkeley |
Occupations |
|
Spouses | Mary Woody
(m. 1946; died 2013)Christine Abbott (m. 2015) |
Edward Samuel Herman (April 7, 1925 – November 11, 2017) was an American
Ideologically, Herman has been described as a "dedicated radical democrat",[2] an ideology which opposes corporate control in favor of direct democracy while distancing itself from other radical movements.[3] His writings frequently dealt with what he called "Western corporate media reports" on violent regional conflicts, disputing mainstream reports to an extent that he has been criticised for downplaying genocide figures.[4][5]
Early life
Herman was born in Philadelphia to a liberal Democratic family, the son of Abraham Lincoln Herman, a pharmacist and Celia Dektor, a homemaker.[6][7]
Herman received a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from the
Political views
Vietnam War
Following the
Chomsky and Herman authored
In 1967, Herman was among more than 500 writers and editors who signed the "
Cambodia
Herman and Chomsky later collaborated on works about the media treatment of post-war
In 1979, Chomsky and Herman revised Counter-Revolutionary Violence and published it with
Herman replied to critics in 2001: "Chomsky and I found that the very asking of questions about the numerous fabrications, ideological role, and absence of any beneficial effects for the victims in the anti-Khmer Rouge propaganda campaign of 1975–1979 was unacceptable, and was treated almost without exception as 'apologetics for Pol Pot.'"[23]
Todd Gitlin, in an email to The New York Times, wrote that for Herman and Chomsky "the suffering of the Cambodians is less important than their need to pin the damage done to Cambodia in the 1970s primarily on the American bombing that preceded the rise of the Khmer Rouge to power".[6]
The "propaganda model"
Herman and Chomsky's best known co-authored book is
Rather than needing direct control over the media as in dictatorships, in the views of Herman and Chomsky, industrial democracies control popular opinion using "filters" which prevent politically controversial ideas from reaching the public. The two men specified five filters, in particular: the concentration of media ownership to a few corporations, the need to please advertisers and funding sources, the reliance on government-provided sources, flak, and anti-communist ideology. These influences combine to prevent politically inconvenient knowledge and ideas from reaching the general public.[26][27][28]
Historian Walter LaFeber, reviewing the original 1988 edition for The New York Times, thought "their argument is sometimes weakened by overstatement" citing Herman and Chomsky's attack on major American news sources for reproducing false government assertions about Nicaragua but failing to note that those same sources quickly attacked the government when the deliberate error was discovered.[29] Derek N. Shearer, also in 1988 for the Los Angeles Times, described the work as "important" and the "case studies" as "required reading" for foreign correspondents but in his view the authors "don't adequately explore the extent to which the mass media fail to manufacture consent, and why this might be so". To support his point, Shearer used the examples of the Contras in Nicaragua and the deposed Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, both supported by the US government and conservatives but not by American public opinion.[30] Shearer also commented Herman and Chomsky "persuasively demonstrate that in countries where the American government is involved—either openly or covertly—the press is frequently less than critical, and sometimes a partner in outright deception of the American public."[30]
"The whole approach of the book is deeply simplistic", according to Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and communications at Columbia University. "If you think that The New York Times is Pravda, which is essentially what they’re saying, then what vocabulary do you have left for Fox News? Their model is so clumsy that it disables you from distinguishing between a straight-out propaganda network and a more complex, hegemonic mainstream news organ".[7]
Writings on Srebrenica
Herman wrote about the 1995
Marko Attila Hoare criticized Herman's position on the Srebrenica massacre,[36] claiming the Srebrenica Research Group was formed "to propagate the view that the Srebrenica massacre never happened".[37] Michael F. Bérubé said the SRG is dedicated to overturning the findings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.[38] Herman's writings on the Srebrenica massacre were criticized by John Feffer[39] and Oliver Kamm, who accused him in 2013 of "using bogus statistics for years",[40] Martin Shaw who said he was "mediating denial",[41] and the website Balkan Witness which accused him of "insulting the survivors".[42] Starting from year 2000, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia physically exhumed 8372 bodies of most of the Srebrenica massacre victims, which were then examined and most of identified by DNA analysis, confirming the fact of execution and its scale.[43]
The Politics of Genocide
In The Politics of Genocide (co-authored by David Peterson, with a foreword by Noam Chomsky, 2010), Herman and Peterson argue "genocide" has become a politicized notion through analysis of the media and comparative studies of what they title "constructive" and "nefarious" genocides. They argue the
Journalists John Pilger[44] and Dan Kowalik,[45] recommended The Politics of Genocide. The book also received negative critical reactions, accusing the authors of denialism, from writers Gerald Caplan,[46] George Monbiot,[44] and James Wizeye, first secretary at the Rwandan High Commission in London.[47] Genocide scholar Adam Jones criticized the account of the Rwandan genocide as "radically revisionist" if not "fantasist".[48]
Private life
Herman was married to Mary Woody, who died in 2013, for 67 years.[49] He married long-time friend Christine Abbott in 2015.[6]
Death
Herman died from complications of bladder cancer in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, on November 11, 2017, at age 92.[6]
Books
- 1966: America's Vietnam Policy: the Strategy of Deception, Public Affairs Press (with Richard Du Boff)
- 1968: Principles And Practices Of Money And Banking
- 1968: The Great Society Dictionary
- 1970: Atrocities in Vietnam: Myths and Realities ISBN 978-0-82980-188-0
- 1973: Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda (with Noam Chomsky)
- 1979: The Political Economy of Human Rights, Volume I: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (with Noam Chomsky)
- 1979: The Political Economy of Human Rights, Volume II: After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology (with Noam Chomsky)
- 1981: Corporate Control, Corporate Power: A Twentieth Century FundStudy
- 1982: The Real Terror Network: Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda, South End Press
- 1984: Demonstration Elections: U.S.-Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam and El Salvador (with ISBN 978-0-89608-214-4
- 1986: The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection (with Frank Brodhead). ISBN 0-940380-06-4.
- 1988: Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media(with Noam Chomsky)
- 1990: The "Terrorism" Industry: The Experts and Institutions that Shape Our View of Terror ISBN 978-0-679-72559-6
- 1992: Beyond Hypocrisy: Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda: Including the Doublespeak Dictionary ISBN 0-89608-436-1
- 1995: Triumph of the Market: Essays on Economics, Politics, and the Media ISBN 978-0-896-08521-3
- 1997: The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Global Capitalism (with ISBN 0-304-33433-2
- 1999: The Myth of The Liberal Media: An Edward Herman Reader ISBN 978-0-82044-186-3
- 2000: Degraded Capability : the Media and the Kosovo Crisis (edited by Philip Hammond and Edward S. Herman) ISBN 978-0-74531-631-4
- 2010: The Politics of Genocide (with David Peterson) ISBN 978-1-58367-212-9
- 2024: Enduring Lies: The Rwandan Genocide in the Propaganda System, 20 Years Later (with David Paterson) ISBN 978-1-50075-111-1
- 2019: Like A Cuttlefish Spurting Out Ink: Studies in the Art of Deceit (with David Peterson) ISBN 978-1-54566-755-2
See also
- Z Communications
Notes
- )
- ISBN 9781551640624.
- ISBN 9781136660719.
- ^ Monbiot, George (June 13, 2011). "Left and libertarian right cohabit in the weird world of the genocide belittlers". the Guardian. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
- ^ "The politics of denialism: The strange case of Rwanda | Pambazuka News". pambazuka. March 4, 2016. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f Roberts, Sam (November 21, 2017). "Edward Herman, 92, Critic of U.S. Media and Foreign Policy, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved November 22, 2017.
- ^ a b c Smith, Harrison (November 16, 2017). "Edward S. Herman, media critic who co-wrote Manufacturing Consent, dies at 92". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
- ^ Chomsky, Noam; Herman, Edward S. (1979). 'The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism. South End Press. pp. 342, 352, 28.
- ^ Human rights in Vietnam: hearings before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, Ninety-fifth Congress, first session, June 16, 21, and July 26, 1977. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off. January 1, 1977. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-89608-100-0.
- ISBN 978-0-262-02418-1.
- ISBN 978-1-86189-269-0.
- ^ Neilson, Jim (1998). Warring Fictions : American Literary Culture and the Vietnam War Narrative. University Press of Mississippi. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011.
- ^ "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest", January 30, 1968, New York Post.
- ^ History of War Tax Resistance Archived October 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine; NWTRCC; January 18, 2004
- ^ Chomsky, Noam; Herman, Edward S. (June 6, 1977). "Distortions at Fourth Hand". The Nation.
- ^ For a discussion, see Sharp, Bruce (July 19, 2010). "Averaging Wrong Answers: Noam Chomsky and the Cambodia Controversy". Mekong.
- ^ Barsky 1997, p. 187; Sperlich 2006, p. 86.
- ^ Barsky 1997, p. 187.
- Chile and South Korea exceeded the coverage given to Cambodia" during the genocide: see Sharp, Bruce. "Averaging Wrong Answers: Noam Chomsky and the Cambodia Controversy". Mekong. Retrieved April 27, 2017.
- ^ Ear, Sophal (May 1995). "The Kymer Rouge Canon 1975–1979: The Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia (Undergraduate Political Science Honor Thesis)" (PDF). Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. pp. 42, 63. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 22, 2012.
- ISBN 9780896081000.
- ^ Herman, Edward S. (September 2001). "Propaganda System Number One: From Diem and Arbenz to Milosevic". Z magazine. Z communications. Archived from the original on April 16, 2013.
- ^ "An Exchange on Manufacturing Consent". chomsky.info. 2002. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
- ISBN 9781407054056.
- ISBN 978-0-89608-366-0.
- ^ Edward Herman; Noam Chomsky (1988). "A Propaganda Model: excerpted from Manufacturing Consent". Chomsky.info.
- ISBN 9781412951432.
- ^ LaFeber, Walter (November 6, 1988). "Whose News?". The New York Times. Retrieved November 22, 2017. Herman responded to LaFeber's article, see Herman, Edward S.; LaFeber, Walter (December 11, 1988). "News and Propaganda". The New York Times. Retrieved November 22, 2017.
- ^ a b Shearer, Derek N. (November 13, 1988). "Citizens or Sheep". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ a b Herman, Edward S. (July 7, 2005). "The Politics of the Srebrenica Massacre". Znet. Archived from the original on October 1, 2009.
- ^ "Genocide Inflation is the Real Human Rights Threat: Yugoslavia and Rwanda". ZNet online ZMagazine. Archived from the original on April 16, 2013. Retrieved November 28, 2007.
- ^ "The Politics of the Srebrenica Massacre". ZNet online ZMagazine. Archived from the original on October 1, 2009. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
- ^ "Genocide Inflation is the Real Human Rights Threat: Yugoslavia and Rwanda". ZNet. ZMagazine. Archived from the original on April 16, 2013. Retrieved October 12, 2009.
- ^ Kamm, Oliver (November 23, 2017). "Genocide-denying charlatans have poisoned the Left". CapX. Retrieved November 18, 2020.
- S2CID 145169670.
- ^ Hoare, Marko Attila (December 17, 2005). "Chomsky's Genocidal Denial". Balkan Witness. Retrieved November 18, 2020. See also Hoare, Marko Attila (2017) [2015]. Bosnia and Herzegovina: Genocide, Justice and Denial (PDF). Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina: Center for Advanced Studies. p. 122.
a lobbying group set up to deny the Srebrenica massacre
- ISBN 9780814791479.
- ^ Feffer, John (April 6, 2009). "Why Yugoslavia Still Matters". Foreign Policy in Focus. Retrieved July 22, 2010.
- ^ Kamm, Oliver (February 6, 2013). "Srebrenica denial just will not die". The Times. Retrieved November 18, 2020.
he has indefatigably denied the established facts of the Srebrenica massacre
- ^ Shaw, Martin (December 12, 2009). "Review of Hammond and Herman, eds, Degraded Capability: The Media and the Kosovo Crisis, 2000". Martin Shaw. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
- ^ "War-crimes deniers: Edward Herman". balkanwitness.glypx.com. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
- ^ "Exhumations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. | International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia". www.icty.org. Retrieved October 7, 2023.
- ^ a b Monbiot, George (June 13, 2011). "Left and libertarian right cohabit in the weird world of the genocide belittlers". The Guardian. For a response to Monbiot, see Herman, Edward S.; Peterson, David (July 19, 2011). "We're not genocide deniers. We just want to uncover the truth about Rwanda and Srebrenica". The Guardian. The original versions of their submitted texts are Herman, Edward S. (July 20, 2011). "Reply to George Monbiot on 'Genocide Belittling'". Z. Retrieved December 10, 2023., and Peterson, David (July 19, 2011). "George Monbiot and the Anti-'Genocide Deniers' Brigade". Znet.
- ^ Kovalik, Dan (June 22, 2010). "The Politics of Genocide". HuffPost.
- ^ Caplan, Gerald (June 16, 2010). "The politics of denialism: The strange case of Rwanda – Review of The Politics of Genocide". Pambazuka News. No. 486.
- ^ Wizeye, James (July 25, 2011). "To claim Tutsis caused Rwanda's genocide is pure revisionism". The Guardian.
- ISBN 978-0415486194.
In 2010, the longtime leftist critic Edward S. Herman joined with a blogger, David Peterson, to produce a book, The Politics of Genocide, for Monthly Review Press. The authors went so far as to contend that the depiction of a Hutu genocide of Tutsis was the reverse of what had actually occurred in 1994; that the principal agent of genocidal killing was the RPF; and that Hutus constituted a majority of victims. As I argued upon the book's appearance, this was "the equivalent of asserting that the Nazis never killed Jews in death camps—indeed, that it was really Jews who killed Germans." I accused the authors of "the most naked denial of the extermination of at least half a million Tutsis by agents of 'Hutu Power' that I have ever read in an ostensibly scholarly source." This radically revisionist—one might say fantasist—stance was based "on 'evidence' that, even on cursory examination, proves to be the sheerest gossamer, when it is not simply hearsay and idle speculation."
- ^ Holmey, Olivier (November 21, 2017). "Edward S Herman: Scholar whose radical critiques of US media characterised the fake news caricatured by Trump". The Independent. London. Retrieved November 22, 2017.
References
- Anglo-American Name Authority File, s.v. "Herman, Edward S.", LC Control Number 79135236.[dead link] Accessed July 10, 2008.
External links
- Edward Herman's Znet Homepage at archive.today (archived April 16, 2013)
- Edward Herman's articles on Znet Middle East Watch at the Library of Congress Web Archives (archived April 21, 2005)
- Ed Herman Archived August 29, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, The Real News, July 2012
- A collection of Edward Herman's writings from various sources, including the author himself.
- Essays by Edward Herman on ColdType.net
- Archives at FAIR
- Archives at Swans.com
- Gerald Caplan's review of 'The Politics of Genocide'