Contrary to the usual image of the press as cantankerous obstinate & ubiquitous in its search for truth Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky depict how an underlying elite consensus largely structures all facets of the news. They skilfully dissect the way in which the marketplace & the economics of publishing significantly shape the news. They reveal how issues are framed & topics chosen & contrast the double standards underlying accounts of free elections a free press & governmental repression between Nicaragua & El Salvador; between the Russian invasion of Afghanistan & the American invasion of Vietnam; between the genocide in Cambodia under a pro-American government & genocide under Pol Pot. What emerges from this groundbreaking work is an account of just how propagandistic our mass media are & how we can learn to read them & see their function in a radically new way.