ABSTRACT
The propaganda model (PM) is the theoretical core of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, the book that Noam Chomsky and the author published in 1988. Manufacturing Consent and the Propaganda Model were not welcomed and treated kindly by the mainstream media (MSM), or by most of the academic specialists on the media and communications. Much of the criticism of the PM has been extremely superficial and has failed to come to grips with its actual focus and claims. The news performance of the MSM in recent decades has strongly confirmed the continued applicability of the PM. The Iraq War itself provides a plethora of evidence supportive of the PM. In sum, the performance of the Times and the MSM, before and during the invasion and occupation of Iraq, was as good a fit to the PM as any of the case studies presented in Manufacturing Consent.
