Guardians Of Power

''Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media'' () is a book by David Edwards and David Cromwell, editors of the British media analysis '' Media Lens'' website, published in 2006 by Pluto Press of London.

Outline

Basing their analysis on the propaganda model of Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, the authors argue that a corporate, for-profit media sector cannot be trusted to report fairly on other corporations, such as companies which advertise in that same media, as any such criticism is filtered out.Jeff Sparro
"Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media"
''The Age'' (Australia), 29 April 2006 Reprinted within it are email exchanges with editors and journalists from the main terrestrial British broadcasters, plus '' The Guardian'' and '' The Independent'' newspapers. "This book provides a snapshot of the two Davids' guerrilla campaigning over the past five years," wrote Brendan O'Neill in '' The Spectator''.Brendan O'Neil
"Pressuring the press"
''The Spectator'', 4 February 2006

Responses

Peter Wilby concluded his '' New Statesman'' review in January 2006 with the comment that "All journalists should read his book because the Davids make a case that demands to be answered".Peter Wilb
Book review: "On the margins"
''New Statesman'', 30 January 2006 He felt the book had some flaws, in particular he objected to their suggestion "that properly radical papers should refuse, say, airline ads. The effect would merely be to bankrupt any paper to the left of the ''Mail''". Reviewing the book for '' The Irish Times'', Eddie Halt praised "their excellently researched accounts of undeniable media bias", which he says "asks serious questions about the elite media". O'Neill thought that "there is some good material here, especially on the liberal media’s servility during times of war".

According to Jeff Sparrow, writing for '' The Age'' in 2006, despite possessing "something of the child's naive obstinacy in the authors' refusal to accept the journalistic practices at which most people cynically shrug", within ''Guardians of Power'', Edwards and Cromwell "expose the fundamental contradiction between, on the one hand, our need for information about the world and, on the other, the need of media conglomerates to deliver returns to their shareholders".

Exempting the ''Statesman'' from his point, the journalist and documentary film maker John Pilger, in a column published nearly two years later, said of the book, "Not a single national newspaper n the UKreviewed the most important book about journalism I can remember."John Pilge
"The cyber guardians of honest journalism"
''New Statesman'', 29 November 2007. Pilger also makes his point about this book's importance in his Foreword, p.xi

References

{{reflist

2005 non-fiction books
Books about the media
Pluto Press books