Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.

I don't usually admire Sarah Palin, but when she was making fun of this 'hopey changey stuff,' she was right: there was nothing there.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....

There's plenty to criticize about the mass media, but they are the source of regular information about a wide range of topics. You can't duplicate that on blogs.

The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control - 'indoctrination', we might say - exercised through the mass media.