Steuter Erin, Wills Deborah. At War with Metaphor. Media, Propaganda, and Racism in the War on Terror

Lexington Books, 2008. — 245 p.In this book we argue that the mainstream media can act as a stenographer to power, “spin” even horrific acts of brutality, and characterize opposition as disloyalty. Thus to research and write a book that challenges the official story and provides documentation of events and issues not normally explored by the media involves accessing the work of a phenomenal network of investigative independent journalists and social justice activists. This book could not have been written without all the intellectuals, reporters, and citizen journalists who dedicated themselves to doing the hard work of investigative reporting and sharing their findings even when it was not always popular to
do so. While the mainstream news media bears the blame for boiling the blood and narrowing the mind of so many readers, the alternative news media deserves considerable credit for speaking the truth to power. Progressive magazines and radical newsletters such as Z, The Nation, CounterPunch, The New Statesman, Dissident Voice, In these Times, and Left Turn Magazine have led the way in providing a forum for the insights of progressive intellectuals and journalists.
Alternative news centers such as AlterNet, Common Dreams, and Democracy Now generate news and provide a venue for alternative voices and independent media sources that often fall below the public’s radar. Tremendous care and careful documentation is evident in web sites such as
tolerance.org, antiwar.com, www.why-war.com as well as watchdog organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Genocide Watch, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, PR Watch, Source Watch, and Media Matters for America. These organizations maintain their independence from the pressure of corporate advertisers by sacrificing lucrative advertising revenues.
We all benefit from their unbeholden voices. The writers and publishers of these magazines and websites have our wholehearted gratitude for bringing
us the news we need to make sense of the world we live in and they deserve the support of subscribers that the mainstream media has forfeited.