The Mainstream Media s Coverage Of The Drug War - 1705 Words

The mainstream media’s coverage of the drug war fits the propoganda model relatively well. There are a few instances where the media does stray from a strict view of the propoganda model, but they are well within the spirit of the model and fall within the model’s application in modern times. This paper will examine the mainstream media’s coverage of the drug war, particularly that of the 43 missing students and the Gary Webb controversy, and compare it to the five filters the propoganda model assigns. The first filter deals with the ownership of the media. Since the media is owned by various corporations, it does follow that coverage of the drug war may not be the most popular of topics. According to Pedro, generally stories that do†¦show more content†¦However, the coverage of the protests surrounding the 43 missing students by each of the big news outlets focuses on the same issues. Each of the stories published by big media outlets covering the prote sts hit the same points of the missing students, the drug war death count, and the fault of the Mexican government. None of the articles mentioned the historic U.S. involvement in the drug war. Also, none of the articles from big media gave any sort of context about the protest other than it was on the day the Mexican Revolution is commemorated. Although the protest was covered, a reader who knew nothing about the drug war would assume that Mexico alone is responsible for these deaths, when in reality, that is not the case. The coverage of this protest leads readers to an overly simplistic view of the drug war and does not give an accurate view of just how messy the drug war has become. The second filter addresses advertising revenue and how that could skew the coverage of a particular topic. This second filter is related strongly to the first, but has more direct implications especially as it related to the drug war and its coverage. Advertising has little to do with the drug war, and as such, it is difficult to find much coverage of the issues surrounding it. There has been a fair amount of coverage of the drug war as it relates to the 43 missing students and the protests surrounding it. However, most of the coverage is focusing on the