No doubt like many other people around the world, we have been surprised and increasingly concerned that Noam Chomsky has not commented publicly on current events for around one year; in particular, on the Israeli genocide of Palestinians.

Propaganda by omission is a dominant feature of the ‘mainstream’ news media.

Hyde—or Marina Elizabeth Catherine Dudley-Williams, as she prefers not to be known—was, in fact, making ‘the most stupid boast’ that could be made by a journalist, to quote George Seldes (1890-1995), the U.S. press critic.

Significant public activism and opposition to state-corporate power need to be rooted in widespread shared public knowledge.

As we have pointed out since Media Lens began in 2001, a fundamental feature of corporate media is propaganda by omission. Over the past week, a stunning example has highlighted this core property once again.

Freedman notes that Guardian editor, Kath Viner, promised that her newspaper would ‘challenge the economic assumptions of the last three decades’, ‘challenge the powerful’ and ‘use clarity and imagination to build hope’.

The death of Robert Parry earlier this year felt like a farewell to the age of the reporter. Parry was “a trailblazer for independent journalism”, wrote Seymour Hersh, with whom he shared much in common.