So you also hold TV news responsible, in some way, for the propaganda that surrounded this war?
Stauber: After 9/11, we saw how the Fox network exploited the terror attacks, wrapped itself in the flag and began beating this drumbeat for war. They exploited the fears that people felt and created what an executive from another network called "the Fox effect."
First of all, the war could have never taken place if the media had done its job of questioning the administration rather than becoming an echo chamber and propaganda arm.
But the very specific story is how Fox used this jingoistic, hyperpatriotic, rah-rah, let's-go-to-war coverage to gain a massive market share. Fox actually became the No. 1 source for most people in the United States to get their information about the war.
The reason we subtitled the book "The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War in Iraq" is because it wasn't just the administration or the right-wing think tanks, it was also opportunists and networks like Fox who exploited 9/11 and launched their own propaganda campaign for their own purpose. The U.S. would go to war because Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox, is of that ideological persuasion and thought it would be a good idea. And to gain market share. It's really frightening to see how in the 21st century, there's a huge economic benefit for a TV network for exploiting the fears of a nation to promote war.
Rampton: And the United States is not the only place that this has happened. In the last half of the book we talk about the comparison between the way the war was covered in the United States vs. in other parts of the world.
Just as there is the "Fox effect" in the Western world, there's an opposite sort of thing going on in Arab and Muslim countries. The way they compete for market share is by getting to see who can present the most outrage and direct that outrage toward the United States. The ironic thing is that if you watch Arab television, and you can actually get some of it on the Web now, it looks a lot like Fox news! [laughs]