Mark Crispin Miller: Neoliberalism and Its Impacts on Free Speech, Education and Democracy

By Michael Nevradakis, Truthout | Interview

Mark Crispin Miller is a professor of media, culture, and communication at New York University and the author of several books, including Boxed In: The Culture of TV, Cruel and Unusual: Bush and Cheney's New World Order, and Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform. He is also the editor of the newly-launched "Forbidden Bookshelf" series of e-books.

Michael Nevradakis: On a global level, how are the media furthering and promoting neoliberal policies and the politics of economic austerity, and how is freedom of the press being threatened?

Mark Crispin Miller: The corporate media worldwide has done an excellent job promoting neoliberal policies in every sector of society and culture. American media, which rank very low in the integrity of their news broadcasts, daily media coverage and commentary, are a kind of endless propaganda drive on behalf of austerity economics. For example, the US press is uncritically promoting a huge attack on public education and public schools, extolling the virtues of charter schools, attacking the teachers' unions and so on. I would say that the press is in the hands of the plutocracy, the 1%, and it has a profound effect on press freedom and freedom of expression.