Norman Solomon and Lorretta Alper discuss their new movie War Made Easy, and the similarity of the propaganda techniques from Vietnam, the current Iraq war and the next one in Iran.
Norman Solomon is a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics. He has been writing the weekly “Media Beat” column since 1992. Solomon’s latest book, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, was published in 2005.
Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts.
His book “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You” (co-authored with foreign correspondent Reese Erlich) was published in 2003 by Context Books. Loretta Alper, has been on the staff of MEF since the summer of 2000, when she was hired as a freelance producer. Since joining MEF full-time in 2001, she has produced a number of titles and served as the Executive Producer on several others.
Loretta graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a B.A. in English and Communication, and she also holds a Master’s degree in Secondary English Education from UMass. She became interested in media literacy while a high school English teacher. After teaching for six years, Loretta joined the staff at MEF eager to produce video resources for teachers to utilize in their work as media educators. She has produced videos on topics ranging from media coverage of female athletes to advertising in schools to American television’s representations of working class people. She is currently producing War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death, an analysis of American war propaganda featuring media critic Norman Solomon and narrated by Sean Penn.