GOOD READING

1.) Top of the list this month is a fascinating account of media manipulation, Target America by J.L. Tyson, a 284-page account on the influence of Communist propaganda on US media¾but hold on! This is not a book looking for a commie under every bed, but a well reasoned and documented account of just what beds do have one underneath, and more important, why some beds that don't are just as effective, and how they are being manipulated. You can get the book for $10 ($3 off list price) from Accuracy in Media, 777 - 14^th St/#427, Washington, DC 20005; but better still, you can get it free by joining AIM and subscribing to their excellent bimonthly newsletter for $30.

2.) As if to corroborate our charge that Science scribbler Wash overzeaously denied Soviet bacteriological and chemical war-fare [Nov. 81], ABC aired a superb documentary Rain of Terror, an unusual case of newsmen tracking down the news instead of making it. Much credit must go to Dan Rather and Harry Reasoner for being absent from this investigation, which is bound to become a classic of journalism. Both Slime and Newspeak also paid their kind of tribute to it by censoring any mention of this unique TV event from their "Video" columns¾Agent Orange is their kind of "story." The transcript is available free from "Close-Up," ABC, Box 770, New York, NY 10023, and is well worth reading even without video; typically, State Department official Richard Burt confirms that State knew about these atrocities, but did not make it public because it would "force the Soviets to dig in their heels."