This is huge, this is probably the core of any kind of credibility or appearance of credibility any of the major networks had...and its blown out of the water. There's no way to cover this, it was BLATANT...bought, sold, delivered propoganda right to the living rooms of millions of loyal "fair and balanced" TV viewers. This, from what I gather, is where a lot of wingers get their perception of reality. So what happens now that the rug has been pulled out from under some of the "truth" that they held so dear?GregMitch wrote:
-- The article has at least three tracks: One, the Pentagon deploying the analysts -- some 75 in number -- and the TV outlets happy to run with them; two, the analysts' further conflict-of-interest in being tied to defense contractors with billions of dollars invested in the war effort; three, the complete lack of interest by the TV outlets in either of the first two connections, or ignoring what they did know. In fact, the networks raised no objections to the Pentagon paying for trips by the analysts.
-- The effort began in "selling the war" -- going where even Judy Miller feared to tread -- and there are some startling admissions by some team members that they knew they were being sold a fairy tale on WMD, but went along with it anyway. The moral bankruptcy is truly disgusting.
-- One analyst who did dare to criticize the Pentagon in one TV appearance was summarily kicked off the propaganda bus. In fact, the others followed the Pentagon talking points to the letter -- almost to the word. The Pentagon helped two of them craft a Wall Street Journal piece.
-- Besides helping the companies they were tied to, some of the analysts also got $500 to $1000 per appearance on TV. Rest easy, Gen. Wesley Clark was not on the official Pentagon team.
-- While the focus of the article is very much on the TV propaganda (Fox News, of course, way in the lead) the New York Times admits that it published "at least" nine op-eds by the propagandists. And that paper, and all the other leading newspapers, quoted members of the group often. I'll be looking into that angle myself starting now, as a natural sequel to my book on Iraq and the media.
Count me as another that can't understand why the news organizations would not at least check if their sources had possible conflicts of interest. This makes me wonder, given that stories like this (manipulation of intelligence, information operations, the Total Information Awareness program, etc.) had been trickling out for a while before and after Iraq, why no one had at least a passing thought as to whether or not the DoD had some kind of domestic propaganda program? Were they stupid? Or willing accomplices? Or both?WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon is to close its Office of Strategic Influence after news outlets reported that it would spread disinformation to the overseas press.
Thanks I had not seen thatMasques wrote:
You should look at this video the Times put up on their site regarding the controversy, it's a pretty good summary of events:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008 … SFELD.html