Pentagon Manipulating TV Analysts

gollum123 notes an extensive article from the NYTimes on the evidence that the military, since the time of the buildup to the Iraq war, has been manipulating the military analysts that are ubiquitous on TV and radio news programs, in a protracted campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's war efforts. "Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity of military analysts on the major networks, is a Pentagon information apparatus... The effort... has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Several dozen of the military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members, or consultants. Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks. ...[M]embers of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access."

Sounds like the Ministry of Truth at work

Did Winston Smith get these articles?

Re:Sounds like the Ministry of Truth at work

Sometimes it is enlightening to consider other viewpoints [powerlineblog.com].

Other Viewpoints = Mouthpieces

For those uninclined to read the article hereby linked, it's two quotes. One's from Max Boot, arguing that "everybody does it, so why should the Times complain about this one? Oh yeah, because the Bush administration is bravely trying to break the party line of those Evil Liberal Media Conspirators!" and John Podhoretz saying "Nothing to see here, move along." (A further link points to an article talking about how wrong the Times was to have broken the story about the illegal domestic wiretap program).

What neither one acknowledges is that, even if it is "no secret that [the whole government] tries to influence their coverage by carefully doling out access," it remains DETRIMENTAL TO DEMOCRACY to do so! A Cheneyesque "So?" from neocon commentators fails to excuse the MSM's faults in not aggressively seeking out the actual truth. It is always relevant that a supposedly "neutral" or "objective" commentator has a financial interest in the events he is interpreting.

This is a prime example of what Manufacturing Consent was talking about.

Re:Sounds like the Ministry of Truth at work

Nobody's forcing Fox to put pentagon-briefed persons on the tube.

If Fox was doing its duty, they'd hire reporters that are independent from the pentagon.

Fixed that for you.

For the record, both CNN and NBC use their own reporters who are independent from the Pentagon. Both Jamie McIntyre (CNN) and Jim Miklashevski (NBC) report on Pentagon news both from what the PR department says, as well as from their own sources who either corroborate or dispute the official line.

I can't speak for ABC or CBS but I'm reasonably sure they use independent reporters as well.

Where The Fault Lies

As much as the Pentagon and the analysts are scummy liars, the real blame lies with the media outfits. Surely there are enough retired officers and enough military historians to use as a counterpoint. I mean, the news agencies had guys on the ground that, even with the limited access the Army gives them, knew from the beginning the problems with the Pentagon's story.

Perhaps one cure to this is to report any particular ties that any given "analyst" has to the Pentagon or the Administration; ie. "Retired General Glubby P. Chummy is employed by Kill Them Bastards Inc., a firm with several contracts with the Pentagon".

Re:Where The Fault Lies

As much as the Pentagon and the analysts are scummy liars, the real blame lies with the media outfits. Surely there are enough retired officers and enough military historians to use as a counterpoint. I mean, the news agencies had guys on the ground that, even with the limited access the Army gives them, knew from the beginning the problems with the Pentagon's story.

But only the Pentagon's hand-picked people got to see anything. Retired military officers don't get to tour military bases or get briefings from top generals and the Secretary of Defense. Media outlets had to choose between sources who were biased and sources who didn't know anything.

Re:Where The Fault Lies

I don't think one needs to have detailed information of this sort of a military initiative to be able to determine the larger picture. Certainly there were people leading up to the war and afterward who were making negative analyses. From the very beginning, there were a number of analysts saying outright that the US had brought an insufficient number of forces into Iraq to secure the country after Hussein's fall. They didn't need the details, they knew because they were either experienced commanders or strategic and tactical experts. These sorts of people are trained to make just such analyses based on incomplete information.

A circular argument...

I don't think one needs to have detailed information of this sort of a military initiative to be able to determine the larger picture

Very true. I knew that we were in trouble in the Iraq war when I saw a ship unload cars of equipment in PA. Rail car after rail car was loaded with battered and broken down HMMVs and other vehicles... everything looked used and beat up...

In the good old days...

Sure, but look at it from the network's perspective. If they are going to hire an analyst, they are going to hire an insider, someone with contacts, someone who is successful and in the business. Any John Q. Historian could come to a conclusion, but who is the viewer going to believe, him or a buddy of Gen. Petraeus?

They would hire these guys called REPORTERS. What these reporters would do, is go and sneak around and get information for themselves, liquor up a few buddies from high school or college that were connected, plug into the good old boys network and get the real story. Now, the network puts on a talking head because, really, they are semi-popular figures with a bit of domain expertise but really are just sorta entertaining. Like, nobody watches Ollie North or Wesley Clarke because they are somehow "plugged in". They watch these guys because they are entertaining.

So really, when it boils down to it, the talking heads might as well just shoot from the hip rather than grovel or let themselves be manipulated for access to information, because the people already think they are making it up anyway and it is just so much more entertainment.

Free media is a myth

To quote The Clash: "You have the right to free speech, so long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it."

News media are very careful to keep onside with the Whitehouse, Pentagon etc. If they don't then they get poor treatment from the media relations people. Instead of having their reporters embedded with frontline troops sending home eye (and advertising) catching footage, they get embedded in the transport depot and they get to film grunts washing trucks.

Instead of getting confirmation for some scoop, the staffers return their call an hour too late, making them miss a deadline.

For that reason, the news companies keep their reporters in check and fire those that do any true investigation. Look what happened to Peter Arnett: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Arnett [wikipedia.org].

Re:Free media is a myth

For that reason, the news companies keep their reporters in check and fire those that do any true investigation. Look what happened to Peter Arnett.

I went to that Wikipedia link expecting to be reminded that Arnett had been fired for criticizing the current Iraq War, and yup, no big surprise, he said something mildly critical on Iraq TV and he got fired for it.

Then I read on, to the section where his daughter "Elsa married conservative law professor John Yoo."

Holy crap. Getting fired for criticizing Bush's War, that's one thing... but having Mr. Torture Memos marry your daughter? The Godfather was a freaking amateur; as punishments/threats go, this blows "severed horse's head in your bed" out of the water!

It's not so simple

News media are very careful to keep onside with the Whitehouse, Pentagon etc.

I used to think that was the case. But watching over the last twenty years or so I've come to realize that it isn't quite that simple.

For example, during the Monica Lewinsky hoopla, it seemed you couldn't look at a newspaper or turn on a TV without hearing more than you wanted to know about the story. They certainly weren't trying to stay on Clinton's good side, even though he was very popular at the time.

Fast forward a decade, and if you keep your eyes peeled you can catch stories like this:

• The United States has suspended Habis Corpus for "enemy combatants" [msn.com]..
• The Bush administration claims the authority to brand anyone (even US citizens) an "enemy combatant" based only on their say-so, with no recourse and no appeal.
• The Bush administration claims the ability to "render" these "enemy combatants", taking them to undisclosed secret prisons without trial or any public record of what happened to them.
• John Yoo thinks it would be legal to crush an enemy combatant's child's testicles [nd.edu] in front of them to get them to talk, the the President were to authorize it.
• Vice president Dick Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice were briefed on Yoo's opinions and used them to craft "enhanced interrogations." [yahoo.com]
• President Bush was aware of these meeting and approved of them [go.com].

So it's not quite as simple as you make it sound.

If a popular president has an extramarital affair, the press shows no fear and shouts it from the rooftops night and day.

But if the least popular president on record [usatoday.com] (backed by his administration) maintains that he has the inherent authority to kidnap US citizens at will and make them watch while his goons crush their children's testicles, the "free press" covers his butt so well that if you blink you'll miss the story.

--MarkusQ

I'll buy that as an addition

The problem is that Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, let him get away with this. Congress holds the purse strings, and if they wanted to force his hand they need do nothing more than say "Either you stop this now, or tomorrow you're going to have a $1.95 left to fight your war with."

Agreed, they are cutting him as much unjustified slack as the press is, and are arguably even more responsible for the state we're in.

Sometimes, when I've got my paranoid cranked up past 7 or so, I wonder if the conjunction of the above mentioned claims of power to torture anyone they want combined with the proven ability to eavesdrop on anyone they want without a warrant (a power which we now know they've used on reporters and politicians) work to reduce the collective spine of those that should be standing up and saying "Hey, wait just a cotten picking minute!"

Perhaps it isn't dereliction of duty so much as rational fear of a powerful and amoral opponent.

-- MarkusQ

Ok, a salacious scandal then...

If a popular president has an extramarital affair, the press shows no fear and shouts it from the rooftops night and day.

But if the least popular president on record (backed by his administration) maintains that he has the inherent authority to kidnap US citizens at will and make them watch while his goons crush their children's testicles, the "free press" covers his butt so well that if you blink you'll miss the story.

I think you're trying to attribute to politics something that has a rather simple alternative explanation. In the eyes of the public (and therefore the press):

Salacious scandal >>> any other type of scandal

Ok, let's pick a salacious scandal then. Surely you remember these stories:

1. The White House was caught sneaking a fake reporter in to ask softball questions at White House press breifings [cbsnews.com]
2. Although he was a fake journalist it turned out he was a real bona fide male prostitute [washingtonpost.com]
3. It then came to light that, according to White House visitor logs, he had visited the White House on dozens of days when there were no press functions, and sometimes did not check out till the next day [rawstory.com]
4. After a protracted period of wrangling during which the administration claimed White House visitor logs were protected by executive privilege a court finally ordered the White House to turn over its visitor logs almost a year ago [alternet.org]
5. The White House is still refusing [google.com] to let anyone see their visitor logs, even though previous presidents considered them open public records.

So where's the media circus? Why haven't we heard about this to the blue dress and blood on the glove level that other similar stories get? Why do they just report it tiny bits and pieces and then let each one fade quietly into the night?

--MarkusQ

Re:Where The Fault Lies

Nah. I place the real blame with the average news consumer who is not at all interested in truth, merely entertainment. Seems many people these days only want an answer for what ails them. A true answer is not needed. Same with the war. The truth was easy to spot before the war, but it was not in demand, so people easily swallowed the lie others offered instead. Can you imagine how the poor average viewer would feel if they saw the true results of their indifference to the realities of htis war before it started. Patriotism indeed!

Just like the current elections. How much of what is being bantered about is truth? "I will","When I am elected" and other such comments are not truths but are promises. The truths are only in the past and many of those are unfulfilled promises. As easily as this country was sold on an Iraq invasion in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary, it does not say much about the average Joe citizen's desire for truth or real factual news..

There are publications out there that produce news. Mostly unbiased news. They cost money. They are not free. They are not cheap. Why? Because only a relatively small part of the population is interested in what they have to say. So, they do not get a mass market to sell ads to. They do not get a large distribution to spread costs over. What they do get are people who want to know what is really happening and are willing to pay for that knowledge.

The media outfits are an entertainment industry. They are paid based upon number of copies sold and ad value based on reader rates. They are not in any way shape or form paid based upon factual news. They are only paid to provide what a large enough market segment wants to make the paper profitable. So, you can blame the media, but you would be asking them to go out of business by providing the cold hard truth to people who do not want it. They Brittany. They want Baseball. They want lots of meaningless stuff.

InnerWeb

not monocausative

a wise history professor of mine taught that no problem is monocausative. it's true. putting blame on one single entity and piling on the shame ignores the other contributing factors to the problem, and allows them to continue unabated.

of course the media outfits share some of the blame, but to say the "real" blame lies with them does not hold the Pentagon, Bush administration, and the American people accountable. They all share the "real" blame, and the ACTUAL people who are lying (aka the generals) get the lion's share of that blame. It's their words first and foremost.

"the media" isn't one entity. The propaganda machine described in the NYTimes article is primarily for TV News. Standards and practices vary wildly between types of newsmedia. I, like many, hate the jerry-springerization of what has in the past been thought of as "tv news". Fox News is #1 on this list by a mile...it just isn't journalism in any traditional sense. But, it gets high ratings.

Notice I didn't say "alot of people watch". Ratings are a survey of a (supposedly) representative sample. Neilsen and others do a horrible job of providing information to advertisers about what people actually watch. This is an ancient problem of perception in TV that pre-dates cable, CNN, etc. Ratings in their current incarnation simply do not accurately reflect what people watch and why, and it skews the business decisions at the top of the news companies and for the advertisers.

Yes, the american people share in this blame. American government was intended to be advanced government. To work well, the electorate has to be on its toes, savvy, and not easily manipulated. Sadly, the opposite is the case (on it's ass, dumb as shit, and very easily manipulated).

Other posters on this story also say predictable /. stuff like:

1. "The NYTimes reported it but they are just as bad!!1!!1!1" That's just not the case. The NYtimes answers that criticism directly [nytimes.com] and provides links to prove it. Let's see someone step up and give equal or better counter evidence. Be sure to include links to specific NYTimes articles by generals mentioned in the report, and show how they connect directly with Pentagon propaganda campaigns about the war.

2. "How is this news, we all know the Bush administration is corrupt and manipulative beyond measure!!!1!!!1!1" The part that makes this news is that WE CAN PROVE IT. The systematic "psy-ops" manipulation of public opinion by the Pentagon is provable in court. That is news.

TV news has a long way to go. A good first step is to never, ever watch Fox News (unless to mock it), and deride anyone who does. Sure CNN isn't blameless, but Fox News was the main offender.

Re:

As I said, now they get no quarter whatsoever. But it doesn't really matter now. The US is stuck in the quagmire for the forseeable future, so even if these analysts don't keep the populace blind, deaf and dumb, they served their purpose, and that's keeping the populace mollified when strong electoral for a shift in strategy would have made a difference.

Re:Where The Fault Lies

I came here to question how "objectivity" and "major networks" get put so close together in a for-real sentence. I mean, seriously. Even if you were to find that they report objectively on what they do report (which they don't), you'll find that they also slant the news by what they choose to report in the first place. I'm trying to figure out where Pentagon manipulation figures into it.

Re:Where The Fault Lies

hahah funny, Pentagon - Bush manipulating the media!!! If thats the case they need to hire a new propaganda minister, as the media rips them for no other reason than to just rip them. Seriously sounds like some stupid far fetched idea that came out of a blog with no reference.

Seriously, you have no recollection of all the horseshit we were fed through the media in the months just before and after the war started?

Re:Where The Fault Lies

I just thought 9/11 was carte blanche for the USA to clean house of all of its enemies in the middle east.

We kinda had the bigger problem of dealing with Al-Qaeda at the time. Bush used that excuse to go off and do something completely different, so now Al-Qaeda is gaining strength again and we're having more trouble hanging on in Afghanistan. We're not getting much help these days either since he fucking blew away all the goodwill we had before the war.

Saddam was enough of a dick that a quick war to take his out would have been well worth it.

Some of us were paying attention when the experts were telling Bush and the Pentagon that we couldn't do the mission with so few troops. If you're gonna go off and do something that people don't think you should do, then you better fucking at least get it done right. He deserves every bit of hate and badmouthing that he's getting now.

I mean, come on, if Bush had pulled it off, knocked off Saddam but kept Iraq from falling apart, and right now Iraq was pumping 5 million barrels a day to keep gas prices at around $1.50 / gallon, who would even care about the whether the war was honest or not?

They've created a hell of a lot more problems for us than we had before the war, for something that had nothing to do with anything. If we want to fix our problems with the Middle East, the first thing we should be doing is devoting as much resources as possible to figuring out how we can quit being dependent on them! This is what the country gets for electing a jackass wannabe cowboy. I hope people remember this the next time they decide they want to "vote for the guy I feel like I could go out and have a beer with". I have plenty of friends I can have a beer with, but I sure wouldn't want them running the country.

They're just emulating the Drive By Media

Soldiers coming back from Iraq are constantly complaining that the war that is being described by the media is not the same one they're experiencing in the field.

How very very sad.

Bill Hicks was an optimist :-(

Ugh

I hate to state the obvious, but is anyone actually surprised by this? Considering how they were willing to sell the public a whole pack of lies about the war during the buildup I would be more surprised has they not been influencing the stuff these analysts were saying. I think we all remember this absurd statement.

Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House....The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.

Re:Ugh

There's an answer to this - international news via the net. The vast amount spend on PR to skew things is targetted at the major local news outlets. Minor outlets (eg. PBS) Canadian and overseas news sources are not influenced as much. However part of the unfortunate backlash to this is the PR is pushing Xenophobia to an extent and pretending that it is patriotism instead.

The sad thing about the above quote is the "lot of Iraqis" was a single man that now appears to be in the pay of Iran.

Re:Ugh

instead the mantra, is we lost, go home. we will be left alone if we just let them be. yeah right. anyone here have a bully in middle school?

Yeah.

how well did ignoring him/her work out for you?

Remember the mantra is 'go home'. They never bothered me at home.

and yes, i am saying we arent the bully here. if someone hadnt knocked the books out of our hands we wouldnt have done anything violent.

When exactly did Iraq knock the books out of our hands?

The real surprise

Is that the NYTimes did this analysis and published it. They had been as much a cheerleader for the war as anybody else.

Re:

Is that the NYTimes did this analysis and published it. They had been as much a cheerleader for the war as anybody else.

Huh? Are you serious? The Murdoch war-mongering propaganda machine is constantly lambasting the Times for being anti-war. The NY Times is one of the last respectable bastions of journalism. Anybody with a brain isn't going to be a cheerleader of this war.

Re:The real surprise

Huh? Are you serious? The Murdoch war-mongering propaganda machine is constantly lambasting the Times for being anti-war.

Uh... you're saying that because the Murdoch guys are saying it, it must be true?

Don't fall into the logic trap of thinking that, because some people on blogs and in the media say things and echo each other, those things must be true because, why else would they say those things, eh? "Where there's smoke there's fire" etc. This is sometimes called an echo chamber [wikipedia.org].

It's simply not true that merely saying something makes it a fact, even if lots of people are saying it.

The NY Times is one of the last respectable bastions of journalism.

Regarding the Times, try reading up on Judith Miller and Jayson Blair. Also, you might like to regularly read non-American news sources for other points of view (and I don't mean British sources).

No News Is Bad News

Have you noticed that none of the corporate mass media outlets that are fundamentally condemned by the research results in that report have talked about it at all, even though the cat is now out of the bag?

That sound of crickets is the strongest proof that the corporate mass media is totally broken, and far worse than useless. It helped lie us into a catastrophic war, it helped distract us first from destroying our real enemies in the Qaeda, other terrorist networks, and their soulmates in office in this country, and now continues to lie and distract as we finally get another chance to pick a new government to lead us out of this valley of death.

But who cares, if someone, somewhere, isn't wearing a (made in China) lapel pin?

At least there's some coverage of this epochal story, on the Web. I wish the corporate mass media would hurry up and die already. It's blocking the view of the wreckage it's wrought.

Re:No News Is Bad News

Glenn Greenwald writes [salon.com] about that specific point today.

The silence is deafening.

Basic Ideas

1. The enemy of every state are it's own people, since they carry the power (dictatorship or not) to remove them from their position of privilege.

2. In poorly regulated capitalist countries with huge war (now called "defense") industries, there are always increasing needs to fight wars to fund the industry.

3. Once the media is profit based, it's in their interest to keep access and sell fear by helping to advance government/corporate goals.

Notice the drastic difference in public discourse in Britain where the BBC is taxpayer funded but not owned by the interest of any corporate entity, and America where the truth comes second to the dollar. In my opinion, as long as state-owned industries are open and easily reformed by the populace, they are far superior to the closed door dealings of private corporations.

No one has a "right" to what I would call obscene wealth - making 300 times your average employee for no reason other than the board is stuffed with your friends. And whether this wealth is possible only through human suffering matters very little to the robber barons at the top. It's not their kids losing limbs and lives over there, it's the economic draftees who are given the choice between getting shot at by local criminals or having a gun themselves to shoot back at "terrorists," who, as every other citizen of a civilization has done since time began, do not wish to be bound by foreign chains.

Re:Basic Ideas

Personally, I consider miserable that people clamor for material things at all, but this is the same as lamenting murder or jealousy. They are part of the human experience.

What's most depressing is that never in history has society been more able and more indifferent towards ending poverty, racism, and war. We can now communicate with people worldwide at nearly no cost, and many of us have come to realize that the differences are so tiny in comparison with the similarities across cultures. They are exaggerated for the benefit of the propertied segment of society.

The multiple is somewhat meaningless, but in most developed western countries it's 30 to 50 times the average worker.

Take, for example, the CEO at KB Homes fired for fraud, who made 250 million dollars in two years and then received another 175 million on the way out the door. What was denied to him with 250 million that will be attainable at 425? A second private jet? Does anyone truly believe that his workers would have voted for his golden parachute given the choice?

Now KB is in the shitter, and laying off people across the country. Let's just say we gave him a third of what he received - a "paltry" 108 million - most reasonable people would agree that it represents a fair compensation for the work he performed. And instead of giving him options for seventh and eighth vacation homes, the company could have supported 4,000 workers for another two years until the economy regains it's footing. That's money for working people to stay off of welfare and continue to participate in the economy, versus one guy having extra multi-million dollar luxury goods. And those millions aren't going to recycle into the same economy - he's going to buy some fine art at auction and purchase real estate in France to hedge against the dollar, and buy ten thousand dollar Prada purses for his mistress or trophy wife that end up in the pocket of Prada and sweat shop labor in Malaysia.

When the disparity is at a lower ratio, everyone except that one person wins. And let me head you off at the pass - people will still compete for the same job, even if it only paid 30 million for 30 years of work.

Bleh

These people (the analysts, that is) aren't idiotic sheep. They are mostly retired generals and such. It's not that the Pentagon/Bush/whoever is controlling them: they spread this information because it either
1) benefits them (financially, they are usually contractors)
and/or
2) they really believe in the message

(truth is probably a bit of both)

However, in the media's defense, who else will they go to for subject matter experts? It's good to hear all sides of the issue, just keep in mind that no one is TRULY objective...

And this is new?

The techniques have improved since Robert McNamara, but the game remains the same.

Um...

I would have replied to this sooner, but my irony meter collided with my paradox prevention device, creating a HUGE mess.

Look, Mr Barstow, you're trying to sell a story about the media being used to paint a false picture to the American public, yes? But you, yourself, are a member of the media? Reporting on a topic that paints a picture of the picture-painters to the American public? In an election year?

Please, for the love of all that is good and logical, STFU. Or at least have the good sense to blog anonymously about this stuff like everyone else...

The next story, if the media is up to it's usual games, would be to present a count of how many times Mr Barstow's own organization has used these same experts to sell it's own rags to the masses.

anyone hear of yellow journalism? the uss maine?

people react to this revelation as if there was some sort of mythical time and place where the media was pure as snow and that the arrival of gw bush has somehow corrupted it

folks, this is standard operating procedure, always has been, and ALWAYS WILL BE. here's a story: war hawks trump up a lie about military activities in a country they want to invade. 2003? no, 1898:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism#Spanish-American_War [wikipedia.org]

people need to realize the media has always been corrupt, always has been ideological, always had an aggressive agenda, and always will be, and people need to have a better appreciation for the value of a robust bullshit meter

the proper response to this story about pentagon manipulations is not "how can we clean up the media", because you can't, but "what was wrong with me when i thought the media could ever be pure?"

the ideal world is not a fair and impartial media: this is a ridiculous fairy tale beleived by naive fools. the ideal world is openly ideological media, OF EVERY IDEOLOGICAL STRIPE. then let the viewer pick and choose what he or she thinks is true based on his or her own proclivities

the danger is a country that tries to systematically shut down right-leaning media, or a country that tries to systematically shut down a left-leaning media, or only has a state controlled media. no: give us fox news, and give us cnn, and msnbc, and give us anyone else who wants to play the game, and let all of the ideologies screm all of the manipulations and propaganda they want as loud as they want

and thereby train the general populace to have a muscular bullshit meter

that is the best you can do, and its not the worst case scneario, its the best: you don't get a healthy bullshit meter in an environment of no propaganda. you only get a healthy bullshit meter by being exposed to ever increasing toxic doses of propaganda, until you are immune

think about it: a "pure" media would spawn a general population with weak, flabby minds, blindly trusting whatever the media said. meanwhile, a corrupt, vicious lying media with screaming propaganda and subtle outright manipulation everywhere would breed strong distrustful minds. the caveat being of course, is that both the left and right be allowed to play this game, that there be more than one media outlet

(sidebar: if you believe all media companies are pretty much the same, with the same ideological spin: congratulations, you're a fringe character. you are either so far left or so far right, you can't tell the difference between mildly left or mildly right, it all looks the same to you. in whcih case, being on the fringe, you simply don't matter)

so those of you who grieve at the rise of fox news: celebrate it friend: all diseases need an innoculation. consider fox news a vaccination against propaganda. turn it on, let your mind soak in it. its not poisoning you, you are building resistance to a disease

The problem is the lack of a free speech culture

It's all very well to have free speech written into the constitution, but it's another to have a culture of free speech. Ultimately, it's the culture that is more important. American teenagers grow up thinking that free speech means freedom for individuals to put the word 'fuck' on their T-shirts with no conception that it is one of the ways we keep tyrannies in check and enable the free flow of ideas that leads to the betterment of society. It's easy to get sidelined by trivial free speech issues like nipples at the superbowl and forget that the media should be one of the channels by which we find out if we are heading for tyranny.

Consider Britain during the Thatcher era. Britain lacks strong constitutional free speech protections and so the government imposed a ban on broadcasting the speech of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams (of whom I am no supporter BTW). But the media had a culture of free speech regardless of the law and found ways to work around it, eg. by dubbing video of Adams. A strong culture will trump laws. Unfortunately, Americans are sitting on their laurels and taking their free speech for granted. It's not good enough to be written into law if Americans don't work at it.

"Pentagon Manipulating TV Analysts" is wrong.

This headline assumes that the pro-war faction brought onto the corporate so-called "news" were analysts to begin with and didn't just gain the "analyst" label by the fact that they were featured on the corporate news. They were not impartial experts. They were merely pundits, sent to lie to drum up popular support for an illegal and immoral war. As Peter Hart from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [fair.org] explained on today's Democracy Now! (transcript [democracynow.org], video [archive.org], high-quality audio [archive.org], smaller size audio [archive.org]):

One of the most shocking things in the story is that in early 2003, these guys got a briefing about WMDs, and the government said, "We actually don't have hard evidence right now that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction." Did any of them go on the air and say that? No. The Pentagon, I think, had total control and total faith that these guys would deliver the message that they intended to deliver to the public, and that's exactly what they did, and the media did very little to counteract this overwhelming propaganda campaign from the Pentagon.

What the Pentagon did is conspire with the media and over seventy-five retired military officers to spread lies about the invasion and occupation of Iraq; propaganda which continues to this day. The pundits weren't being manipulated, the public was. The pundits participated with their consent. Since one expects the Pentagon to get their story out (I don't excuse it, I merely expect it), one might wonder why the media didn't do their job and challenge those in power to justify their case for war? It would be far better to headline this story a failure of media to do their job as reporters. Again, Hart explains:

I think the extent of the briefings was somewhat shocking and the blase attitude from the networks. They didn't care what military contractors these guys were representing when they were out at the studio. They didn't care that the Pentagon was flying them on their own dime to Iraq. Just basic journalistic judgment was completely lacking here. So I think the story is really about a media failure, more than a Pentagon failure. The Pentagon did exactly what you would expect to do, taking advantage of this media bias in favor of having more and more generals on the air when the country is at war.

The New York Times didn't cover the media aspect of this problem probably because the Times was a willing participant in the lying [commondreams.org]. Apparently it still is.

Re:

And nobody was surprised.

Well they aren't any more, when it's obvious that even the Surge has come up short on its objectives. But there was a time, not so long ago, when I think these "analysts" had a rather substantial influence on the electorate's feelings about the war in Iraq. They don't any more because everything they've said has turned out to be pure bullshit, but the US probably wouldn't be in this position if these puppets hadn't been delivering the White House's script on the major networks on

Re:And...

Ummm, no. If we lose morale and pull out of Iraq, that is a GOOD thing. It was wrong to go there, and it's still wrong to be there now. No amount of sugar coating of the situation is going to make it more reasonable or successful. If you're counting on US media coverage to win this war, then it's already lost. To further spread misinformation, for any amount of time, is reprehensible. Having an open media means that an unjust or unpopular war will be criticized. If we can't bear the criticism, then that's a clear sign that we shouldn't be in the war in question. You can't just push a democratic country into a poorly-justified war, and expect a free pass.