Pentagon Manipulating TV Analysts 361
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like the Ministry of Truth at work (Score:4, Informative)
Sometimes it is enlightening to consider other viewpoints [powerlineblog.com].
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It's quite obvious they first considered who was being criticized then determined to make up a reason why it can't possibly be true. Bribing, deceiving, and extorting favorable dis-information out of "independent" military analysts is a
Other Viewpoints = Mouthpieces (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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Therefore they ought to hire independents that are not being coached.
Where The Fault Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where The Fault Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
A circular argument... (Score:4, Interesting)
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... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Free media is a myth (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
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!
Speaking of Peter Arnett (Score:3)
It's a small world...
It's not so simple (Score:5, Interesting)
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:
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
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Trust me, if any President knew that Congress was serious about politically and financially castrating them, they'd backpedal in a hurry.
I'll buy that as an addition (Score:4, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, let's pick a salacious scandal then. Surely you remember these stories:
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
Peter Arnett got fired for making up facts... (Score:3, Informative)
Peter Arnett made stuff up and got busted for it. Operation Tailwind? Yeah, right. He was a self promoting dick who cloaked himself in the false mantle of left wing hero worship to make himself some kind of a martyr. Too many people on the left eat up his peacenik crap and can't see that he just did it to cover his own sorry ass, and those that aren't dedicated lefties just assume that all lefties are that way.
Re:Where The Fault Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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I don't think there really is anything remotely approaching an unbiased news source.
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Wall Street Journal
Fox News
CNN
If that's what you consider "full spectrum," you must think visible light stops somewhere around, say, yellow.
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What concerns me more though is that this was part of a planned and deliberate effort to mislead Americans and shape public opinion.
I believe the various departments under the executive branch can and should inform the public. They should explain what their actions are and the consequences of those actions are in a fact based
not monocausative (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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.
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Re:Where The Fault Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where The Fault Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
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But that time is mostly passed. What I think the military needs is the opposite of what this story claims they are doing. They need someone to stand up and say that the purpose of the Army and Navy and Marines is to fight. If we are sent off somewhere we are going to fight whomever we find there and a lot of people will be killed, so think long and har
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A lot of us knew it was horseshit and wanted the war anyway. Quite honestly, I did not care that Saddam maybe had no WMD and had no connection to 9/11. I just thought 9/11 was carte blanche for the USA to clean house of all of its enemies in the middle east. Had the war not dragged on for five years, nobody would give a shit that there were no wmds and saddam was theor
Re:Where The Fault Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
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Anyone with a conscience? Anyone who thinks that it's not ethically justified to invade other countries and kill millions just so that Joe Redneck will have to pay even less at the gas station? Anyone who's not a total sociopath?
They're just emulating the Drive By Media (Score:5, Informative)
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How very very sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ugh (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ugh (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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Even if it's true that the whole thing was a colossal mistake. That means colossal incompetence. Whether you're a liar or a moron, you shouldn't be permitted to be in charge of one of the largest military forces on earth.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
lol...seriously, you must be kidding. The NY Times has become as bad as the rest of them and prior to the war they they were so busy spewing pro-war bullshit and not asking any serious questions.
People can blame the Pentagon or the Bush administration for BSing the media but the media ate it up hook line and sinker because they wanted to. It's because of the performance of the news organizations prior to the start of the Iraq war that I no longer have any confidence in any of them (including the ones tha
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Re:The real surprise (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
The silence is deafening.
Basic Ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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So? (Score:2, Insightful)
piece of the action? (Score:5, Insightful)
Their job is to fight and win wars. (hopefully wars that are just) and nothing else.
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But, most certainly, it is NOT the job of any part of the government to influence public opinion. This meddling compromises the very heart of a democracy, which is a properly informed population.
And, please, don't anybody else even begin saying the US is a republi
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So the military is trying to counter the traditional anti-war bias found in the mainstream media? How is that suprising. The media has been shaping hearts and minds here in the United States for decades. It is not unfair for the military to want a piece of the action.
To me, it's not about the military, but about the media. Of course the military is going to try to convince the public to support its policies. What's disappointing is that so many mass-media organizations were offering up people with large, ongoing, financial ties to the military as "unbiased analysts". Surely we can all agree that this is wrong?
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Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF are you smoking and where can I get some? The US media has always been (and always will be) a cheerleader for every war the US government engages in.
The real issue here is not that the Pentagon sought to entrench their own paid mouthpieces in every corporate media outlet--but that the mainstream corporate media was willingly complicit in this propaganda campaign and utterly failed to provide any alternate viewpoints against the war.
All of the information the US government put out to argue their case for war has been proven false. Plenty of information and sources refuting these official lies were available *before* the war began. Yet the media failed to provide anti-war voices the same platform and megaphone that they all-too-willingly gave to stooges working for the Pentagon and corporations that stood to benefit from the war.
Of course, this is the history of the media under capitalism in a nutshell. Truth (or facts, if you prefer) and the public interest are always trumped by the profit motive and corporations' inherent interest in supporting whichever government they depend upon for largess.
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Oh come now, the media wasn't a cheerleader for the Spanish-American War, it was an instigator.
Bleh (Score:3, Insightful)
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? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Bush and co watched Wag the Dog... (Score:3, Funny)
tm
Um... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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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...
So you don't care that many of the "unbiased analysts" presented in the media actually had large financial ties to the military? Is this because you were able to independently verify what the conditions were in Iraq? Because you don't consider the war to be important news? Or because you base your opinions on the war on your ideology and not information?
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.
Actually, the article included documentation of the times that the NYT did exactly that. No media organization is perfect, but I very much appreciate
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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?
Like the blogosphere, the the mainstream media is a self-examining device. For both, the answer to Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? [wikipedia.org] is supposed to be everybody.
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.
Christ, did you even read TFA? That question is asked and answered in a linked article [nytimes.com].
Where your pseudo-outrage is coming from, I have no idea. Is this some snide hipster pose that makes you feel part of the ironic elite? Or are you really opposed to the media trying to understand the largest media fuck-up of the decade?
Personally, I'd love to see m
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I am, in fact, saying this pot is ineligible to call that kettle black without getting the requisite STFU from yours truly.
If one cannot trust the media, how is one to trust that the media can be trusted about the media being untrustworthy?
The Chewbacca Defense notwithstanding, this sort of thing is mostly just a waste of everyone's time when delivered from this outlet.
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Do you actually disagree that the pentagon has been manipulating the media, or do you just think that that's a Good Thing(tm) and don't want the practice questioned?
We welcome YouTube. The media must go. (Score:2)
A system of collective intelligence will emerge that will tap directly into the sources of news. The media as we know it wi
Duh (Score:2, Interesting)
If you want to understand why righties think it is treasonous to protest an ongoing war, imagine what would have happened if, during the Vietnam war, we had been treated to television pictures of massive protests in Hanoi, with huge crowds demanding that the North Vietnamese government end the war, and high government saying it
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Dr. Goebbels would be so proud of you.
This "war" is a misuse of an army to "police" a civilian population. They've even finally given up on calling them "terrorists" and "insurgents" and are now calling the resistance "criminals". Only with the possibility of facing summary execution if they act suspiciously or carry something that looks like a weapon.
Soldiers are not policemen, and they never will be. Soldiers mixed with civilian populations for any great period of time THROUGHOUT HISTORY have only brought disastrous results - usually at the expense of the civilians.
But you are saying that people should passively accept this COMPLETE misunderstanding of what an Army is supposed to do. We should continue to pay for the continued deployment of troops that are the CAUSE of the resistance in the first place? Remember that we're paying this two ways - first, the government is (again) borrowing money to fund the war. Money that could have been saved, or could have been spent on infrastructure HERE. AND you are also paying directly with $118/barrel oil.
And you think we should just be quiet, otherwise the "terrorists win"? My friend, the terrorists have ALREADY won. America has changed its way of life, spent a shitload of money, lost a lot of troops and equipment (not to mention the injured), and polarized the entire arab world against it more than ever. Mission Accomplished.
One thing is treason, another thing is "Intelligence". Is it treason when a government acts against the wishes of 70% of its people? Should we hang the 70%?
The single cause fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Put another way, the price of oil in Euros isn't up nearly as much.
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Depends. How many times have we heard that the insurgency in Iraq was "in its last throes", or that we have reached a "defining moment"?
In terms of Vietnam, it may have, but it would have done nothing to change the fact that the government we were backing in Saigon was loathed by the people in the South. Nixon assured everyone that we could see the light at the end of the tunnel. No one believ
Pro-war media? (Score:2)
Fault of the media, not the Pentagon (Score:3)
The media are the ones who are wrong here, not the pentagon.
This is news? (Score:3, Insightful)
Duh.
This will continue (Score:2)
Appearance of Objectivity? Where? (Score:2)
"Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity of military analysts on the major networks, is a Pentagon information apparatus..."
I never found any appearance of objectivity - at least not from the likes of Fox News and their cohorts. Are there really people who got fooled into thinking Fox and others were being objective? If so, then it is a sad day for the relative IQ of the U.S. populace...
And no, I dont watch Fox News (when I dont have to), but someone in my house does... I keep telling him it's more like the Fox Comedy Channel and that he can get a more accurate portrayal of news events from watching Comedy Central.
"liberal media" (Score:2)
PBS just showed this for WW I (Score:2)
Nothing new under the Sun int he the 21st century.
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anyone hear of yellow journalism? the uss maine? (Score:5, Insightful)
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 remedy to false speech (Score:2)
From Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.:
The problem is the lack of a free speech culture (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Interesting.... (Score:2)
Or that its time to fess up to what the public already knows.
"Clear Channel" yeah buddy!!!
"Pentagon Manipulating TV Analysts" is wrong. (Score:4, Informative)
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]):
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:
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.
Fundamental question (Score:3, Interesting)
Then our government declares a state of war or "war". The first question is which you think it is: war or "war". If it's a real war, Churchill's dictum that "truth must be accompanied by an escort of lies" comes into play. We all know that "loose lips sink ships", and no one wants to be responsible for getting our brave boys killed, or even for harming civilian morale by revealing that, yes, one of our battleships was sunk with the loss of 4,000 sailors.
Trouble is, how do we know if it's a real war or a "war" arbitrarily declared by the government? As Orwell's 1984 pointed out, it is trivially easy for any government to proclaim a continuous state of war, thereby giving itself an excuse to suspend all civil liberties "for the duration" - i.e. indefinitely.
And this is where public patriotism comes in. In some countries more than others, a large fraction of the people readily snap into a patriotic, somewhat militaristic, unquestioning frame of mind as soon as they perceive any threat. In such a climate of opinion, the media would be insane to take an anti-government line or question the war. It's not necessarily a matter of prejudice, or vested interests, or black helicopters; it's just that they will lose their audience if they don't tell it what it wants to hear.
Just as we get the government we deserve (because we vote it in), we also get the media we deserve (because we buy it selectively). Only with a truly educated, rational, mature, objective citizenship can excellent media thrive.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And... (Score:4, Insightful)
Freedom is not free. One of the prices of freedom is a less efficient military. Just like another price of freedom is a less efficient police.
Re:And... (Score:5, Insightful)
What you're saying might be true for a traditional, (a)symmetrical war. The problem with Iraq War is that as a direct result of improper post-invasion planning, the situation has gotten out of control; anyone's control. Foreign fighters are only a minor fraction of those committing the violence in Iraq. Most of the violence is from an ongoing civil war that the U.S. media and Bush administration has failed to acknowledge.
Not acknowledging that Iraq is in a civil war is that it leads to all kinds of incorrect conclusions. First of all, given our current troop strength and moral stance, we can't realistically kill our way to victory. Our success is ultimately limited by the Iraqi people's capacity to forgive and forget hundreds of years of animosities and grievances, and for whatever reason, they aren't willing or able to do it. Now, we could technically take the Iraqis out of the equation, by either casting our lot in with a particular faction and committing ethnic genocide ourselves or locking down the country so hard that an insurgency isn't possible. The first would be immoral and geopolitically problematic. The latter would likely require a tripling or quadrupling of our troop presence (> 500,000 combat troops, according to prewar estimates, which might not even apply now) which would require a draft, unprecedented amount of international support, and a huge increases in spending.
Simply acknowledging the fact that Iraq is in a state of civil war also greatly informs our endgame view. The people fighting in Iraq aren't going to cheer, declare a victory, and just stop if--when--we leave. Oh, no, it's going to be a mess and nobody is going to be a be able to claim a victory. This includes Al Qaeda, a Sunni organization whose kinsmen will likely be marginalized and ethnically cleansed. Furthermore, we can't wait this out. Whether we stay in Iraq for 16 months or 100 years, unless we do something to dramatically alter the underlying conflict, there will be violence and instability when we leave. A better way to look at this is through a cost-benefit analysis. Does a prolonged U.S. presence in Iraq realistically offer a better outcome and does this justify the cost in money and U.S. serviceman lives over such a longer period? I hate to say it, but the math doesn't add up.
-Grym
Re:And... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ostensibly, we're trying to promote freedom and democracy in Iraq. We cannot do that while being unwilling practice our freedoms and exercise our democratic power back home.
You cannot simultaneously save and destroy the village.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah. Haven't you ever played Civ 2?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Umm...and this is NEWS??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Umm...and this is NEWS??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Just say "No" to mainstream media cartel.
Gods, how I love freedom of speech.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't really support a cry for "Democracy Now!", though - I would really prefer that we restore the Constitutional Republic that we're supposed to be. Democracy is just the tyranny of the majority (as Nieche said). (ouch I'm sure I mangled the spelling...).
Don't forget 2004: Bush was popularly elected...
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, honestly. Who didn't know this? Just watch Fox News people, 'freedom of press' has been history in US for long, long time.
Now THAT should be discussed in election debates, but no.
What ARE you talking about, no freedom of the press? Aren't you publicizing your opinion right now? Oh, you mean the freedom to have your opinion listened to by large numbers of people. Sorry, you have to earn that freedom by proving yourself capable of providing value to society by earning obscene amounts of money.
As always, freedom of the press only applies to those who own a press.
Re:Fail (Score:4, Informative)
It does indeed appear that the Bush Admin and the Pentagon assembled a group of retired military types, got them all "on-message" then pimped them out to the television networks as "analysts".
I understand the importance of propaganda in times of war, but #1, usually the propaganda is used against the enemy, not us, and #2, this is not a time of war except in the twisted minds of neocon warmongers.
I think if you put the "veracity" of the Bush Administration up against that of the New York Times, you'd find that the President does not fair very well. Not very well at all.