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."

Comments

Re:Ugh

[Uncle Focker]

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? how well did ignoring him/her work out for you? 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. Ahh, so you're one of those diehard "Iraq did 9/11" loonies, are you? Makes total sense now.

Re:Umm...and this is NEWS???

[tbannist]

Allegedly popularly elected. With wide spread attempts to prevent or disrupt democratic voting and a large minority of the vote counted by unauditable machines produced by partisan supporters of the Republican Party, nobody will ever know what the real result might have been.