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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."
Did Winston Smith get these articles?
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".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
Bill Hicks was an optimist :-(
Barbara Felden claims prior art on the flip phone, sues Motorola, Nokia.
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.
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 a nightly basis.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Is that the NYTimes did this analysis and published it. They had been as much a cheerleader for the war as anybody else.
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.
--
make install -not war
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.
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
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...
The techniques have improved since Robert McNamara, but the game remains the same.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
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.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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.
It's not the military's job to shape our hearts and minds.
Their job is to fight and win wars. (hopefully wars that are just) and nothing else.
She loves me: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 She loves me not: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688BF
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 was impossible to defeat the US. Do you think it might have bucked up our fighting spirit, just a tad, to think that our enemy was near surrender?
The summary is another one of those "OMFG THE GOVERNMENT I OUT TO GET ME" so common on slashdot now... but really the problem here is that the media allowed this to happen. I would be disappointed if the government didn't try to leverage its position to get favorable news. God knows, everyone else on earth would do so or already does so (remember hearing about how so many of these canned "news" reports that appear on local news around the country are really corporate agendas).
The media are the ones who are wrong here, not the pentagon.
Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity of military analysts on the major networks, is a Pentagon information apparatus...
Duh.
tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
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.
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
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There was. If a government does wrong things, in elections they get changed. Oh, wait... in past elections they got reelected in good part because exactly this lies. So thats the famous democracy you all are proud at work.
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.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Put another way, the price of oil in Euros isn't up nearly as much.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Just say "No" to mainstream media cartel.
Gods, how I love freedom of speech.
My blog
Interestingly enough, Arnett's daughter Elsa chose to study journalism, went to Harvard, and is now currently married to John Yoo, Bush's legal counsel who pretty much sanctioned torture by the executive branch.
It's a small world...
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.
/. stuff like:
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 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.
Thank you Dave Raggett
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.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
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.
What you say is true but I believe it is trumped by a more important principle. A democracy can only work properly if the electorate are well (and accurately) informed. In your scenario, you could (and I believe in the US are) end up with a drawn out conflict, with the media painting a rosy picture of how things are going, and continue to elect a government that if the truth were known would lose an election. It may then suit a government to actually prolong a war to stay in power. It turns out that waging war is one thing that democracies actually don't cope very well with.
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 (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
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
It may then suit a government to actually prolong a war to stay in power. It turns out that waging war is one thing that democracies actually don't cope very well with.
Yeah. Haven't you ever played Civ 2?
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
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 explained on today's Democracy Now! (transcript, video, high-quality audio, smaller size audio):
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. Apparently it still is.
Digital Citizen
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...
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
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
Yes, yes it is. Military is supposed to be defending the freedoms of the people. If the media is against them, then tough shit. The solution to that is not propaganda.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
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.
War is a contest of wills. It ends when one side decides they can't win. That decision is based very much on each side's assessment of the other side's morale.
This would only be the case if, say, we were fighting the Iraqi army in Kuwait after they had invaded Kuwait, or the German army in France after they invaded France. It is decidedly not the case when fighting against an irregular guerrilla opponent that is trying to oust an occupier.
Do you really think that the insurgents would stop fighting if they saw nothing but "people breathing fire, publicly demanding that Iraq be nuked" on American TV?
Let's put it another way: If the US was occupied by a foreign power, would their TV broadcasts, however extreme and bellicose, convince you that your cause was hopeless? I doubt that, it might even reinforce your resolve. If their TV showed nothing but how unpopular their occupation was, would that convince you to keep fighting? Maybe it would, but the critical piece here is that regardless of what their TV keeps saying, you're going to fight until either you get killed or the occupation is over, and what the other side's TV news is saying is just background noise.
Bottom line is that as long as our armed forces are there, they are going to be attacked. No amount of cheerleading is going to change that.
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
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...
This is my sig.
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.
This is my sig.
Look what happened to Peter Arnett:
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.
This is my sig.
But politicos avoid war, right? In the States, perhaps. In Britain, Prince Philip saw combat in World War II, Prince Andrew in the Falklands. Queen Elizabeth in World War II was part of an ambulance team that were out in London whilst the bombs were falling. Many in the House of Lords also saw combat. These are people who know pain and have seen far too much blood - sometimes their own. People who have been there tend to be more wary about being there again.
There was one big difference, though. The World Wars were right there, for Europeans. It's easier to distance yourself from war when it's many thousands of miles away.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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
New York Times
Wall Street Journal
Fox News
CNN
If that's what you consider "full spectrum," you must think visible light stops somewhere around, say, yellow.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
There's a fundamental question lying at the bottom of all this controversy. Those of us who live in democracies and hear constantly about how wonderful our "free media" are expect to get objective news reporting. Maybe not from any single outlet, but from the aggregate of the media. Some will lean left, others right, some are hawks, others doves, etc. So far, so good.
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.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Gone are the days when world looked at USA as a saviour
... - when it suited them. ... - when it suited them. ...
(WW2).
Since then, USA Empire has intervened in more than FIFTY
countries around the world - to support it's own perceived interests.
http://members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm
They supported fascist Spain, Portugal
They brought down democratic governments in Latin America - when it suited them.
They supported religious zealots - like in Saudi Arabia
They supported dismembering of states - like in the Balkans - when it suited them.
They supported changing of borders - like in the Middle East - when it suited them.
They
Current USA reminds me a lot of Roman Empire.
Parallels are striking.
It's ultimate doom is also, assured.
The questions remain what will be the cause and when it will happen?
Market crash like in 1929?
Immigration and population boom that will replace Anglo-Saxons?
Climate change?
Nuclear war?
Else?
The only problem is, rest of the world will not be able to laugh.
We are so dependent on USA economically, that the entire world will
be plunged into a dark age.
Few monkeys in a wrong spot can do a lot of damage.
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.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
Now *THIS* is what I still actually come to /. forums for. Sadly, I'm at work where I don't really have time to enjoin this discussion at a higher level and provide a more insightful response (work is keeping me incredibly busy, but I'll try to get around to it later this evening if possible). Parent is totally correct in stating that everyone is biased, some of us more so than others. I don't ever claim to be impartial - I certainly have my own views and opinions, though I try to be more open-minded (than most, it would seem, with the caveat that my mind is not so open that my brains fall out) and lay blame or kudos when and where they belong, equally and at all times; baboo_jackal is very correct in the statement that any claim of the Pentagon is "subverting traditional journalism" is incredibly inane pablum meant only to create FUD and further reinforce the paranoia of those who would believe it.
As for Stengel, he's right, to some degree, though I don't believe it is completely unreasonable for a journalist to be expected to be objective - it's not a gross impossibility; examine an issue from all available sides and report on known facts rather than twisting those facts to fit one's preferred opinionated hyperbole, basic Communications 101 stuff; this doesn't mean that the author can't argue for something better or different, but that still doesn't mean that they have to inject their own bias into every word - sensationalism is for the intellectually weak, both on the side of the author and the reader who accepts it; this is why I scan so many news sources in order to get a better view on events - too bad finding a single media outlet that reports simply what is and not what they would like things to be has thus far been impossible, tho Reuters seems to do a better job than most these days.
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage