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L.A. Times National Security Reporter Cleared Stories With CIA Before Publishing
New submitter Prune (557140) writes with a link to a story at The Intercept which might influence the way you look at media coverage of the kind of government activity that deserves rigorous press scrutiny. According to the story, "Email exchanges between CIA public affairs officers and Ken Dilanian, now an Associated Press intelligence reporter who previously covered the CIA for the Times, show that Dilanian enjoyed a closely collaborative relationship with the agency, explicitly promising positive news coverage and sometimes sending the press office entire story drafts for review prior to publication. In at least one instance, the CIA’s reaction appears to have led to significant changes in the story that was eventually published in the Times." Another telling excerpt: On Friday April 27, 2012, he emailed the press office a draft story that he and a colleague, David Cloud, were preparing. The subject line was “this is where we are headed,” and he asked if “you guys want to push back on any of this.” It appears the agency did push back. On May 2, 2012, he emailed the CIA a new opening to the story with a subject line that asked, “does this look better?”
The piece ran on May 16, and while it bore similarities to the earlier versions, it had been significantly softened.
A little scary when press cozies up to a law-enforcement branch of government, isn't it?
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Many will likely go 'cluck, cluck...they are the independent press and shouldn't do that' and, of course, they are right. But the 'independent press' is rapidly disappearing because there is no longer any money to be made in being part of the 'independent press.' Newspapers (such as the LA Times) have a plummeting circulation of mostly older subscribers and a shrinking advertising base. Most of them are losing money hand over fist or, at best, barely breaking even. Television news (network and local) is seeing its viewer base plummeting and consequently, its advertising revenues are declining rapidly, leaving it fortunate to still be on the air. Internet media gets lots of hits but not much revenue. The bottom line is that there are no longer any major 'independent' news organizations that can afford to antagonize powerful organizations, be they government or corporate or whatever. The LA Times reporter was likely grateful for any scraps of information that his CIA friends would give him because he would never have any way of getting that information otherwise. He is probably lucky if the LA Times will pay him car mileage to drive over to meet with a source. You get what you pay for. Follow the money. What do you pay for news?
No news here. The "story" is rather dated and has nothing new.
Just think a minute about Valerie Plame and the debacle about "Yellow Cake" and the "Story" the Bush WH was so trying to sell to the UN and other places to justify an illegal invasion of a sovereign country Iraq in order to get Bush re-elected.
Ta ta
So how is this different, functionally, from state owned media like the soviet union's pravda?
Pravda doesn't bother pretending to be an objective outlet for factual information.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Big Media == The Ministry of Truth
The middle easterners laugh at you naive americans when you you get mad at them for killing "reporters" and "photographers". They've always known there that they're just de facto employees of any government working for the police; the so called journalists in the U.S. aren't any different.
The worst are the newsheet propagandistas supporting the incompetence and cover-ups of the local cop shops; the ones that embrace the philosophy of cowards: the conflicting mentality of being anti-militia & a cop-kisser -- all at the same time. The facist draft exempt/dodger won't be the the ones without guns when guns become illegal for non-governmental families.
American journalists --- lololololololol!
Good thing I live in Canada. All I would get here from the mounties is a polite chiding.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Back when I arrived in America I had no passport. I was a refugee from a Communist Country, yearning for freedom, liberty and democracy, a place where I can think freely, without being told how to think or what to think
When I reached America, to me, at least, it was paradise - I felt that "freedom" that I never got to enjoy when I was in China
Of course I did not know anything about "Operation Mocking Bird", or anything similar - but even if I did know, at that time, America was still "free-ier" than the China that I ran away from
Today, however, if I were to be truthful to myself, I could no longer say the same thing
Sure, China is still a repressive country, but the America that I loved so much has slowly creeping towards the authoritarian style of government
And the worse part is, many of my fellow Americans are supporting that change --- for they want the government to make the "hate things"(like "hate speech") illegal, and they want the government to take away all the firearms (for safety), and they want to government to take away their liberty so that the government could "protect them"
That is the America of today, very different from the America when I first arrive in, some decades ago
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
With the climate nowadays 1st Amendment does not offer any real protection of free speech anymore
You can be accused of "hate speech", you can be prosecuted under whatever trumped up charge they can cook up, and they can silence you with their "national security" privileges - and the unknown number of secretive laws there are (so secret that we may not know the extent of those laws) can be used at any given time to shut anybody and everybody up, by any mean
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
At least the folks in the Soviet bloc knew the media was state controlled and was lying to them.
Here's the problem (and yes, it's endemic to both parties) - you're a fucking hypocrite.
This kind of story essentially acts as a rorshach test - the typical assessment goes something like this:
1) Something BAD() has been done;
2) Check if the BAD() thing was done by the opposing party;
3) If "Yes", conjure up maximum moral outrage;
4) If "No", downplay the size, scope, or severity of the BAD() thing.
If this was FoxNews checking with the CIA, you'd be outraged.
If this was the LA Times checking with the CIA under Bush, you'd be outraged.
Hell, you speak disparagingly of "the most popular news network" as a mouthpiece of the GOP, but gloss over the fact that the rest of the media is just as much a mouthpiece for the Democrat party! And you don't bat an eye at that!
Fuck all of you party partisans and your silly "rah-rah" team rationalizations. The issue here isn't about parties - the issue here is about the press being in cahoots with our large, powerful, ever expanding, ever intrusive, and fucked up government, under *any* party.