http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20gen erals.html?_r=3&sq=behind%20tv%20analysts&st=nyt&o ref=login&scp=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin&oref= slogin


International Herald Tribune coverage for those unable to access the original NYT piece...

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/...20generals.php

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

Yes, of course, the Pentagon has a hidden hand in news analysis and propaganda...but, you must go further...who owns and administers the 'media'?...and, further yet, who 'owns and controls' the Pentagon?...from what I see of today's 'journalists & analysts', I would put them into a few broad categories: 1) the average journalist of 2008 is a completely corporate animal, who has no freedom, and sadder yet, no interest in any real investigative journalism...any journalist who crosses over into trying to ascertain the truth on any 'controversial' isssues will be warned and/or fired...2) 'Analysts' on news programs,say like NPR or 'The Jim Lehrer News Hour' are completely controlled, mostly drawn from 'think tanks' that push the globalist line...NPR is especially nauseating, as the vast majority of their commentators have no clue as to what is really happening...3) 'Journalists' on networks like FOX are simply shills or clowns who have no real positions on anything, but are put in place mainly to confuse an American public that has neither the time nor desire to examine issues in depth....4) Internet Journalists:
the last bastion of real investigative journalism...although there is much disinformation on the Internet, it is the only place where controversial issues can be explored and examined without censorship...blogs are the grass roots component of this electronic journalism.

This is what happens when the media are allowed to combine into bigger and bigger corporations...which has been going on since Bill Clinton's era and escalated since 2000. You get effective control in the hands of very few people; you get news staff thinned out to where most news is just regurjitation of the wire reports. You get news that is just fluff, such as all those Hollywood reports about various starlets prancing about. That's the news diet in America now. Is there any wonder that many Americans still believe that Iraq had everything to do with 9/11?!

These are all issues being harped on by Nader and a few others. Do they get coverage? Of course not. THey are instead lampooned!

__________________
Remedy for Electile Dysfunction: http://www.votenader.org/index.html



9/14, quote on elections, because shosh had to put up that thoughtful writeup on mediocrity and elitism:
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." — H. L. Mencken

Pentagon, TV Networks, Fear Debating Iraq Propaganda Scandal
By John Stauber

This Sunday’s stunning, front-page New York Times revelations of the Pentagon military analyst program have been met with a wall of silence and cover-up on network television news. America’s TV networks — ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN and FOX — are where most Americans get most of their news, and they are the main culprits in allowing Donald Rumsfeld and Torie Clark to turn them into the primary propaganda tool for selling the Iraq war to the public.

PBS NewsHour covered this issue in a televised debate April 24 pitting me against Robert Zelnick, former ABC Pentagon correspondent and now chair of the Boston University journalism department. (Zelnick is also affiliated with the Hoover Institute, a conservative think tank.) No one from the Pentagon would agree to appear on the PBS show, nor would anyone appear from any of the guilty TV networks.

My debate with Zelnick is now on YouTube, where you can watch it yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm813muGhVg

The NewsHour report on the Pentagon pundits that preceded our debate is also online, and if you have a slow internet connection (or if you find my face and voice too irritating to tolerate), you can also read the online transcript.

As I said during the program, I was shocked at Zelnick’s cavalier dismissal of this illegal propaganda campaign as business as usual. He even claimed that the Pentagon program was helpful in giving the public more information. Zelnick is an unabashed supporter of the Bush
Administration first-strike attack on and occupation of Iraq. Even so, for a man who runs a major journalism school to be so welcoming toward illegal government propaganda is itself stunning and speaks volumes about what is wrong with journalism in the United States.

I’ve been receiving many emails about my appearance. This one comes from a journalism professor with a different viewpoint than Zelnick:

Thank you for pointing out the absurdity of Bob Zelnick’s statements on PBS’s Newshour this evening. I teach journalism at a community college, and when my students and I discussed the NYT piece this week, even these young journalists were outraged. Thank you for not allowing Mr. Zelnick’s warped representation of journalism to stand without a challenge.

Maybe I should have put this question to Bob Zelnick, point blank: “Professor Zelnick, are you now or have you ever been a willing instrument in a Pentagon propaganda campaign to sell a war and manage public opinion and media coverage of it?” That question should now be asked every time a military pundit appears on TV to give his or her “expert” opinion.

Of course, the TV networks themselves won’t ask it. They’re busy hiding from this scandal, not covering it. That’s why we need you to make sure the word gets out. Send an email to your friends. Sign the petition that our friends at Free Press have started. And if you haven’t read The New York Times story, make sure you do (Here’s the link.) It’s great to see the Times doing some hard-hitting, important journalism that actually questions government propaganda instead of spreading it.

John Stauber is Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at: john [at] prwatch.org

well, apparently they put a halt to this "collaboration" after the NYT article got published and everyone caught on. I read it in a Reuters newswire.

__________________
Remedy for Electile Dysfunction: http://www.votenader.org/index.html



9/14, quote on elections, because shosh had to put up that thoughtful writeup on mediocrity and elitism:
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." — H. L. Mencken

So where exactly was the so called "Liberal Media" bias during the runup to the war when the Corporate media was acting as the Pentagon's stenographers?

http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/media...hed_me_%3D5928