| Oct 5, 2005 Reading the Pictures: Bush's Halo The visual coverage of Bush has become decidedly less flattering, with more emphasis on awkwardness and self-promotion. Just one of the tricks used to maintain the illusion of democratic citizen participation in a constitutional republic. Oct 5, 2005 Strange Times Roughly 70 percent of the punches are coming from the right, which is in open rebellion, and conservatives are driving the debate about Miers' lack of qualifications. So why does the Times suggest it's otherwise? Oct 1, 2005 Buying of news by Bush's aides is ruled illegal Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party. In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban Oct 1, 2005 GAO: Bush Adm. violated law by disseminating covert propaganda Sep 28, 2005 A Whore for War
The Administration's in-house male prostitute, Jeff Gannon, was among the post-Peace-Rally counter-protesters, Sep 28, 2005 Noam Chomsky - Controlled NWO Asset? He enjoys a slavish cult-like following from millions leftist students, journalists, and activists worldwide ... However, as one begins to examine the interviews and writings of Chomsky, a different picture emerges. His books, so vociferously lauded in leftist circles, appear to be calculated disinformation designed to distract and confuse honest activists. He also insisted on the Official Conspiracy Theory on 9-11-- hijacking by "Arab" terrorists who couldn't fly little planes much less the "heavies." Sep 23, 2005 Pro Zionist Frontpagemag working to deflect attention from Abramoff by connecting Safavian with al Qaeda Sep 23, 2005 Website of ex-IDF soldiers "..we decided to break the silence, because it's time to tell. Time to tell about everything that goes on there each and every day." Sep 23, 2005 The O'Reilly Tractor Pompous, arrogant, obnoxious and noxious gas bag, Bill O'Reilly, Bush's chief Nazi propagandist, got his clock cleaned by none other than Phil Donahue, once at the top of my list of left-wing, anti-American "Hollywood commies" as defined by my back-then broadcast gurus and so-called "conservative" saviors: Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity and Savage Sep 6, 2005 SHAMING THE DEVIL: Mainstream Media shares the blame for a failed President ...imagine the numbers of people who might have lived had the corporate media not betrayed them. Imagine what might have been had George Bush and his band of thugs been confronted at every turn by the hard questions that should have been asked by honorable journalists? Just imagine what might have been if this administration had been held accountable for its lies and deceptions by the news networks and the press corps. Imagine how many thousands of people might still be alive. Imagine how many maimed bodies might still be whole. Imagine how much suffering might have been avoided. Just imagine. Sep 5, 2005 Memo to the media: Stop enabling the White House blame game Aug 26, 2005 WND plays stupid again to trick their readers into thinking that the only reason for centrifuges is so that Iran can make weapons grade uranium! Duh! Centrifuges are ALSO used to enrich uranium for power reactors. Either Lindsey is a fool or thinks WND readers are fools. Aug 9, 2005
Newsmax spin: WMD Message Failure Damaging Bush Notice how Newsmax spins the story to be about support for Bush not about lying about WMD to ensnare the US in war. These immoral cretins are part of the problem and pretending to be journalists they have been complicit in the treason. July 16, 2005 Denied and dismissed as "internet rumor", the early warning to Netanyahu was being reported as fact by mainstream media July 13, 2005 Blaming Internet for Jihad, bombings & resistance The US's - and globally similar main$tream media - proceed advocating 'regulation' of Internet more and more, which is a bad omen. In an article*- today in the formerly respected American neocon paper 'The Christian Science Monitor', it is even referred to as a fact that 'Iraq and Internet fuel the growth of the 'global jihad', as the resistance against the present wars of occupation is called. July 5 2005 Canada's Ambassador Declares War on Fox News
July 2, 2005 Bush Administration Annexes Internet
In an extraordinary statement by the US government which has sent shockwaves around the internet world, the US Department of Commerce (DoC) has made it clear it intends to retain control of the internet's root servers indefinitely. It was due to relinquish that control in September 2006, when its contract with overseeing body ICANN ended.
This is particularly relevant at the moment as a UN review of internet governance will report later this year and indications are that the team is considering handing over elements of internet control to a UN body, possibly the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
So we are supposed to be relieved when the U.N. takes over the Net instead, eh? July 2, 2005 IFJ calls for independent probe over 3 more media killings in Iraq involving US troops June 8, 2005 'USA Today' Defends Lack of Coverage for Downing Street Memo June 8, 2005 The Memo Comes In From the Cold Mar 17, 2005 Sex, Lies and Call Girls: Why the U.S. Media Is a Whore Mar 17, 2005 Bush Defends "Packaged News" Stories from Government Orwell's Ministry of Truth insists on right to lie and dissemble Mar 16, 2005 WANTED: 250,000 Americans to Fight Fake News & Government Propaganda Mar 15, 2005 White House rejects GAO ruling on propaganda videos The Bush administration, rejecting an opinion from the Government Accountability Office, said last week that it is legal for federal agencies to feed TV stations prepackaged news stories that do not disclose the government's role in producing them. Mar 15, 2005 How govt agencies produce hundreds of pre-packaged TV news segments Orwellian "Ministry of Truth" is on the move to become the American way Mar 9, 2005 For Whom Art Bell Tolls... He Tolls For The New World Order Mar 7, 2005 Eliminating Truth: The Development Of War Propaganda The attack on Iraq looks set to be the most censored conflict of modern times. Media coverage in mainstream media will be controlled as never before. The US is determined to eliminate independent reporting of and from Iraq and it will go to unprecedented lengths to ensure that its propaganda and spin will dominate media agendas in the UK and US and it will expend massive resources in minimising critical coverage across the world. Feb 19, 2005 Nation's largest newspapers play down a thousand pages of evidence of new torture Feb 19, 2005 Federal agencies warned about producing fake news videos to promote government policies is a violation of the law Feb 19, 2005 Gannongate threatens to expose a huge GOP pedophile and male prostitution ring The new Craig Spence? During the Reagan Administration, Craig Spence was taking boy prostitutes on late night tours of the White House. He was later "suicided." The Larry King child prostitution, pornography ring was ensconced in a mansion on embassy row, entertaining "dignitaries" such as Reagan and Bush, Sr. Read about it in Omaha Franklin Child Sex Ring Scandal and Omaha Call Boys. More at Paul Bonacci vs Lawrence King: Franklin Child Sex Abuse Scandal Tried in Civil Court and Interview with John deCamp, former GOP State Senator, Author of Franklin Cover-up. Feb 7, 2005 Conservative commentators Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher and Michael McManus outed for taking bribes to endorse Bush programs Jan 17, 2005 Hotel journalism gives American troops a free hand as the press shelters indoors April 7, 2004 Righteous Joe shows his true master as he calls for blood and vengeance in Falluja during Christian Holy Week April 2, 2004 20,000 more PR experts in the U. S. doctoring the news than journalists trying to report it. (11/7/03)
America's Ministry of Propaganda Part One: "A Strategy of Lies: How the White House Fed the Public a Steady Diet of Falsehoods." America's Ministry of Propaganda Part Two: "Transforming Language to Market the Big Lie." America's Ministry of Propaganda Part Three: "Targeting Critics, Spreading Lies, and PSYOPS." America's Ministry of Propaganda Part Four: "Black Programs and the Future of Propaganda."
Thirteen Techniques for Truth Suppression by David Martin Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party. - Dummy up. If it's not reported, if it's not news, it didn't happen.
- Wax indignant. This is also known as the "how dare you?" gambit.
- Characterize the charges as "rumors" or, better yet, "wild rumors." If, in spite of the news blackout, the public is still able to learn about the suspicious facts, it can only be through "rumors."
- Knock down straw men. Deal only with the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Even better, create your own straw men. Make up wild rumors and give them lead play when you appear to debunk all the charges, real and fanciful alike.
- Call the skeptics names like "conspiracy theorist," "nut," "ranter," "kook," "crackpot," and of course, "rumor monger." You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people you have thus maligned.
- Impugn motives. Attempt to marginalize the critics by suggesting strongly that they are not really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to make money.
- Invoke authority. Here the controlled press and the sham opposition can be very useful.
- Dismiss the charges as "old news."
- Come half-clean. This is also known as "confession and avoidance" or "taking the limited hang-out route." This way, you create the impression of candor and honesty while you admit only to relatively harmless, less-than-criminal "mistakes." This stratagem often requires the embrace of a fall-back position quite different from the one originally taken.
- Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth as ultimately unknowable.
- Reason backward, using the deductive method with a vengeance. With thoroughly rigorous deduction, troublesome evidence is irrelevant. For example: We have a completely free press. If they know of evidence that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) had prior knowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing they would have reported it. They haven't reported it, so there was no prior knowledge by the BATF. Another variation on this theme involves the likelihood of a conspiracy leaker and a press that would report it.
- Require the skeptics to solve the crime completely.
- Change the subject. This technique includes creating and/or reporting a distraction.
DISINFORMATION ALERT!!!! THE 50-50 LIE
This classic disinformation technique is used to inflate the opinion the corporate media wants to promote, while minimizing any dissent against that opinion. To add an even more egregious dimension of cynical fraud to this crime, it is billed by the perpetrators as "unbiased news."
In the 50-50 lie, instead of reporting the actual fact that the number of people moved to take to the streets to protest the war totally overwhelms those willing to protest in favor, the networks or newspapers report that "protests both for and against the war are being staged." Conspicuously absent from such reports is any mention of comparative numbers of protests and protestors involved. The implication is everything, the truth nothing. Here's a classic example: At the height of this week's international protests involving millions, one headline on AOL's mainpage (AOL is the FOX of the Internet), described this historic situation as a "Mixed reaction to war around the world." Mixed reaction? That's like calling Vermont, which has the fewest non-white residents of all the states, a melting pot. This isn't unbiased reporting, this is lying by implication and it is a crime.
The reality is, the number of anti-war protestors out-numbers the number of pro-war protestors by, at the LEAST, about 100,000 to 100. The largest protest the pro-war people have mustered is about 6,000, near Valley Forge in PA. And, it was recently revealed that these protests had been funded by the corporate media giant, CLEAR CHANNEL I.e, they were a rightwing corporate sham and hardly a grassroots movement. On 3/22 as FOX TV showed the hundreds of thousands of protestors in NYC that that filled all of Broadway south of Times Square, across the bottom, the banner headline said "protests for and against the war across the country." On NBC (Nazi
Broadcasting Corporation) 3/23 nightly news, the footage was so slanted it was stomach-turning. The New York protests - over 200,000 people of all ages, colors, and backgrounds, was juxtaposed in a 50-50 way with a tiny protest in an ultra-rightwing, very white community in California. Then the protest in London - over 500,000 strong! - was (can you believe it?!) downplayed as being not as big as expected...HUH? Then heavily edited clips (edited to slant) of protests elsewhere were shown. A Beirut anti-war protest was billed as "Pro-Saddam Hussein" by the NBC commentator - even though the signs shown in the sea of protestors all read "NO WAR." Then, at the close of this farce, Tom Brokaw says what proof this is of a "world deeply divided." Since when is 6 billion people in several hundred nations united against a few million right-wingers in, essentially, two countries, a "DIVIDED WORLD." It isn't - and that is the truth Brokaw and his pals in the Bush Corporate Empire do not want people to see.
Another 50-50 technique is to present an equal number of pro and con statements on an issue - even if the cons (or pros, depending on the case) represent a tiny minority. In truly unbiased, accurate reporting, the number of statements presented reflect the reality of your sample. If your sampling of "men on the street" includes 10 pros and one con, then you present several pros and one con, without spin or judgment. That accurately reflects reality. You do not select the weakest or flakiest pro statement and pair it with the only con - which is what the media now does.
DISINFORMATION BRIEFS 3/23
FOX Ad: Running over and over, and always (from witness reports) directly after footage of protests. This slick package of an ad shows five scrubbed looking college students saying... "We speak...we listen...we unite ...support our troops...." At the end of the ad, no attribution is given at all, which is suspicious, to say the least. Afterall, even Phillip Morris has to stick on an attribution at the end of its "anti-smoking public service ads). So who paid for the FOX ad? The Charitable Rumsfeld Foundation?
Just before 2:00 pm, TV news reports journalists being fired on. Suddenly, the networks cut back to regular programming." I.e., a blackout. I learn online later that at least 6 journalists have been killed in a "secured town." In times gone by, a disaster such as this would have triggered an intensive round of coverage...minute to minute. Now, because it works against propaganda, it is scrubbed until an appropriate spin can be constructed.
Meanwhile, AOL is running headlines (throughout the afternoon of 3.23) straight out of fantasy land: "Franks says fight is "on our terms." Do those terms include the slaughter of journalists? I wonder.... Another AOL
headline: "U.S. won't use Turkish bases. " This wording, of course, implies that we have CHOSEN not to use the bases. The fact is, their use has been denied by the Turkish parliament. Here's the real story: http://home.earthlink.net/~cherylseal/index.html Hugo Chavez Is Crazy! June 25, 2003
Editors note: As a globetrotting investigative reporter who has worked for major news outlets on both sides of the Atlantic, Greg Palast has had ample opportunity to see how media coverage can strongly skew how events are seen by the public. Last week, in an original article published on AlterNet, "The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney", he showed how sloppy reporters at the New York Times and National Public Radio were complicit in the political destruction of progressive Rep. Cynthia McKinney. Now, in another case study, he takes on U.S. media coverage of Venezuela's political turmoil.
Last June, on Page One of the San Francisco Chronicle, an Associated Press photo of a mass of demonstrators carried the following caption:
"TENS OF THOUSANDS OF VENEZUELANS OPPOSED TO PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ..."
The caption let us know this South American potentate was a killer, an autocrat, and the people of his nation wanted him out. The caption continued: "[Venezuelans] marched Saturday to demand his resignation and punishment for those responsible for 17 deaths during a coup in April. 'Chavez leave now!' read a huge banner."
There was no actual story in the Chronicle - South America simply isn't worth wasting words on - just the photo and caption. But the Chronicle knew no story was needed. Venezuelans hated their terrible president, and all you needed was this photo to prove it.
And I could confirm the large protests. I'd recently returned from Caracas and watched 100,000 march against President Chavez. I'd filmed them for BBC Television London.
But I also filmed this: a larger march, easily over 200,000 Venezuelans marching in support of their president, Chavez.
That picture, of the larger pro-Chavez march, did not appear in a single U.S. newspaper. The pro-Chavez marchers weren't worth a mention.
By the next month, when the New York Times printed a photo of anti-Chavez marchers, they had metastasized. The Times reported that 600,000 had protested against Chavez.
Once again, the larger pro-Chavez demonstrations were, as they say in Latin America, "disappeared." I guess they didn't fit the print.
Look at the Chronicle/AP photo of the anti-Chavez marchers in Venezuela. Note their color. White.
And not just any white. A creamy rich white.
I interviewed them and recorded in this order: a banker in high heels and push-up bra; an oil industry executive (same outfit); and a plantation owner who rode to Caracas in a silver Jaguar.
And the color of the pro-Chavez marchers? Dark brown. Brown and round as cola nuts - just like their hero, their President Chavez. They wore an unvarying uniform of jeans and T-shirts.
Let me explain.
For five centuries, Venezuela has been run by a minority of very white people, pure-blood descendants of the Spanish conquistadors. To most of the 80 percent of Venezuelans who are brown, Hugo Chavez is their Nelson Mandela, the man who will smash the economic and social apartheid that has kept the dark-skinned millions stacked in cardboard houses in the hills above Caracas while the whites live in high-rise splendor in the city center. Chavez, as one white Caracas reporter told me with a sneer, gives them bricks and milk, and so they vote for him.
Why am I explaining the basics of Venezuela to you? If you watched BBC TV, or Canadian Broadcasting, you'd know all this stuff. But if you read the New York Times, you'll only know that President Chavez is an "autocrat," a "ruinous demagogue," and a "would-be dictator," who resigned when he recognized his unpopularity.
Odd phrasings - "dictator" and "autocrat" - to describe Chavez, who was elected by a landslide majority (56 percent) of the voters. Unlike our President.
On April 12, 2002, Chavez resigned his presidency It said so, right there in the paper - every major newspaper in the USA, every single one. Apparently, to quote the New York Times, Chavez recognized that he was unpopular, his time was up: "With yesterday's resignation of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator."
Problem was, the "resignation" story was a fabulous fib, a phantasmagoric fabrication. In fact, the President of Venezuela had been kidnapped at gunpoint and bundled off by helicopter from the presidential palace. He had not resigned; he never resigned; and one of his captors (who secretly supported Chavez) gave him a cell-phone from which he called and confirmed to friends and family that he remained alive - and still president.
Working for the Guardian and the BBC, I was able within hours of the kidnapping to reach key government people in Venezuela to confirm that this "resignation" factoid was just hoodoo nonsense.
But it was valuable nonsense to the U.S. State Department. The faux resignation gave the new U.S.-government-endorsed Venezuelan leaders the pretense of legitimacy - Chavez had resigned; this was a legal change of government, not a coup d'etat. (The Organization of American States bars recognition of governments who come to power through violence.) Had the coup leaders not bungled their operation - the coup collapsed within 48 hours - or if they had murdered Chavez, we would never have known the truth.
The U.S. papers got it dead wrong - but how? Who was the source of this "resignation" lie? I asked a U.S. reporter why American news media had reported this nonsense as stone fact without checking. The reply was that it came from a reliable source: "We got it from the State Department."
Oh.
"He's crazy," shouts a protester about President Chavez on one broadcast. And if you watched the 60 Minutes interview with Chavez, you saw a snippet of a lengthy conversation - a few selective seconds, actually - which, out of context, did made Chavez look loony.
In the old Soviet Union, dissidents were packed off to insane asylums to silence and discredit them. In our democracy we have a more subtle - and more effective - means of silencing and discrediting dissidents. Television, radio, and print press obligingly sequester enemies of the state in the media's madhouse. In this way, Bush critic Rep. Cynthia McKinney became "loony" (see earlier article, The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney"); Chavez a mad "autocrat."
It's the electronic loony bin. You no longer hear what they have to say because you've been told by images, by repetition, and you've already dismissed their words ... if by some chance their words break through the television Berlin Wall.
Try it: Do a Google or Lexis search on the words Chavez and autocrat.
For who is the autocrat? Today, there are hundreds of people held in detention without charges in George Bush's United States. In Venezuela, there are none.
This is not about Venezuela but about the Virtual Venezuela, created for you by America's news wardens. The escape routes are guarded.
January 5, 2003, New York City. Picked up bagels and the Sunday Times on Delancey Street. Looks like that s.o.b. Chavez is at it again: Here was a big picture of a half-dozen people lying on the ground. The Times story read: "Protesters shielded themselves from tear gas during an anti- government rally on Friday in Caracas, Venezuela. In the 33rd day of a national strike, several protesters were shot."
That was it - the entire story of Venezuela for the Paper of Record.
Maybe size doesn't matter. But this does: Even this itty-bitty story is a steaming hot bag of mendacity. Yes, two people were shot dead - those in the pro-Chavez march.
I'd be wrong to say that every U.S. paper repeated the Times sloppy approach. Elsewhere, you could see a photo of the big pro-Chavez march and a photo of the "Chavista" widow placed within an explanatory newswire story. Interestingly, the fuller and correct story ran in an outlet that's none too friendly to Chavez: El Diario, New York City's oldest Spanish-language newspaper.
Lesson: If you want to get accurate news in the United States, you might want to learn a language other than English.
Friday, January 3, 2003. The New York Times ran a long "News Analysis: Venezuela Outlook." Four experts were quoted. For balance, two of them don't like Chavez, while the other two despise him.
The Times reporter wrote that "the president says he will stay in power." "In power?" What a strange phrase for an elected official. Having myself spoken with Chavez, it did not sound like him. He indicated he would stay "in office" - quite a different inference than "in power." But then, the Times' phrasing isn't in quotes.
That's because Chavez never said it.
Iraq: the Dog That Didn't Bark? or Was It Muzzled? The lingering lies of the First Gulf War Tue April 15, 2003 Some Iraqis captured in the southern oil fields were reported to have told U.S. forces they had been persuaded by air-dropped exhortations not to squander their country's wealth. [Presumes that is what they did in the First Gulf War.] But Jon Rapaport at Stratiawire reports: A group of Gulf War I veterans has accused the U.S. of setting the oil well fires the last time around: http://www.stratiawire.com/article.asp?id=936 The Brutality of War: "It really is disgustingly sanitized on television," says US neurosurgeon April 5, 2003
Friday morning: 57 dead; 16 missing; 7 captured.
The daily White House press briefings and fuzzy real-time TV reports fall far short of conveying the brutality of war, says Boulder neurosurgeon Gene Bolles.
Bolles spent Thursday hunched over an operating table at Germany's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, repairing the broken back of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was rescued from an Iraqi hospital this week. The 19-year-old soldier will require aggressive rehabilitation, Bolles said, but is expected to recover well -- one success story in a war full of tragedy.
"It really is disgustingly sanitized on television," said Bolles, who has spent the last 16 months as chief of neurosurgery at Landstuhl, the destination for the war's most wounded soldiers.
As of Friday, 281 patients had been brought to Landstuhl since Operation Iraqi Freedom started, and plane-loads are arriving regularly.
"We have had a number of really horrific injuries now from the war. They have lost arms, legs, hands, they have been burned, they have had significant brain injuries and peripheral nerve damage. These are young kids that are going to be, in some regards, changed for life. I don't feel that people realize that." Oct 16, 2004 "The deep corruption of television journalism has been accomplished by inviting the journalist stars to the dinner parties of the plutocrats, and making them feel that they belong." Oct 14, 2004 Settler Crimes and Media Silence Oct 11, 2004 Journalist Judith Miller of the NYTimes might have been jailed for another attack on the First Amendment to muffle whistleblowers Does NY Times reporter Judith Miller work for U.S. intelligence? A well-connected friend has told me that some insiders suspect that New York Times reporter Judith Miller is a U.S. intelligence agent. While this would explain a lot of things, my first thought was "If she were working for U.S. intelligence, would she make it so obvious?" I put on my google-monkey costume, and here's what I found:
FIRST, this is not idle paranoia. The Senate committee headed by Frank Church in the 1970s found that there were as many as 400 journalists on the CIA's payroll. A long summary of the history of the CIA and the media is here.
SECOND, in this interview right after the Sept. 11 attacks, Judith Miller goes out of her way to extensively *defend* the U.S. intelligence community. It sounds very much like a U.S. intelligence spokesperson doing damage control.
Just to take one piece of her long defense of U.S. intelligence:
Question: How do we grade the intelligence community in the United States?
Miller: You know, it's so easy in retrospect to look back and say, "Would've, could've, should've." I can't say that, because I think we're spending now over $10 billion a year on counterterrorism. Even before the most recent horrific attacks, even before that, every eye and ear of the U.S. government was trained on this part of the world -- Afghanistan, on these networks, in Europe, in the Middle East. This is really hard work. It's hard as a journalist and it's even hard when you're a government official armed with electronic eyes and ears and search warrants. This is the toughest kind of reporting and the toughest kind of intelligence to get.
THIRD, looking through her backlog of stories on the New York Times, a large proportion cite unidentified military, intelligence, or administration officials, even before her string of Iraqi weapons falsehoods.
Principally, on September 8, 2002, she broke the bogus story that Iraq was trying to acquiring aluminum tubes for centrifuges to build nuclear weapons. People who were paying attention will recall that after Colin Powell presented this in his speech at the U.N., it was dismissed by experts who pointed out that the coating on the tubes made them unsuitable for a centrifuge, and that the tubes' specifications were much more compatible with the Iraqi explanation that they were for rockets.
It was Miller who served up Khidir Hamza, the self-proclaimed nuclear bombmaker for Saddam, later exposed as a fraud.
So, no real answers, but lots of reason to never trust anything this woman writes. Does she work for the Pentagon or is she just really gullible? Does it make any difference? More disinformation from the conservative WorldNetDaily: Terror link to West Nile? FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN Saddam, Castro suspect in spread of mosquito-transmitted disease "While some Americans are still suspicious about claims that Saddam Hussein had an active chemical and biological weapons program, others believe he unleashed that program on the U.S. in the form of West Nile Virus - now spreading across the U.S. faster than ever."
"A report in the latest edition of Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin links the virus to a biological weapons program in Cuba and an effort by Saddam Hussein to unleash his ultimate weapon against the U.S." However, two laboratories have found that West Nile virus in the USA is most likely of Israeli origin. "Dr. Robert Lanciotti and his colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, Colo., as well as Dr. Ian Lipkin's group at the University of California at Irvine have both completed their sequencings of the New York City '99 encephalitis virus."
"What was unexpected, and in fact shocking to us, is that the Israel '98 virus ... was 99.8% similar," Dr. Lanciotti said at the meeting. Family Practice News, Jan 1, 2000 Should we readily suppose that the Mossad didn't notice the Cubans or Iraqis among them stealing germs? I heard the Mossad was the world's best intelligence agency. But then, the likely source was not widely reported and it's been long enough that most people would have forgotten the facts and not noticed the lie. If you watch carefully, you can discover who can be trusted and who is prone to spread disinformation. Disinformation from the US Central Command in Iraq--This rare warplane was never in Iraq  by Joe Vialls What these [unidentifiable] hooded men are guarding is a very rare Russian aircraft known as the Mig 25-PU. Known generically to the world as the Mig 25 "Foxbat", this version is a two-seat interceptor trainer produced in numbers so small that every aviation buff in the world knows where they all are. Iraq had never bought any Mig 25-PUs, has not borrowed or been given any Mig 25-PUs, so this official picture from US Central Command cannot have been shot in Iraq. It really is that simple...
The headgear worn by these heroes is mildly interesting, because it is very similar if not identical to that worn by Russian special forces, normally but not always in Russia. The colors on the aircraft indicate that is most likely one belonging to Tajikistan, where certain units of the SAS [hush my mouth...] went on exercise a year or two ago. Remember Exercise "Enduring Freedom"?
Someone really should have a quiet word with US Central Command. If you know their telephone number, call and tell them that if they really want to fool the western public, their PR folk really should use a picture of an aircraft that most people will actually believe is [or can be] in Iraq. Try to stick to the ubiquitous Mig 21. Almost everyone in the Middle East has a few of these, including Saddam... WorldNetDaily tries to pin TWA 800 on Iran: Just believe! Iran can scoot into the middle of a US Navy exercise, shoot down an airliner and no one notices!
Hardly anyone buys the "center wing tank blew up" explanation any more, and a lawsuit now in the court system will soon prove that the NTSB and CIA had no factual basis for claiming a nose-less 747 could zoom climb thousands of feet (especially since the center wing tank explosion would also have destroyed the frame holding the wings in place). Ever since the official cover-up has collapsed, government shills have tried to find someone on which to blame the missile hundreds of eyewitnesses saw strike TWA 800. At one point, Iraq was blamed, but now that Iraq has been conquered and Iraq's oil flows into American oil company ships, the blame has to be shifted to the next target, Iran. But, a claim that Iran shot down TWA 800 has two major problems. First, Cashill has to explain how Iranians could sail into the middle of an ongoing US Navy test undetected, fire off the very sort of missile the US Navy system was designed to detect, then sail right back out without the US Navy giving any sort of chase. Second, the NTSB was caught in court rigging the tests on TWA 800 and then lying about the results. Why would the NTSB go to such lengths for Iran? Michael Rivero, What Really Happened | Oct 5, 2005 AOL Time-Warner censors Alex Jones websites Oct 5, 2005 Watch Washington Times spin propaganda: Makes issue of Iranian Army preparing to protect nuclear reactors from Israeli attacks Oct 4, 2005 Neocon blogger slanders Galloway and Jones Oct 4, 2005 Understanding The Media's 'Patriotic' Narcolepsy The release of Andrea Mitchell's new book Talking Tough to Presidents, Dictators, and Other Scoundrels has brought with it the admission by Mitchell and some of her colleagues that they -- the press and your Fourth Estate -- gave President Bush and his administration a free pass from 9/11 through Hurricane Katrina. This stands repeating. Members of the media have confirmed they made a conscious effort not to challenge the Bush administration for exactly four years, through and including the 2004 presidential election, until just this past month when it temporarily grew a vestigial spinal column. The bloggers were right about Iraq's non-existent WMDs, the mainstream media were wrong, and by virtue of Andrea Mitchell's confession, the mainstream media KNEW they were wrong and still fed the lies to the American public. Oct 3, 2005 MEMRI plays the "limited hangout" game Sep 27, 2005 EU to apply 'hate' speech laws to the Internet Sep 27, 2005 AOL censors world's largest revisionist website Sep 27, 2005 From a Cave in Afghanistan: It's the al-Zarqawi Show! Sep 26, 2005 Public opinion is now being massaged to forget about promise to find bin Laden Sep 26, 2005 Hillary's Brave New World of Internet Censorship Sep 24, 2005 You Can't Handle the Truth --Psy-ops propaganda goes mainstream. "Strategic Communication Laboratories, a small U.K. firm specializing in "influence operations" made a very public debut this week with a glitzy exhibit occupying prime real estate at Defense Systems & Equipment International, or DSEi, the United Kingdom's largest showcase for military technology. The main attraction was a full-scale mock-up of its ops center, running simulations ranging from natural disasters to political coups... The problem is, the SCL scenario also sounds a lot like using a private company to help overthrow a democratically elected government." In the US we already know Diebold Sep 22, 2005 Journalist, Robert Fisk, refused entry to the US. Sep 19, 2005 Media compliment emperor's new clothes Sep 11, 2005 Has the Internet Clampdown Begun? Sep 9, 2005 Pelosi tells CNN anchor, Kyra Phillips,"If you want to make a case for the White House, you should go on their payroll" Aug 30, 2005 NY Times Skews the News... Again In a shameless repeat performance of the piece I analyzed earlier this year, the New York Times has gone for the jugular of the antiwar movement by portraying its strongest spokespersons - military family members who oppose Bush and are calling for troops to be withdrawn from Iraq - as weak, misguided, confused, mentally unbalanced, and unpatriotic. Aug 30, 2005 Was Joe Vialls really Ari Ben-Menashe? Aug 12, 2005 National Enquirer contracted to keep Schwarzenegger extra-marital affair quiet Aug 11, 2005 Globalists Seek to Sanitize Internet: A Call for Programmers to Create Alternative Net Aug 10, 2005 Alternative Media Grows - Mainstream Gatekeepers Fall
The alternative media is by no means perfect, we make mistakes just as the mainstream does. The difference is that the alternative media actively attempts to tell the truth rather than actively attempting to hide it or misdirect the reader. Furthermore, when we make a mistake we also make the retraction clear, rather than burying it in small type on page 27 Aug 9, 2005
The Bush Gang - Get The Internet! July 21, 2005 Cutting up Chickens: The Power of Lies and Disinformation July 18, 2005 What Does "Fair and Balanced" Journalism Mean? Fair to who? Fair to liars who do not want to be exposed? Fair to the proponents of the Weapons of Mass Destruction argument? Fair to the fabricators of the deceptions used by Colin Powell in his speech to the United Nations? What form of journalism would be fair and balanced for the cause of peace? What form of journalism would be fair and balanced for the sake of Iraqi freedom? What form of journalism would be fair and balanced for the sake of justice for the Palestinians? What form of journalism would be fair and balanced for the benefit of the American taxpayer and his future under a heavy burden of wealth transfer to the wealthy elite?... June 29, 2005 Media Censorship even at Indymedia July 1, 2005 American press's meek handling of Downing Street disclosures shames the profession June 26, 2005 New, improved Bush: Impish and well-read: what passes for news and journalism at Wall Street Journal and NY Times June 23, 2005 >>>: TRUTH REVEALED: The New York Times is a Master at Deception" target="_blank" href="http://newsclipautopsy.blogspot.com/2005/06/truth-revealed-new-york-times-is.html"> TRUTH REVEALED: The New York Times is a Master at Deception June 11, 2005 Internet Under Attack Again - This Time By HR 2726 June 6, 2005 Farah hits a new low June 6, 2005 The bloggers have all the best news June 6, 2005 Crimes Of The Times - Fiction And Suppression Apr 29, 2005 WorldNetDaily: Iran military journal eyes nuclear EMP attack on U.S. Joe Farah shows his Zionist support with his latest attack scare Apr 29, 2005 NEWSMAX tries to save the WMD lie. This is a great opportunity to identify the propagandists ... NEWSMAX, Weekly Standard and WorldNetDaily...aimed at the most stupid of the sheeple. Most of the others present mere disinformation aimed at the rest of us. Apr 1, 2005 Screened audiences, fake news promote Bush agenda Mar 11, 2005 Schwarzenegger Latest To Fake News Stories Mar 9, 2005 World Net Daily's Phalangist roots showing as it declares "Hezbollah rally in Beirut a massive hoax" They're just jealous that Hizb Allah put on a bigger show than their own agitprop organizers. Feb 24, 2005 Wanted: Journalists who can keep quiet The Bush administration is hiring more reporters. Only this time, it wants them to keep quiet. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last week placed a help-wanted listing on journalismjobs.com, an employment website. The department sought reporters to participate in TOPOFF 3, a biennial exercise directed by Congress that simulates a terrorist attack on the United States Feb 21, 2005 An unscripted, off the cuff, unflattering remark about the President's agenda or policies can cost a journalist his job. Feb 17, 2005
Bush administration blurs media boundary Why not? They've blurred everything else! Lies are facts, "No child left behind" means "No child left unrecruited," "Clear Skies" means more air pollution, "pre-emptive defense" means illegal aggression, Operation Iraqi Freedom means Iraqi Occupation and Servitude. Feb 17, 2005 Embedded In The Spin Cycle..." target="_blank" href="http://rense.com/general63/newdoc.htm"> New documentary blasts US news 'journalism' in Iraq "WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception", which cost just 200,000 dollars to produce, points to a wide array of failures in the accuracy of the reporting, as well as an unwillingness to question the George W. Bush administration's claims and actions. Feb 17, 2005 Brit Hume blatantly lied about the words of FDR, making it seem that he encouraged privatization Feb 4, 2005
Are bloggers journalists? Do they deserve press protections? Unless, perhaps, truthful reporting disqualifies one from the classification. March 17, 2004
Project for Excellence in Journalism finds reduced use of newspapers, evening news, and cable news, and newsroom staffing has been cut back.
This has several ramifications worthy of note: - There will be more control of the Internet to maintain control of the news
- People are learning how to pick and choose their sources of information
- The corporate news media find that propaganda requires a smaller staff
World News Tonight alters video from Iraq
This is an audio clip from All things Considered on NPR. At the 3:42 point in the audio, NPR's Michele Norris starts talking with Jon Banner, executive producer of ABC's World News Tonight, about how ABC chose to use the disturbing images that came out of Fallujah after Wednesday's killing of four American civilians.
Mr. Banner told her that they digitally altered some of the video, and Ms. Norris asked whether that was basically altering the truth. It was a shock to me when Banner replied, "Well, I think basically we do that every day."
"But I think, in this point," said Banner, "it was a matter of respecting the viewer in two ways. One, respecting them by their ability to take whatever graphic images and the horror of war which we all know but very rarely see, and two, to present the images in a tasteful way that wouldn't offend them ..."
Wow. So it's "respecting the viewer" to sanitize the news, making sure the viewer is never offended. And they do it "every day." And they're proud of it.
It ought to be *tremendously* *offensive* *to* *viewers* that so-called journalists consider it their job to make the news inoffensive. US media subservient to the state: Playing piano in the whorehouse of war What is we held a war and nobody showed up? Reporting on a war that didn't happen, US "in-bedded" journalists vie for glory and fame by embellishing on bellicosity and jingoism. A free press is a 19th century ideal lost in the wastelands of the New World Order UNFAIR and UNBALANCED! FOX Selling Snake Oil News The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands . . . [Propaganda] must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect . . . The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses . . . [Propaganda] does not have multiple shadings; it has a positive and a negative; love or hate, right or wrong, truth or lie, never half this way and half that way . . . But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. . . . The purpose of propaganda is not to provide interesting distraction for blasé young gentlemen, but to convince . . . the masses. But the masses are slow moving, and they always require a certain time before they are ready even to notice a thing, and only after the simplest ideas are repeated thousands of times will the masses finally remember them.--Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Media Leviathan, U.S. Intelligence Form Secret Cabal
A quiet gathering of the media's top elites to discuss mergers, with a keynote address by the head of the CIA, escaped mention in the mainstream press." Spinning the News--In-House Memos on Television News Presentations
It has long been the strong belief of many Americans that their print and television media
is subject to certain government oversight and, finally, control.
Recently, a mid-level executive of one of the three major American television networks sent on over 1500 pages of memos from the corporate
offices of his network in New York to the head of their television news division.
These memos contain a multitude of instructions
concerning the presentation of national and international news for the network's viewers.
Corporate is obviously subject to the opinions of various pressure groups, to include those of official Washington and the Jewish community.
It would be impossible to show all of these revealing documents but selections are certainly possible. What is not possible, obviously, is to
reveal either the name of the conscience-stricken media executive nor the company that employs him. These comments, therefore, can be accepted or rejected by the reader as they see fit.
If you see the result, you can ascertain the cause.
(March 22):....it is not conducive to maintaining an overall neutrality in the Palestine uprisings to show any pictures of the American peacenik that was run over by the Israeli army bulldozer. This
is only to be mentioned as a "tragic accident" for which the IDF "is truly saddened."
(Feb 10)....It is not permitted at this point to use or refer to any film clips, stills or articles emanating from any French source whatsoever.
(Feb 26) It is expected that coverage of the forthcoming Iraqi campaign will be identical with the coverage used during Desert Storm. Shots of GIs must show a mixed racial combination.... any interviews must reflect the youthful and
idealistic, not the cynical point of view...the liberation of happy, enthusiastic Iraqis can be best shown by filming crowds of cheering citizens waving American flags. Also indicated would be pictures of photogenic GIs fraternizing with Iraqi children and handing them food or other non-controversial presents...of course, pictures
of dead US military personnel are not to be shown and pictures of dead Iraqi soldiers should not show examples of violent death...also indicated would be brief interviews with English -speaking Iraqi citizens praising American liberation efforts...all such interviews must be vetted by either the White House or Pentagon
before public airing.
(March 12) At this point in time, reference to North Korean military threats must be played
down entirely. The Iraqi Freedom campaign has to be concluded in the public mind before proceeding with the next assault on the Evil Axis....
(March 26) US alliances with the Turkish/Iraqi Kurdish tribes should be played down. This is
considered a very sensitive issue with the Turks and American arming and support of the Kurds could create a severe backlash in Ankara....Kurds should be depicted as `Iraqi Freedom Fighters" and not identified as Kurds...
(March 2) further references to the religious views of the President are to be deleted...
(March 15) photo opportunities of the President and members of his cabinet, especially Secretary Rumsfeld, with enthusiastic GIs....
(March 19) No mention, repeat, no mention, of Palestinian suicide bombers during the
Iraqi operation....
(March 25) ...no mention of either Wolfowitz or Pearle should be made at the present time.
(March 10)....pro-Government rallies are to be given the fullest coverage...if anti-Government
demonstrations are shown, it is desired to stress either a very small number of "eccentrics" or
shots of social misfits; i.e., with beards, tattoos, physical deformities, etc. Pro-Government supporters should be seen as clean cut with as many well-groomed subjects as possible.... subjects should stress complete support for
the President's programs and especially support for American military units en route to combat... also interviews with photogenic family members
of participating GIs stressing loyalty and affection ...American flags are always a good prop in the background... THE BEST FREE PRESS THAT MONEY CAN BUY--glory hallelujah. Media Underplays U.S. Death Toll in Iraq Soldiers Dead Since May Is 3 Times Official Count
According to official military records, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq since May 2 is actually 85. This includes a staggering number of non-combat deaths. Even if killed in a non-hostile action, these soldiers are no less dead, their families no less aggrieved. And it's safe to say that nearly all of these people would still be alive if they were still back in the States. Silence Of The Lambs: The Election Story Never Told By Greg Palast
Here's how the president of the United States was elected: In the months leading up to the November balloting, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, ordered local elections supervisors to purge 64,000 voters from voter lists on the grounds that they were felons who were not entitled to vote in Florida. As it turns out, these voters weren't felons, or at least, only a very few were. However, the voters on this "scrub list" were, notably, African-American (about 54 percent), while most of the others wrongly barred from voting were white and Hispanic Democrats.
Beginning in November, this extraordinary news ran, as it should, on Page 1 of the country's leading paper. Unfortunately, it was in the wrong country: Britain. In the United States, it ran on page zero -- that is, the story was not covered on the news pages. The theft of the presidential race in Florida also was given big television network coverage. But again, it was on the wrong continent: on BBC television, London.
Was this some off-the-wall story that the Brits misreported? A lawyer for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission called it the first hard evidence of a systematic attempt to disenfranchise black voters; the commission held dramatic hearings on the evidence. While the story was absent from America's news pages (except, I grant, a story in the Orlando Sentinel and another on C-Span), columnists for The New York Times, Boston Globe and Washington Post cited the story after seeing a U.S. version on the Internet magazine Salon.com. As the reporter on the story for Britain's Guardian newspaper (and its Sunday edition, The Observer) and for BBC television, I was interviewed on several American radio programs, generally "alternative" stations on the left side of the dial.
Interviewers invariably asked the same two questions, "Why was this story uncovered by a British reporter?" And, "Why was it published in and broadcast from Europe?"
I'd like to know the answer myself. That way I could understand why I had to move my family to Europe in order to print and broadcast this and other crucial stories about the American body politic in mainstream media. The bigger question is not about the putative brilliance of the British press. I'd rather ask how a hundred thousand U.S. journos failed to get the vote theft story and print it (and preferably before the election).
Think about "investigative" reporting. The best investigative stories are expensive to produce, risky and upset the wisdom of the established order. Do profit-conscious enterprises, whether media companies or widget firms, seek extra costs, extra risk and the opportunity to be attacked? Not in any business text I've ever read. I can't help but note that the Guardian and Observer is the world's only leading newspaper owned by a not-for-profit corporation, as is BBC television.
But if profit-lust is the ultimate problem blocking significant investigative reportage, the more immediate cause of comatose coverage of the election and other issues is what is laughably called America's "journalistic culture." If the Rupert Murdochs of the globe are shepherds of the new world order, they owe their success to breeding a flock of docile sheep, the editors and reporters snoozy and content with munching on, digesting, then reprinting a diet of press releases and canned stories provided by officials and corporation public relations operations.
Take this story of the list of Florida's faux felons that cost Al Gore the election. Shortly after the UK and Salon stories hit the worldwide web, I was contacted by a CBS network news producer ready to run their own version of the story. The CBS hotshot was happy to pump me for information: names, phone numbers, all the items one needs for a quickie TV story.
I also freely offered up to CBS this information: The office of the governor of Florida, brother of the Republican presidential candidate, had illegally ordered the removal of the names of felons from voter rolls -- real felons, but with the right to vote under Florida law. As a result, thousands of these legal voters, almost all Democrats, would not be allowed to vote.
One problem: I had not quite completed my own investigation on this matter. Therefore CBS would have to do some actual work, reviewing documents and law, and obtaining statements. The next day I received a call from the producer, who said, "I'm sorry, but your story didn't hold up." Well, how did the multibillion-dollar CBS network determine this? Why, "we called Jeb Bush's office." Oh. And that was it.
I wasn't surprised by this type of "investigation." It is, in fact, standard operating procedure for the little lambs of American journalism. One good, slick explanation from a politician or corporate chieftain and it's case closed, investigation over. The story ran anyway: on BBC-TV. Let's understand the pressures on the CBS producer that led her to kill the story on the basis of a denial by the target of the allegations. (Though let's not confuse understanding with forgiveness.)
First, the story is difficult to tell in the usual 90 seconds allotted for national reports. The BBC gave me a 14-minute slot to explain it.
Second, the story required massive and quick review of documents, hundreds of phone calls and interviews, hardly a winner in the slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am school of U.S. journalism. The BBC gave me two weeks to develop the story.
Third, the revelations in the story required a reporter to stand up and say the big name politicians, their lawyers and their PR people were freaking liars. It would be much easier, and a heck of a lot cheaper, to wait for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission to do the work, then cover the Commission's canned report and press conference. Wait! You've watched "Murphy Brown," so you think reporters hanker every day to uncover the big scandal. Bullshit. Remember, "All the President's Men" was so unusual they had to make a movie out of it.
Fourth, investigative reports require taking a chance. Fraudsters and vote-riggers don't reveal all their evidence. And they lie. Make the allegation and you are open to attack, or unknown information that may prove you wrong. No one ever lost their job writing canned statements from a press conference.
Fifth -- and this is no small matter -- no one ever got sued for not running an investigative story. Let me give you an example close to home. The companion report to my investigation of the theft of the election in Florida was a story about Bush family finances. I wrote in the Guardian and Observer of London about the gold-mining company for which the first President George Bush worked after he left the White House. Oh, you didn't know that George H. W. Bush worked for a gold-mining company after he lost to Bill Clinton in 1992? Well, maybe it has to do with the fact that this company has a long history of suing every paper that breathes a word it does not like -- in fact, it has now sued my papers. I've gotten awards and thousands of letters for these stories, but, honey, that don't pay the legal bills.
Finally, there's another little matter working against U.S. reporters running after the hard stories, papers printing them or TV broadcasting the good stuff. I'll explain by way of my phone call with a great reporter, Mike Isikoff of Newsweek. Just before the elections, Isikoff handed me some exceptionally important information about President Clinton, material suggesting corruption in office -- the real stuff, not the interns-under-the-desk stuff. I said, "Mike, why the hell don't you run it yourself?" and he said, "Because no one gives a shit!" Isikoff was expressing his exasperation with the news chiefs who kill or bury these stories on page 200 on the belief that the public really doesn't want to hear all this bad and very un-sexy news. These lambchop editors believe the public just doesn't care.
But they're wrong. When I ran my first story in the London Observer about the theft of the Florida vote, Americans by the thousands flooded our Internet site. They set a record for hits before the information-hungry hordes blew down our giant server computers. When BBC ran the story, viewership of the webcast of Newsnight grew by 10,000 percent as a result of Americans demanding to see what they were denied on their own tubes. Obviously, some Americans care.
And it's for them that I say, This is Greg Palast reporting from exile.  Where are the crowds you saw on TV? This was a staged event devoid of reality and honesty. This is how much you can trust the American media. See a photographic analysis of this "historic" propaganda event at How the Corporate Media Sold the Fall of Saddam. Many people have pointed out how the toppling of the statue of Saddam in Baghdad, supposedly a spontaneous effort of Iraqis assisted by the equipment of the Americans, was a completely staged and faked media event, solely intended for domestic and international propaganda purposes. The disgusting American media played along completely, filming the few Iraqis who were there in such a way that they looked like a much larger group. The most amazing thing is that the flag that was wrapped around the head of the statue came from the Pentagon, and flew on that building on September 11, and the specific soldier whose job it was to carry this flag around brought it to the statue. The Pentagon is now saying that this is just a coincidence! The absurdity of this is that the Bush Administration, despite Herculean efforts, has never managed to make the slightest connection between Saddam and September 11. So why do they go to all this trouble to connect the felling of Saddam's statue to the attack on the Pentagon? It's like the man who has a bad day at work and in frustration comes home and kicks his dog. Are Americans so arrogant that they feel they have the moral justification to destroy the lives of thousands of people just so someone else can suffer because of September 11? How long will Americans wallow in their self-centered, self-important, self-pity over an attack that the more honest Americans would admit they had coming? If they didn't have it coming on September 11, they sure have it coming now. [As if it were not an inside job or permitted] Exposed! Media Misquote and Excise Bush Comment About "Scripted" Press Conference 
 download videoclip [Quicktime/mov format, 2.2 megs] download Quicktime
When Bush gave his second prime-time press conference in two years (on 6 March 2003), in a flustered moment, he admitted that the production was "scripted." But in transcripts of the event, all media outlets, except one, have changed or removed that embarrassing moment.
It happened when Bush was looking down at his notes to see which reporter he was supposed to call upon. The following excerpt is from the official transcript at the White House's Website:
"The risk of doing nothing, the risk of hoping that Saddam Hussein changes his mind and becomes a gentle soul, the risk that somehow -- that inaction will make the world safer, is a risk I'm not willing to take for the American people.
We'll be there in a minute. King, John King. This is a scripted -- (laughter.)
Q Thank you, Mr. President. How would -- sir, how would you answer your critics who say that they think this is somehow personal?"
You can confirm this for yourself by going to the original White House transcript. The exchange is not quite halfway down the page. Also, you can listen to an MP3 of the exchange here. Now, let's look at how the media have preserved this moment for the historical record. Most media outlets ran a transcript prepared by eMediaMillWorks Inc., which was distributed by the Associated Press. I found this transcript on MSNBC, FoxNews, the Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, New York Newsday, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, London Guardian, Rocky Mountain News, News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Las Vegas Sun, FindLaw, and others. Here's what it says:
The risk of doing nothing, the risk of hoping that Saddam Hussein changes his mind and becomes a gentle soul, the risk that somehow inaction will make the world safer, is a risk I'm not willing to take for the American people.
King -- John King? (Crosstalk)
BUSH: This is unscripted.
Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Sir, how would you answer your critics who say that they think this is somehow personal?
As you can see, "scripted" has become "unscripted." Sure, maybe someone at eMediaMillWorks misheard "a scripted" as "unscripted." But no matter what the reason, a large number of news outlets ran the incorrect version. Spinning the News--In-House Memos on Television News Presentations
It has long been the strong belief of many Americans that their print and television media
is subject to certain government oversight and, finally, control.
Recently, a mid-level executive of one of the three major American television networks sent on over 1500 pages of memos from the corporate offices of his network in New York to the head of their television news division.
These memos contain a multitude of instructions
concerning the presentation of national and international news for the network's viewers.
Corporate is obviously subject to the opinions of various pressure groups, to include those of official Washington and the Jewish community.
It would be impossible to show all of these revealing documents but selections are certainly possible. What is not possible, obviously, is to reveal either the name of the conscience-stricken media executive nor the company that employs him. These comments, therefore, can be accepted or rejected by the reader as they see fit.
If you see the result, you can ascertain the cause.
(March 22):....it is not conducive to maintaining an overall neutrality in the Palestine uprisings to show any pictures of the American peacenik that was run over by the Israeli army bulldozer. This is only to be mentioned as a "tragic accident" for which the IDF "is truly saddened."
(Feb 10)....It is not permitted at this point to use or refer to any film clips, stills or articles emanating from any French source whatsoever.
(Feb 26) It is expected that coverage of the forthcoming Iraqi campaign will be identical with the coverage used during Desert Storm. Shots of GIs must show a mixed racial combination.... any interviews must reflect the youthful and idealistic, not the cynical point of view...the liberation of happy, enthusiastic Iraqis can be best shown by filming crowds of cheering citizens waving American flags. Also indicated would be pictures of photogenic GIs fraternizing with Iraqi children and handing them food or other non-controversial presents...of course, pictures of dead US military personnel are not to be shown and pictures of dead Iraqi soldiers should not show examples of violent death...also indicated would be brief interviews with English -speaking Iraqi citizens praising American liberation efforts...all such interviews must be vetted by either the White House or Pentagon before public airing.
(March 12) At this point in time, reference to North Korean military threats must be played down entirely. The Iraqi Freedom campaign has to be concluded in the public mind before proceeding with the next assault on the Evil Axis....
(March 26) US alliances with the Turkish/Iraqi Kurdish tribes should be played down. This is
considered a very sensitive issue with the Turks and American arming and support of the Kurds could create a severe backlash in Ankara....Kurds should be depicted as `Iraqi Freedom Fighters" and not identified as Kurds...
(March 2) further references to the religious views of the President are to be deleted...
(March 15) photo opportunities of the President and members of his cabinet, especially Secretary Rumsfeld, with enthusiastic GIs....
(March 19) No mention, repeat, no mention, of Palestinian suicide bombers during the Iraqi operation....
(March 25) ...no mention of either Wolfowitz or Pearle should be made at the present time.
(March 10)....pro-Government rallies are to be given the fullest coverage...if anti-Government
demonstrations are shown, it is desired to stress either a very small number of "eccentrics" or
shots of social misfits; i.e., with beards, tattoos, physical deformities, etc. Pro-Government supporters should be seen as clean cut with as many well-groomed subjects as possible.... subjects should stress complete support for the President's programs and especially support for American military units en route to combat... also interviews with photogenic family members of participating GIs stressing loyalty and affection ...American flags are always a good prop in the background... THE BEST FREE PRESS THAT MONEY CAN BUY--glory hallelujah. |
