"Federal Propaganda Prohibition Act" intro'd by Pelosi

[Liberty Belle]

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Federal Public Relations Spending Has Doubled under the Bush Administration

Democratic Leader Pelosi, Democratic Whip Hoyer, Rep. Waxman, Rep. Dingell, Rep. Obey, Rep. Rangel, Rep. Miller, Rep. Slaughter, Rep. Thompson, and Rep. DeLauro released a new report today showing that the Bush Administration spent a record $88 million on government-funded public relations contracts in 2004, a 128% increase since 2000. The Federal Propaganda Prohibition Act, which Rep. DeLauro and other members will introduce today, would ban covert federal propaganda campaigns and require the disclosure of all federal PR contracts.
- The Report
- Bill Summary

[Merlot]

1. $88 million on gov't-funded public relations contracts

OMG. I'm speachless. How much of this is covert opinion purchasing?

I guess that 1/4 mill to armstrong williams really was a drip in the bucket.

[hedda_foil]

3. How much of this is covert opinion purchasing?"

EVERY GOD-DAMNED DIME OF IT!

:puke:

[Bozita]

16. $88m is enough to buy Armstrong Williams ... 350 times over

We deserve knowing ALL of the names and ALL of the numbers.

[zann725]

29. And remember...this is OUR tax dollars at work! That's illegal!

n/t

[Just Me]

35. $88 MIL of taxpayer-funded, goverment-sponsored propaganda.

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

And that's prolly what could be tracked!!!

This makes me both sick and furious!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

This "big brother" shit must cease.

Good for Pelosi!!! :bounce:

[Furity]

2. I want names

Who the heck benefited from this $88M. Now that would be an interesting read.

~Furity

[Bozita]

6. I'm betting they're not all "journalists"

Never could understand the AARP supporting that Medicare prescription drug bill.

$88m makes me think that there are a lot of recipients of this milk from the federal government teat.

[snippy]

45. The GAO issued a report finding that the Bush administration illegally

spent taxpayer funds on propaganda supporting the Medicare prescription drug bill. A similar report was issued concerning some other Bush policy and one other GAO investigation is pending.

[Jersey Ginny]

14. Follow the money-that is the real story (nt)

[cthrumatrix]

34. I agree...where is the media following this story !!! Let's see who they

bribed!

[Lefty48197]

4. Stop this cable tv propoganda nonsense

we're such a banana republic.

[Democat]

5. Will this shut down Fox?

:)

[zann725]

28. I'll bet it was at least a nice "subsidy"!

And let's not forget CNN!

[Triana]

7. Link? (n/t)

[Liberty Belle]

18. It's a PDF file; no link to the bill yet.

Meanwhile, here's a link to a press release about a GAO report Pelosi and other Dems requested on propoganda payments by the WH. As soon as I can locate a link to the Propaganda Prohibition Bill, I'll post it.


http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=807

[frylock]

19. thanks..

I'll keep my eyes open for that.

[Liberty Belle]

20. Here's the link:

http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/releases/rel12605b.html

This is the same press release posted at another Congressional member's site; probably a coauthor. You can click on a link at this page to view the .pdf file of the report.

[frylock]

26. thanks again..

and greetz from Lake Murray! :hi:

[salin]

8. Good move, Congresswoman Pelosi!

[Voltaire99]

24. Yes, good move (n/t)

[JohnOneillsMemory]

9. Too bad it doesn't cover the CIA influence in the mainstream media.

They NYT edited out Condi's most damaging comments in the online transcript. That kind of thing has been going on since WWII.
Operation Mockingbird continues.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MOCK/mockingbird.html
>snip>

"You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month." - CIA operative discussing with Philip Graham, editor Washington Post, on the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. "Katherine The Great," by Deborah Davis (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1991)

>snip<

In 1952, at MCA, Actors' Guild president Ronald Reagan - a screen idol
recruited by MOCKINGBIRD's Crusade for Freedom to raise funds for the
resettlement of Nazis in the U.S., according to Loftus - signed a
secret waiver of the conflict-of-interest rule with the mob-controlled
studio, in effect granting it a labor monopoly on early television
programming. In exchange, MCA made Reagan a part owner. Furthermore,
historian C. Vann Woodward, writing in the New York Times, in 1987,
reported that Reagan had "fed the names of suspect people in his
organization to the FBI secretly and regularly enough to be assigned
'an informer's code number, T-10.' His FBI file indicates intense
collaboration with producers to 'purge' the industry of subversives."

No one ever turned a suspicious eye on Walter Cronkite, a former
intelligence officer and in the immediate postwar period UPI's Moscow
correspondent. Cronkite was lured to CBS by Operation MOCKINGBIRD's
Phil Graham, according to Deborah Davis.

Another television conglomerate, Cap Cities, rose like a horror-film
simian from CIA and Mafia heroin operations. Among other
organized-crime Republicans, Thomas Dewey and his neighbor Lowell
Thomas threw in to launch the infamous Resorts International, the
corporate front for Lansky's branch of the federally-sponsored mob
family and the corporate precursor to Cap Cities. Another of the
investors was James Crosby, a Cap Cities executive who donated
$100,000 to Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. This was the year that
Resorts bought into Atlantic City casino interests. Police in New
jersey attempted, with no success, to spike the issuance of a gambling
license to the company, citing Mafia ties.

In 1954, this same circle of investors, all Catholics, founded the
broadcasting company notorious for overt propagandizing and general
spookiness. The company's chief counsel was OSS veteran William Casey,
who clung to his shares by concealing them in a blind trust even after
he was appointed CIA director by Ronald Reagan in 1981.

"Black radio" was the phrase CIA critic David Wise coined in The
Invisible Government to describe the agency's intertwining interests
in the emergence of the transistor radio with the entrepreneurs who
took to the airwaves. "Daily, East and West beam hundreds of
propaganda broadcasts at each other in an unrelenting babble of
competition for the minds of their listeners. The low-price transistor
has given the hidden war a new importance," enthused one foreign
correspondent.

A Hydra of private foundations sprang up to finance the propaganda
push. One of them, Operations and Policy Research, Inc. (OPR),
received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the CIA through private
foundations and trusts. OPR research was the basis of a television
series that aired in New York and Washington, D.C. in 1964, Of People
and Politics, a "study" of the American political system in 21 weekly
installments.

In Hollywood, the visual cortex of The Beast, the same CIA/Mafia
combination that formed Cap Cities sank its claws into the film
studios and labor unions. Johnny Rosselli was pulled out of the Army
during the war by a criminal investigation of Chicago mobsters in the
film industry. Rosselli, a CIA asset probably assassinated by the CIA,
played sidekick to Harry Cohn, the Columbia Pictures mogul who visited
Italy's Benito Mussolini in 1933, and upon his return to Hollywood
remodeled his office after the dictator's. The only honest job
Rosselli ever had was assistant purchasing agent (and a secret
investor) at Eagle Lion productions, run by Bryan Foy, a former
producer for 20th Century Fox. Rosselli, Capone's representative on
the West Coast, passed a small fortune in mafia investments to Cohn.
Bugsy Seigel pooled gambling investments with Billy Wilkerson,
publisher of the Hollywood Reporter.

In the 1950s, outlays for global propaganda climbed to a full third of
the CIA's covert operations budget. Some 3, 000 salaried and contract
CIA employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts. The cost
of disinforming the world cost American taxpayers an estimated $265
million a year by 1978, a budget larger than the combined expenditures
of Reuters, UPI and the AP news syndicates.

In 1977, the Copely News Service admitted that it worked closely with
the intelligence services - in fact, 23 employees were full-time
employees of the Agency.

Most consumers of the corporate media were - and are - unaware of the
effect that the salting of public opinion has on their own beliefs. A
network anchorman in time of national crisis is an instrument of
psychological warfare in the MOCKINGBIRD media. He is a creature from
the national security sector's chamber of horrors. For this reason
consumers of the corporate press have reason to examine their basic
beliefs about government and life in the parallel universe of these
United States.

>snip<

more...

[JohnOneillsMemory]

10. CIA, ABC, and the Rise of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Fairness Doctrine

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-libmedia.htm

>snip<

In 1985, ABC was taken over by Capital Cities, a conservative, Roman Catholic media organization with extensive ties to the CIA.

(If you think we're making this up, you should know that the Capital Cities takeover of ABC is one of the most analyzed in history, and the subject of many books by Wall Street experts and scholars. Especially recommended is Networks of Power, by Emmy Award-winner Dennis Mazzocco.) (1)

Capital Cities was born in 1954, and rapidly prospered. Many of its founders had previously worked in the U.S. intelligence community and had a great amount of wealth, social contacts and influence in government. Yet they opted to keep the company's actions out of the public eye -- they did not flaunt their wealth with private planes and lavish offices the way so many successful companies do. Just exactly how well-connected Capital Cities was to the CIA is unknown, but it is clear that the CIA concerned itself with the company at various times. The fact that the CIA has often used private businessmen, journalists and even entire companies as fronts for covert operations is not only well-known by historians, but legendary. (Recall Howard Hughes and Trans-World Airlines...)

One of Capital City's early founders was William Casey, who would later become Ronald Reagan's Director of the CIA. At the time of Casey's nomination, the press expressed surprise that Reagan would hire a businessman whose last-known intelligence experience was limited to OSS operations in World War II. The fact is, however, that Casey had never left intelligence. Throughout the Cold War he kept a foot in both worlds, in private business as well as the CIA. A history of Casey's business dealings reveals that he was an aggressive player who saw nothing wrong with bending the law to further his own conservative agenda. When he became implicated as a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, many Washington insiders considered it a predictable continuation of a very shady career.

Another Capital Cities founder, Lowell Thomas, was a close friend and business contact with Allen Dulles, Eisenhower's CIA Director, and John Dulles, the Secretary of State. Thomas always denied being a spy, but he was frequently seen at events involving intelligence operations. Another founder was Thomas Dewey, whom the CIA had given millions to create other front companies for covert operations.

Capital Cities prospered from the start; its specialty was to buy media organizations that were in trouble. Upon acquisition, it would improve management and eliminate waste until the company started turning a profit. This no-nonsense, no-frills approach, as well as its refusal to become side-tracked with other ventures, made it one of the most successful media conglomerates of the 60s and 70s. Of course, the journalistic slant of its companies was decidedly conservative and anticommunist. To anyone who believes that the government should not control the press, the possibility that the CIA created a media company to dispense conservative and Cold War propaganda should be alarming. Rush Limbaugh himself calls freedom of the press "the sweetest -- and most American -- words you will ever find." (2) Apparently, he is unaware of the history of his own employers.

By the 1980s, Capital Cities had grown powerful enough that it was now poised to hunt truly big game: a major television network. A vulnerable target appeared in the form of ABC, whose poor management in the early 80s was driving both its profits and stocks into oblivion. Back then, ABC's journalistic slant was indeed liberal; its criticism of the Reagan Administration had drawn the wrath of conservatives everywhere, from Wall Street to Washington. This was in marked contrast to the rest of the White House press corps, which was, in Bagdikian's words, "stunningly uncritical" of Reagan. Behind the scenes, Reagan was deregulating the FCC and eliminating anti-monopoly laws for the media, a fact the media appreciated and rewarded. The only exception was ABC. Sam Donaldson's penetrating questions during press conferences were so embarrassing to Reagan that his handlers scheduled the fewest Presidential press conferences in modern history.

Another controversy involving the liberal slant of ABC was its airing of the anti-nuclear war movie The Day After. This movie angered conservatives like Henry Kissinger, who believe that the willingness to use nuclear weapons is actually a deterrence to war. But Kissinger got a chance to respond to the movie on national television. Nightline followed the movie with a group discussion that included Kissinger and other conservative pundits. The reason why ABC was so even-handed, presenting both a liberal and conservative viewpoint on nuclear war, was because they were required to by law: the Fairness Doctrine.

The Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987 by the FCC. Reagan had staffed the FCC with prominent media businessmen who were intent on slashing government regulations… the equivalent of letting the fox guard the chicken coop. Among the many other regulations slashed during the Reagan years were anti-trust laws that prevented the media from becoming a monopoly. Much of this was done under heavy pressure by corporate lobbyists.

In this atmosphere of deregulation, Capital Cities found the perfect time to take over ABC. Not only were all the legal restrictions removed, but by now Casey was head of the CIA, and whatever contacts existed between the CIA and Casey's company (in which Casey held substantial stock) were immeasurably strengthened. Capital Cities soon began buying out ABC stock. The facts of the acquisition remain curious and unconventional. Capital Cities was only one-fourth the size of ABC, and there were much wealthier corporate giants who were salivating over a plum like a television network. But word got out on Wall Street that the Capital Cities takeover bid was "protected" by Warren Buffet, a legendary trader often described as the "Darling of Wall Street." (Until 1995, Buffet was the richest man in America.) With Buffet's help, Capital Cities took over ABC. According to one source, a high-ranking CIA official teased Casey, saying, "I understand Sam Donaldson is working for you now."

Sam Donaldson would not be tormenting Republican presidents for long. By the Bush Presidency, Donaldson was removed from covering the White House and paired with Diane Sawyer in a weekly news magazine that covered political fluff. Brit Hume, a staunch conservative, would take his place, and the same torment that ABC once reserved for Ronald Reagan would now be directed towards Bill Clinton.

The new conservatism at ABC was subtle but apparent. Peter Jennings, noting that the program's "American Agenda" had a liberal slant, stated that the news would pay more attention to conservatives, since their ideas are "more provocative and less predictable on some issues."

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales noted that of all the networks, ABC was the "friendliest to and least critical of the Bush Administration and its policies." After the war, ABC marketed a video of General Schwartzkopf's famous briefing of the war, entitled "Schwartzkopf: How the War was Won." It sold 80,000 copies. Later, it would market a video on life and times of Richard Nixon.

It would be wrong, of course, to conclude that ABC had gone Attila the Hun. ABC News remained a source of somewhat balanced coverage; both Sam Donaldson and George Will continued to do battle every Sunday on This Week With David Brinkley. Indeed, some of the most scientific pieces warning about the destruction of the ozone layer came from ABC. The owners at Capital Cities/ABC couldn't make the Evening News blatantly conservative because such a change would be too controversial. But this did not defeat their effort. They could still create a conservative forum from scratch, and in this regard, the dying market of AM radio offered the opportunity of a lifetime.

There are about 11,000 radio stations in the U.S., and Capital Cities/ABC is by far the largest player. Either through outright ownership or the sale of numerous services, they reach about half the radio stations in America, and this number is growing. With the Fairness Doctrine repealed, Capital Cities was able in 1988 to begin broadcasting one-sided editorials on conservatism. ABC Radio Network President Edward McLaughlin scoured the nation's radio stations for conservative talent, and his search led him to Sacramento, to a little known disc-jockey named Rush Limbaugh. Rush had attracted an audience with his vigorous and spirited defense of Oliver North during the Iran-Contra hearings. McLaughlin brought him to New York City for a one-month "on-air" trial at Capital Cities/ABC's flagship radio station, WABC. For the next two years, ABC put him on the fast track, handling all his marketing, advertising and promotion. For legal purposes, and to protect ABC's image of supposed objectivity, Rush formed his own media company, Excellence in Broadcasting. But to this day Rush continues to broadcast out of WABC's studios in New York.

ABC initially promoted Rush by arranging his appearance on other debating shows, from Nightline to Donahue to MacNeil/Lehrer. (Unfortunately, he did so poorly against real live experts that this practice was eventually stopped.) Perhaps the most eye-brow raising example of Rush's promotion was when he appeared on an episode of ABC's 20/20 for an interview with Barbara Walters. Given Rush's criticism of feminists as "feminazis," this interview was built up as a confrontation between a female reporter in the mainstream media and Rush's supposedly misogynist views. The fact that Barbara Walters herself is conservative was nowhere mentioned. During the interview, Rush came across as charming, humorous, reasonable and moderate, and Walters closed the segment by stating that she actually liked him.

Ted Koppel's incessant praise of Rush Limbaugh is also an attempt to bring him into the mainstream. The back cover of See, I Told You So blurbs: "As no less a liberal than Ted Koppel... said, 'You ignore him at your peril.'" On television, Koppel has laughed with admiration over Limbaugh, calling him "terribly articulate." But the anchor of Nightline is far from liberal; indeed, Rush Limbaugh had to publicly apologize to Koppel for calling him one. And researchers have criticized Nightline for featuring a highly disproportionate number of experts who are white male conservatives.

Rush Limbaugh explains his success as the result of his individualism, of his refusal to do it someone's else's way. But the fact is that his success has been orchestrated, financed and promoted by Capital Cities/ABC. He also seems extraordinarily well-connected to the Republican leadership in Washington, carrying out their campaign strategies so faithfully that it is difficult to distinguish his promotions from their campaign commercials. For example, when Rush's television show debuted nationally two months before the 92 election, his producer was Roger Ailes, who was Bush's media advisor throughout the campaign. Many of the themes that Ailes had inspired earlier in the campaign showed up in identical form on Rush's show, which resembled a program-length commercial for the Bush campaign. When asked to give equal time to his opponents, Rush responded "I am equal time!"

In 1994, not only the Rush Limbaugh Show, but hundreds of other conservative talk shows dutifully raised the issues that Newt Gingrich's Contract Information Center faxed to them each morning about the Contract With America. Many went so far as to read them verbatim over the air. And when the Republicans captured Congress in 1994, they held a ceremony in honor of Limbaugh, naming him "an honorary member of Congress" and "the Majority Maker." That night, the conservative propaganda machine had reached its full potential.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

12. CIA and the Washington Post, CBS, New York Times, etc.,

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html
(The Origins of the Overclass)

>snip<

The instigators of MOCKINGBIRD were Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles, Richard Helms and Philip Graham. Graham was the husband of Katherine Graham, today’s publisher of the Washington Post. In fact, it was the Post’s ties to the CIA that allowed it to grow so quickly after the war, both in readership and influence. (8)

MOCKINGBIRD was extraordinarily successful. In no time, the agency had recruited at least 25 media organizations to disseminate CIA propaganda. At least 400 journalists would eventually join the CIA payroll, according to the CIA’s testimony before a stunned Church Committee in 1975. (The committee felt the true number was considerably higher.) The names of those recruited reads like a Who's Who of journalism:

* Philip and Katharine Graham (Publishers, Washington Post)
* William Paley (President, CBS)
* Henry Luce (Publisher, Time and Life magazine)
* Arthur Hays Sulzberger (Publisher, N.Y. Times)
* Jerry O'Leary (Washington Star)
* Hal Hendrix (Pulitzer Prize winner, Miami News)
* Barry Bingham Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal)
* James Copley (Copley News Services)
* Joseph Harrison (Editor, Christian Science Monitor)
* C.D. Jackson (Fortune)
* Walter Pincus (Reporter, Washington Post)
* ABC
* NBC
* Associated Press
* United Press International
* Reuters
* Hearst Newspapers
* Scripps-Howard
* Newsweek
* magazine Mutual Broadcasting System
* Miami Herald
* Old Saturday Evening Post
* New York Herald-Tribune

Perhaps no newspaper is more important to the CIA than the Washington Post, one of the nation’s most right-wing dailies. Its location in the nation’s capitol enables the paper to maintain valuable personal contacts with leading intelligence, political and business figures. Unlike other newspapers, the Post operates its own bureaus around the world, rather than relying on AP wire services. Owner Philip Graham was a military intelligence officer in World War II, and later became close friends with CIA figures like Frank Wisner, Allen Dulles, Desmond FitzGerald and Richard Helms. He inherited the Post by marrying Katherine Graham, whose father owned it.

After Philip’s suicide in 1963, Katharine Graham took over the Post. Seduced by her husband’s world of government and espionage, she expanded her newspaper’s relationship with the CIA. In a 1988 speech before CIA officials at Langley, Virginia, she stated:

We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things that the general public does not need to know and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.

This quote has since become a classic among CIA critics for its belittlement of democracy and its admission that there is a political agenda behind the Post’s headlines.

Ben Bradlee was the Post’s managing editor during most of the Cold War. He worked in the U.S. Paris embassy from 1951 to 1953, where he followed orders by the CIA station chief to place propaganda in the European press. (9) Most Americans incorrectly believe that Bradlee personifies the liberal slant of the Post, given his role in publishing the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate investigations. But neither of these two incidents are what they seem. The Post merely published the Pentagon Papers after The New York Times already had, because it wanted to appear competitive. As for Watergate, we’ll examine the CIA’s reasons for wanting to bring down Nixon in a moment. Someone once asked Bradlee: "Does it irk you when The Washington Post is made out to be a bastion of slanted liberal thinkers instead of champion journalists just because of Watergate?" Bradlee responded: "Damn right it does!" (10)

It would be impossible to elaborate in this short space even the most important examples of the CIA/media alliance. Sig Mickelson was a CIA asset the entire time he was president of CBS News from 1954 to 1961. Later he went on to become president of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, two major outlets of CIA propaganda.

The CIA also secretly bought or created its own media companies. It owned 40 percent of the Rome Daily American at a time when communists were threatening to win the Italian elections. Worse, the CIA has bought many domestic media companies. A prime example is Capital Cities, created in 1954 by CIA businessman William Casey (who would later become Reagan’s CIA director). Another founder was Lowell Thomas, a close friend and business contact with CIA Director Allen Dulles. Another founder was CIA businessman Thomas Dewey. By 1985, Capital Cities had grown so powerful that it was able to buy an entire TV network: ABC.

For those who believe in "separation of press and state," the very idea that the CIA has secret propaganda outlets throughout the media is appalling. The reason why America was so oblivious to CIA crimes in the 40s and 50s was because the media willingly complied with the agency. Even today, when the immorality of the CIA should be an open-and-shut case, "debate" about the issue rages in the media. Here is but one example:

In 1996, The San Jose Mercury News published an investigative report suggesting that the CIA had sold crack in Los Angeles to fund the Contra war in Central America. A month later, three of the CIA’s most important media allies — The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times — immediately leveled their guns at the Mercury report and blasted away in an attempt to discredit it. Who wrote the Post article? Walter Pincus, longtime CIA journalist. The dangers here are obvious.

[frylock]

11. link plz?

I'd like to send this out.

[Liberty Belle]

21. Here it is, from one of the coauthors offices:

http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/releases/rel12605b.html

[cosmicdot]

13. Republican Party saves $88 Million on campaign PR in 2004 ... n/m

[Bozita]

15. absolutely!

[Heidi]

17. Link, please!

I also would like to send this out. Link, please?

[Liberty Belle]

22. http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/releases/rel12605b.html

I couldn't find the Pelosi release I'd seen earlier, but this is the same release from another member's office, probably a coauthor.
you can click to go to a pdf file of the full report. Happy reading!

[Heidi]

32. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Liberty Belle! eom

[Al-CIAda]

23. That is just what is over the table...

"Some of these journalists’ relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provided a full range of clandestine services — from simple intelligence- gathering to serving as go-betweens with spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors-without-portfolio for their country. Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested it the derring-do of the spy business as in filing articles, and, the smallest category, full-time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements America’s leading news organizations.

The history of the CIA’s involvement with the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and deception . . . . - Carl Bernstein, 1977

http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/Media%20Readings/Berstein%20-%20CIA%20and%20the%20Media.htm


The Times reported that over the last twenty years, the CIA owned or subsidized more than fifty newspapers, news services, radio stations, periodicals and other communications facilities, most of them overseas. These were used for propaganda efforts, or even as cover for operations. Another dozen foreign news organizations were infiltrated by paid CIA agents. At least 22 American news organizations had employed American journalists who were also working for the CIA, and nearly a dozen American publishing houses printed some of the more than 1,000 books that had been produced or subsidized by the CIA. When asked in a 1976 interview whether the CIA had ever told its media agents what to write, William Colby replied, "Oh, sure, all the time."

http://www.stanford.edu/class/e297c/war_peace/media_war_censorship/molly_pietsch.html

The Myth of the Liberal Media
The Propaganda Model of News
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky demolish one of the central tenets of our political culture, the idea of the "liberal media." Instead, utilizing a systematic model based on massive empirical research, they reveal the manner in which the news media are so subordinated to corporate and conservative interests that their function can only be described as that of "elite propaganda."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6435.htm

YOU CANNOT HAVE A GLOBAL EMPIRE WITHOUT TOTAL CONTROL OF YOUR DOMESTIC POLITICS

-------------------


The Propaganda Model of News
1997
(60 min)
 
An excellent discussion about how the news is sculpted to present a certain viewpoint of events around the world. Featuring Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman and Justin Lewis.
 
Download 32.6MB
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/myth_of_the_liberal_media.rm



THE PAUL MORAN STORY
uly 23, 2003
(20:17 min)
 
Paul Moran died after a suicide bombing in Iraq.  He was a reporter for ABC, and one of the strongest voices along with Judith Miller of the New York Times, to claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  At his funeral it raised eyebrows when CIA, FBI, and other secret agents popped up to pay their respects.  In this report, an investigation in how the secret service operates within the mainstream media. 
 
Watch Online
http://203.15.102.143:8080/ramgen/media/dl_030724b.rm


GARY WEBB: IN HIS WORDS
Download 23MB (8:15 min)
Gary Webb broke the story of the CIA’s involvement in cocaine.
http://www.archive.org/download/Gary_Webb2/Gary_Webb_bb2.mov


"Spin"
Brian Springer
Video, 1995, (60 min.)

Using the 1992 presidential election as his springboard, documentary filmmaker Brian Springer captures the behind-the-scenes maneuverings of politicians and newscasters in the early 1990s. Pat Robertson banters about "homos," Al Gore learns how to avoid abortion questions, George Bush talks to Larry King about halcyon -- all presuming they're off camera. Composed of 100% unauthorized satellite footage, Spin is a surreal expose of media-constructed reality.
 Download 574MB
 http://illegal-art.org/video/vcd/Spin_1.mpg



Bill Moyer’s "The Secret Government"
aired on PBS in 1987 and is as good as anything on the tape. Bill Moyers is one of the most recognizable and celebrated journalists whose approach to investigative journalism is highly respected. Known for his award winning PBS documentaries, in this segment he interviews several different people involved with the CIA and other government agencies who speak about various U.S. foreign policy covert and overt operations that took place during the Cold War era. His documentary gives quite an overview of what has actually happened in the last 50 years regarding the founding of the National Security Agency and the CIA. (22:04)

Download part1 2.94MB
http://storage.testpad.net/freedomfiles.org/Secretgov1.wmv
and part2 2.66MB
 http://storage.testpad.net/freedomfiles.org/Secretgov2.wmv


S-11 REDUX
Download 40MB (10:53 min)
During wartime, media & government become one
http://www.archive.org/download/redux/redux_256kb.mov


EAST TIMOR BLACKOUT
Download 30MB (8:07 min)
Savage oppression backed by U.S. ignored by news outlets.
http://www.archive.org/download/east_timor/east_timor.mov


WAR CONSPIRACY
Download 16MB (4:17 min)
The CIA, the oily elite and their manipulation of foreign policy.
 http://www.archive.org/download/war/war_256kb.mov


OWNING THE PEACOCK
Download 18MB (4:53 min)
The unholy alliance of General Electric & NBC.
http://www.archive.org/download/nbc_1_/nbc_1_.mov


Many more videos avail. for download here-
http://mysite.verizon.net/res7dhyg/id3.html

[frylock]

25. excellent compilation..

thanks, man!

[Tsiyu]

27. This deserves a kick.

Where, oh, where have the media gone? ( and so on)

[SoCalDem]

30. This will go nowhere, and i would venture a guess that no "reputable"

news people will DARE touch it.. They all know on which side their bread is buttered.

The inmates have taken over the asylum...

[Califooyah Operative]

31. Bush: Pundit payments will stop

was on CNN.com front page earlier, now it's only in the US section, not even politics.

[Just Me]

40. Rings like an "admission" to me.

Hey, Americans,....your "dear leader" has been using YOUR MONEY to brainwash you into screwing yourselves and giving away your blood and treasure to the military-corporate complex!!!

Isn't that clever and oh, so, coy?

:argh:

[rqstnnlitnmnt]

41. i think he was referring to new contracts

* will never give this up without a fight.

this is what won him the election.

[Solly Mack]

33. Damn, that's some expensive Kool-aid.

[rodeodance]

36. it is a shame that such a bill has to be put forth!!

[Solly Mack]

37. Well, yes..yes, it is

it's a damned shame

[Just Me]

43. "Pattern of Deceit" falls within "high crimes and misdemeanors".

The neoCONimperialist regime MUST GO!!!!

[xchrom]

38. self perpetuation

the corporate oligarchy has tools at it's disposal that previous autocrats never had.
and very sophisticated people operating the tools.

the end result? george bush.
and not to mention -- a complicit public.

[JNelson6563]

39. It's threads like this

that make DU a good place to include on daily stopping points list. Thanks to all who contributed this valuable info, I am so bookmarking this for future reference!

:toast:

Julie

[Redstone]

42. And what about the incessant spin, spin, spin...

The article about the Marine helicopter crash in thiis morning's Hartford Courant stated twice in the first three paragraphs (one in the first sentence) that the Marines were "on a mission to support the elections in Iraq."

Were they? Was it really necessary to be so repetitive? Who decided to include that statement so prominently and frequently?

Redstone

[Stuckinthebush]

44. 88 million dollars

Consider this:

There is a bill languishing in congress for 90 million that would provide respite care for parents who have children with severe emotional disturbances. This respite care is essential in providing worn out caretakers a needed break from their responsibilities for a day or weekend. Such breaks allow caretakers to be refreshed and continue their vital work in raising these children to become functioning members of society.

And that is just one of many examples of bills that could be funded using Bush's propaganda money.

There isn't a hell hot enough for Mr. Bush.