The New York Times had quite a front-page scoop this past Sunday, when it reported on a Pentagon program that recruited retired military officers, who’ve since become lobbyists or consultants for military contractors, to become propaganda agents of the Bush administration. Throughout the war in Iraq, these retired officers — or “message multipliers,” as they were described by the Defense Department — took on roles as military analysts for all of the major news networks, without noting their puppet-like relationships with the Pentagon.
It was as sophisticated a media-manipulation scheme as anything the Bush gang has hatched to date. A small group of Pentagon political appointees would “cater to” more than 75 retired officers, giving them the message that needed to be multiplied. As one Pentagon official marveled, “You could see they were taking verbatim what the secretary was saying or what the technical specialists were saying. And they were saying it over and over and over. We were able to click on every single station and every one of our folks were up there delivering our message. You’d look at them and say, ‘This is working.'”
The networks weren’t aware of the propaganda program, and obviously, the public was none the wiser. What’s nearly as striking, though, is that most news outlets have been reluctant to talk about the NYT revelations since they were published.
PBS’s “Newshour” ran a rare report last night.
While most TV news organizations have refused to report or even comment on the bombshell Times article exposing a secret Pentagon propaganda campaign to sell Iraq policy, PBS just aired an important segment on the controversy. PBS’ Judy Woodruff kicked off the debate with a disturbing summary of the current media blackout: “For the record, we invited Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and NBC to participate but they declined our offer or did not respond.”
John Stauber, coauthor of “Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq,” contended that the Pentagon’s “surrogate” program violated federal law against domestic propaganda and called for a congressional investigation. “This war could have never been sold if it were not for this sophisticated propaganda campaign,” he said.
We have not, though, heard the last of this.
First, I should note that some news outlets have been more responsible than others. CNN aired three segments on the NYT report, Keith Olbermann highlighted the revelations, and “The Daily Show” did a lengthy segment on the subject. The rest of the networks, however, have remained silent — and Fox News continues to feature one of the Pentagon Puppets as if nothing has changed.
Second, Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) yesterday began pushing for a congressional inquiry.
Today, Congressman Hodes officially called on Chairman John Tierney of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs to hold a hearing on a recent New York Times story published on Sunday, April 20, 2008 on how Department of Defense officials used undue influence with former military officers serving as “independent” military analysts commenting on developments on the war in Iraq for network news stations. The Department of Defense used these analysts to manipulate public opinion toward supporting the Administration’s policy in the War in Iraq.
A hearing also could examine whether some of these analysts were given military contracts with the Defense Department in exchange for reading Bush Administration talking points on the public airwaves.
And third, FreePress.net put together a good video summarizing the controversy: