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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
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
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.
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