Viele haben es bestimmt mitbekommen: Auf über 2000 Meter Höhe wurde vergangenen Donnerstag und Freitag über Medien debattiert. Und zwar in Lech am Arlberg. Ja genau, in Lech am Arlberg!

Themen: Zukunftsperspektiven des Qualitätsjournalismus (Do.), Ende des Kapitalismus, wie wir ihn kennen (Fr.)

Teilnehmer Donnerstag: Oscar Bronner (Herausgeber “Der Standard”),  Alexandra Föderl-Schmid (Chefredakteurin “Der Standard”), Andreas Pfeifer (Korrespondent ORF), Peter Kropsch (CEO der APA), Hermann Petz (Vorstandsvorsitzender Moser Holding), Erna Cuesta (Moderatorin ATV), Birol Kilic (Neue Welt Verlag) und Carl Eduard Meyer (Geschäftsführer news aktuell).

Teilnehmer Freitag: Marion Kraske (Auslandskorrespondentin “Der Spiegel”), Charles E. Ritterband (Korrespondent “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”), Susanne Glass (Präsidentin des Vereins der Auslandspresse in Österreich, ARD-Korrespondentin),  Elmar Oberhauser (ORF-Informationsdirektor),  Hanno Settele (Auslandskorrespondent ORF), Thomas Mayer (leitender Redakteur “Der Standard”), Melinda Crane (Moderatorin “Deutsche Welle TV”) sowie Gabrielle Grenz (Auslandskorrespondentin AFP) und Serafetin Yildiz (Dichter und Schriftsteller).

Der für mich als Journalismusstudentin spannendere Tag war natürlich der Donnerstag, an dem das Thema “Zukunft des Qualitätsjournalismus” abgehandelt wurde. Ich muss an dieser Stelle bemerken, dass ich selbst passionierte und mittlerweile schon notorische “Standard”-Leserin bin (“Kleine Zeitung ” und “Falter” sind auch toll) – deshalb “betrifft” mich das Thema sehr. Laut David Barstow (langjähriger Journalist bei der New York Times, hielt vor einigen Wochen bei uns an der FH einen workshop ab) wird die Zeitung ja sowieso in spätestens 20 Jahren sterben. Ich hoffe, er irrt sich.

Ich denke, eine Zeitung hat viele Vorteile:

• Man kann Zeitung lesen, wo und wann man will. (nicht orts- und zeitgebunden)
• Themen lassen sich gut filtern (Was einen interessiert, liest man. Alles andere kann man sich sparen. Beim Fernsehen etwa geht das nicht!)
• Als zeitungslesender Mensch wirkt man unglaublich “gscheit” – vor allem in jungen Jahren.
• Ich brauche mich als Zeitungskonsument nie über ein nicht funktionierendes mobiles Internet zu ärgern.

Also, was spricht noch gegen dieses wunderbare Medium?

Ein super Video zu diesem Thema …

Die Zeitung ist tot! Lang lebe die Zeitung!

Linksammlung zum Donnerstag:

• Presseaussendung der APA
• pressezone.at
• Fm4 Journal
• Prolog Oscar Bronners

David Barstow won a Pulitzer Prize for his report at The New York Times on the Bush Administration’s covert propaganda wing of the Pentagon recruiting retired military analysts to manufacture consent for its policies in the media. Pentagon officials “equivocated on the subject of whether the program has ended”, Brad Jacobson reports at The Raw Story.

Pentagon Officials Won’t Confirm Bush Propaganda Program Ended

by Brad Jacobson

29 Oct 09 | Raw Story

[Read Part I and Part II of this series.]

The covert Bush Administration program that used retired military analysts to generate favorable wartime news coverage may not have been terminated, Raw Story has found.

In interviews, Pentagon officials in charge of the press and community relations offices—which worked in partnership on the military analyst program—equivocated on the subject of whether the program has ended.

Last May, the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General issued a memorandum rescinding a Bush administration investigative report on the retired military analyst program because it “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.” The now-retracted report had exonerated officials of using propaganda and referred to the program as just “one of many outreach groups.”

Yet Donald Horstman, Pentagon Inspector General deputy director, also stated in the memorandum that his office wouldn’t probe further because the “outreach program has been terminated and responsible senior officials are no longer employed by the [Department of Defense (DoD)].”

Raw Story’s investigation, however, has shown that some “responsible senior officials” are still employed by the Defense Department, including Bryan Whitman, who remains a chief Pentagon spokesman and head of all media operations, and Roxie Merritt, who is head of the Pentagon’s community relations office.

Raw Story has discovered that Horstman’s other justification for not reopening an investigation at the time – “because the [retired military analyst] outreach program has been terminated”—remains an open question.

A week after David Barstow’s New York Times expose on the program broke in April 2008, Whitman said the military analyst program’s suspension was only “temporary.”

Reiterating at the time that he thought the program was merely a way to better inform the American public, he also said, “It’s temporarily suspended just so that we can take a look at some of the concerns.”

When Raw Story asked Mr. Whitman if this program was still being run out of the Pentagon, he first replied firmly, “No, not at this point.”

But then, in what seemed an attempt to downplay his role in the program, he quickly added, “Again, it’s not one of my programs and it would be up to the leadership of public affairs, a new assistant secretary of defense, making any sort of determination to go forward if they deemed it appropriate, necessary, whatever.”

“It’s hard for me to tell what future leadership might decide to do,” Whitman continued. “Again, since it’s not part of the media operations aspect of public affairs here, it’s not a program for which I will be making a decision about.”

Raw Story also asked Roxie Merritt if she could confirm that the military analyst program has been officially terminated.

Ms. Merritt, in an email interview, first replied, “[A]t the present time, we don’t have regularly scheduled conference calls with retired military analysts” but that “we would not, however, preclude responding to queries for information from or provide future opportunities for them to talk to defense leaders and program managers.”

Merritt also noted that should there be regularly scheduled conference calls with the military analysts again in the future, they would be shared in various publicly accessible formats.

She added, though, “Obviously, there are operational security and privacy act issues and other government regulations that must be handled carefully, but we make every possible effort to be open and transparent.”

Asked then to confirm if, in the interim, her office has been open to providing information on an individual basis to retired military analysts, Merritt replied, “Sure. If asked, we would provide them with the same information that we would provide you if you had a question about DoD.”

During the interviews, neither Whitman nor Merritt expressed concern about the way the military analyst program was run by the Bush Administration.

Iraq then and Afghanistan now

Internal Pentagon documents show that the military analyst program was stepped up in 2005, when U.S. public support for the war in Iraq began to sour. Today, as recent polls show American support for the war in Afghanistan plummeting, the Pentagon and the Obama White House are facing a similar problem.

If the military analyst program, in some form or another, is still being run from the Pentagon, then the two most senior players in the Bush Administration propaganda project remaining at the Defense Department, Bryan Whitman and Roxie Merritt, would be poised to step up activities once again.

And they are not currently under the watchful eye of any direct superiors who’ve been brought in by the Obama Administration.

While Whitman said that the future of the program would be up to the next assistant secretary of defense, he also confirmed that that position, which is filled by political appointment, remains vacant.

No one, he added, has even been nominated yet.

Merritt is in a similar position of enhanced authority because the position above her has yet to be filled. Currently serving as President Obama’s director of the Pentagon office for community relations, she’s also its de facto chief until a new deputy assistant secretary of defense for internal communications is appointed.

What’s more, Merritt—whose email signature line was “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of All Who Threaten It” (p. 30 .pdf)—formerly worked as Whitman’s press office director at the time of the military analyst program’s increased activity in 2005.

Whitman and Merritt’s career civil servant status also continue to buffer them from scrutiny regarding political or ideological motivations, regardless of their activities in the Bush Administration.

Retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, an expert in military strategy and operations who has taught at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College and has been critical of Bush Administration strategy, expressed disgust at the Bush holdovers who took part in propaganda against the American public, regardless of whether they were political or career appointees.

Commenting on Whitman’s presence in the Obama Administration, Gardiner said, “He should be so tainted with what the Bush Administration did that that in itself would be enough that he should be gone, even if he’s a career appointee.”

“The list of things that Pentagon public affairs participated in during the run-up [to the Iraq war] and immediately after the invasion are horrendous,” Gardiner continued.

But he pointed out that Whitman “serves as a career person as long as his performance is satisfactory to his immediate superiors.”

As to suggestions that Whitman be held accountable by a congressional investigative body for his part in the military analyst program, Gardiner noted, “Congress doesn’t evaluate individual performance of people. It evaluates the performance of organizations.”

Journalist and historian Norman Solomon said he found an “unfortunate logic” to Whitman remaining at the Pentagon.

Solomon, who recently visited Afghanistan on a fact-finding mission, told Raw Story, “A White House that sees fit to continue on with Robert Gates might see no problem with continuing on with Bryan Whitman.”

He added, “The empirical answer [to why he remains] would be that he’s still useful.”

Veteran foreign correspondent Reese Erlich, who is currently independently covering the Afghanistan war, believes that “to some extent, the Obama Administration is just simply replicating all the same mistakes of the Bush Administration—particularly the war in Afghanistan.”

“And if you’re going to do that,” he explained in an interview with Raw Story, “then you need propagandists who can make stuff up to make the war seem more popular in the short run.”

Brad Jacobson is a contributing investigative reporter to The Raw Story; additional research provided by Ron Brynaert

Once, again, I would just like to point out how ridiculous this whole flap over the Media, Fox News and Barack has become.  It’s a known fact that George Bush kept the media on the payroll, and almost always conducted his interviews with Fox News.  See the Pulitzer Prize winning article HERE.  Not one major news outlet covered the fact that their so-called unbiased military reporters covering the Iraq War and offering opinions were being paid by the government and pentagon.  Barack Obama is reacting (perhaps overreacting) to the fact that for the last two years Fox News has done everything it can to destroy his candidacy and presidency, even giving an even voice to people (like the Birther lady with the accent or that death panel lady with the accent) that Jon Stewart can rip apart in a few seconds of debate.  Fox News was founded by Rupert Murdoch, the man who took over the Wall Street Journal and replaced the board of directors with people that advance his NeoCon agenda.  He curries the support of anyone who can help his empire with a deregulating, favor-the-rich attitude.  The current head of Fox News is a man named Roger Ailes, and, I shit you not, there has been serious talk that he could run for president as  a Republican next cycle.  Unbiased reporting indeed.   Rupert Murdoch is the true enemy, not Fox News and not Glenn Beck.  Murdoch’s minions play to the lowest common denominator, hiding behind meaningless terms like “Fair and Balanced” that shouldn’t even be applied to his pulp trash.  Beck and Ailes are the right and left forks of Satan’s tongue, and it is his voice behind the curtain making the puppets dance.

Figure in Bush propaganda operation remains Pentagon spokesman

In Part I of this series, Raw Story revealed that Bryan Whitman, the current deputy assistant secretary of defense for media operations, was an active senior participant in a Bush administration covert Pentagon program that used retired military analysts to generate positive wartime news coverage.

A months-long review of documents and interviews with Pentagon personnel has revealed that the Bush Administration’s military analyst program — aimed at selling the Iraq War to the American people — operated through a secretive collaboration between the Department of Defense’s press and community relations offices.

Raw Story has also uncovered evidence that directly ties the activities undertaken in the military analyst program to an official US military document’s definition of psychological operations — propaganda that is only supposed to be directed toward foreign audiences.

The investigation of Pentagon documents and interviews with Defense Department officials and experts in public relations found that the decision to fold the military analyst program into community relations and portray it as “outreach” served to obscure the intent of the project as well as that office’s partnership with the press office. It also helped shield its senior supervisor, Bryan Whitman, assistant secretary of defense for media operations, whose role was unknown when the original story of the analyst program broke.

In a nearly hour-long phone interview, Whitman asserted that since the program was not run from his office, he was neither involved nor culpable. Exposure of the collaboration between the Pentagon press and community relations offices on this program, however, as well as an effort to characterize it as a mere community outreach project, belie Whitman’s claim that he bears no responsibility for the program’s activities.

These new revelations come in addition to the evidence of Whitman’s active and extensive participation in the program, as Raw Story documented in part one of this series. Whitman remains a spokesman for the Pentagon today.

Whitman said he stood by an earlier statement in which he averred “the intent and purpose of the [program] is nothing other than an earnest attempt to inform the American public.”

In the interview, Whitman sought to portray his role as peripheral, noting that his position naturally demands he speak on a number of subjects in which he isn’t necessarily directly involved.

The record, however, suggests otherwise.

In a January 2005 memorandum to active members of both offices from then-Pentagon press office director, Navy Captain Roxie Merritt, who now leads the community relations office, emphasized the necessary “synergy of outreach shop and media ops working together” on the military analyst program. [p. 18-19]

Merritt recommended that both the press and community relations offices develop a “hot list” of analysts who could dependably “carry our water” and provide them with ultra-exclusive access that would compel the networks to “weed out the less reliably friendly analysts” on their own.

“Media ops and outreach can work on a plan to maximize use of the analysts and figure out a system by which we keep our most reliably friendly analysts plugged in on everything from crisis response to future plans,” Merritt remarked. “As evidenced by this analyst trip to Iraq, the synergy of outreach shop and media ops working together on these types of projects is enormous and effective. Will continue to examine ways to improve processes.”

In response, Lawrence Di Rita, then Pentagon public affairs chief, agreed. He told Merritt and both offices in an email, “I guess I thought we already were doing a lot of this.”

Several names on the memo are redacted. Those who are visible read like a who’s who of the Pentagon press and community relations offices: Whitman, Merritt, her deputy press office director Gary Keck (both of whom reported directly to Whitman) and two Bush political appointees, Dallas Lawrence and Allison Barber, then respectively director and head of community relations.

Merritt became director of the office, and its de facto chief until the appointment of a new deputy assistant secretary of defense, after the departures of Barber and Lawrence, the ostensible leaders of the military analyst program. She remains at the Defense Department today.

When reached through email, Merritt attempted to explain the function of her office’s outreach program and what distinguishes it from press office activities.

“Essentially,” Merritt summarized, “we provide another avenue of communications for citizens and organizations wanting to communicate directly with DoD.”

Asked to clarify, she said that outreach’s purpose is to educate the public in a one-to-one manner about the Defense Department and military’s structure, history and operations. She also noted her office “does not handle [the] news media unless they have a specific question about one of our programs.”

Merritt eventually admitted that it is not a function of the outreach program to provide either information or talking points to individuals or a group of individuals — such as the retired military analysts — with the intention that those recipients use them to directly engage with traditional news media and influence news coverage.

Asked directly if her office provides talking points for this purpose, she replied, “No. The talking points are developed for use by DoD personnel.”

Experts in public relations and propaganda say Raw Story’s findings reveal the program itself was “unwise” and “inherently deceptive.” One expressed surprise that one of the program’s senior figures was still speaking for the Pentagon.

“Running the military analyst program from a community relations office is both surprising and unwise,” said Nicholas Cull, a professor of public diplomacy at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and an expert on propaganda. “It is surprising because this is not what that office should be doing [and] unwise because the element of subterfuge is always a lightening rod for public criticism.”

Diane Farsetta, a senior researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy, which monitors publics relations and media manipulation, said calling the program “outreach” was “very calculatedly misleading” and another example of how the project was “inherently deceptive.”

“This has been their talking point in general on the Pentagon pundit program,” Farsetta explained. “You know, ‘We’re all just making sure that we’re sharing information.’”

Farsetta also said that it’s “pretty stunning” that no one, including Whitman, has been willing to take any responsibility for the program and that the Pentagon Inspector General’s office and Congress have yet to hold anyone accountable.

“It’s hard to think of a more blatant example of propaganda than this program,” Farsetta said.

Cull said the revelations are “just one more indication that the entire apparatus of the US government’s strategic communications — civilian and military, at home and abroad — is in dire need of review and repair.”

A PSYOPS Program Directed at American Public

When the military analyst program was first revealed by The New York Times in 2008, retired US Army Col. Ken Allard described it as “PSYOPS on steroids.”

It turns out this was far from a casual reference. Raw Story has discovered new evidence that directly exposes this stealth media project and the activities of its participants as matching the US government’s own definition of psychological operations, or PSYOPS.

The US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command fact sheet, which states that PSYOPS should be directed “to foreign audiences” only, includes the following description:

“Used during peacetime, contingencies and declared war, these activities are not forms of force, but are force multipliers that use nonviolent means in often violent environments.”

Pentagon public affairs officials referred to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” in documented communications.

A prime example is a May 2006 memorandum from then community relations chief Allison Barber in which she proposes sending the military analysts on another trip to Iraq:

“Based on past trips, I would suggest limiting the group to 10 analysts, those with the greatest ability to serve as message force multipliers.”

Nicholas Cull, who also directs the public diplomacy master’s program at USC and has written extensively on propaganda and media history, found the Pentagon public affairs officials’ use of such terms both incriminating and reckless.

“[Their] use of psyop terminology is an ‘own goal,’” Cull explained in an email, “as it speaks directly to the American public’s underlying fear of being brainwashed by its own government.”

This new evidence provides further perspective on an incident cited by the Times.

Pentagon records show that the day after 14 marines died in Iraq on August 3, 2005, James T. Conway, then director of operations for the Joint Chiefs, instructed military analysts during a briefing to work to prevent the incident from weakening public support for the war. Conway reminded the military analysts assembled, “The strategic target remains our population.” [p. 102]

Same Strategy, Different Program

Bryan Whitman was also involved in a different Pentagon public affairs project during the lead-up to the war in Iraq: embedding reporters.

The embed and military analyst programs shared the same underlying strategy of “information dominance,” the same objective of selling Bush administration war policies by generating favorable news coverage and were directed at the same target — the American public.

Victoria Clarke, the first Pentagon public affairs chief, is often credited for conceiving both programs. But Clarke and Whitman have openly acknowledged his deep involvement in the embed project.

Clarke declined to be interviewed for this article.

Whitman said he was “heavily involved in the process” of the embed program’s development, implementation and supervision.

Before embedding, reporters and media organizations were forced to sign a contract whose ground rules included allowing military officials to review articles for release, traveling with military personnel escorts at all times or remaining in designated areas, only conducting on-the-record interviews, and agreeing that the government may terminate the contract “at any time and for any reason.”

In May 2002, with planning for a possible invasion of Iraq already in progress, Clarke appointed Whitman to head all Pentagon media operations. Prior to that, he had served since 1995 in the Pentagon press office, both as deputy director for press operations and as a public affairs specialist.

The timing of Whitman’s appointment coincided with the development stages of the embed and military analyst programs. He was the ideal candidate for both projects.

Whitman had a military background, having served in combat as a Special Forces commander and as an Army public affairs officer with years of experience in messaging from the Pentagon. He also had experience in briefing and prepping civilian and military personnel.

Whitman’s background provided him with a facility and familiarity in navigating military and civilian channels. With these tools in hand, he was able to create dialogue between the two and expedite action in a sprawling and sometimes contentious bureaucracy.

Buried in an obscure April 2008 online New York Times Q&A with readers, reporter David Barstow disclosed:

“As Lawrence Di Rita, a former senior Pentagon official told me, they viewed [the military analyst program] as the ‘mirror image’ of the Pentagon program for embedding reporters with units in the field. In this case, the military analysts were in effect ‘embedded’ with the senior leadership through a steady mix of private briefings, trips and talking points.”

Di Rita denied the conversation had occurred in a telephone interview.

“I don’t doubt that’s what he heard, but that’s not what I said,” Di Rita asserted.

Whitman said he’d never heard Di Rita make any such comparison between the programs.

Barstow, however, said he stood behind the veracity of the quote and the conversation he attributed to Di Rita.

Di Rita, who succeeded Clarke, also declined to answer any questions related to Whitman’s involvement in the military analyst program, including whether he had been involved in its creation.

Clarke and Whitman have both discussed information dominance and its role in the embed program.

In her 2006 book Lipstick on a Pig, Clarke revealed that “most importantly, embedding was a military strategy in addition to a public affairs one” (p. 62) and that the program’s strategy was “simple: information dominance” (p. 187). To achieve it, she explained, there was a need to circumvent the traditional news media “filter” where journalists act as “intermediaries.”

The goal, just as with the military analyst program, was not to spin a story but to control the narrative altogether.

At the 2003 Military-Media conference in Chicago, Whitman told the audience, “We wanted to take the offensive to achieve information dominance” because “information was going to play a major role in combat operations.” [pdf link p. 2] One of the other program’s objectives, he said, was “to build and maintain support for U.S. policy.” [pdf link, p. 16 – quote sourced in 2005 recap of 2003 mil-media conference]

At the March 2004 “Media at War” conference at UC Berkeley, Lt. Col. Rick Long, former head of media relations for the US Marine Corps, offered a candid view of the Pentagon’s engagement in “information warfare” during the Bush administration.

“Our job is to win, quite frankly,” said Long. “The reason why we wanted to embed so many media was we wanted to dominate the information environment. We wanted to beat any kind of propaganda or disinformation at its own game.”

“Overall,” he told the audience, “we’re happy with the outcome.”

The Appearance of Transparency

On a national radio program just before the invasion of Iraq, Whitman claimed that embedded reporters would have a firsthand perspective of “the good, the bad and the ugly.”

But veteran foreign correspondent Reese Erlich told Raw Story that the embed program was “a stroke of genius by the Bush administration” because it gave the appearance of transparency while “in reality, they were manipulating the news.”

In a phone interview, Erlich, who is currently covering the war in Afghanistan as a “unilateral” (which allows reporters to move around more freely without the restrictions of embed guidelines), also pointed out the psychological and practical influence the program has on reporters.

“You’re traveling with a particular group of soldiers,” he explained. “Your life literally depends on them. And you see only the firefights or slog that they’re involved in. So you’re not going to get anything close to balanced reporting.”

At the August 2003 Military-Media conference in Chicago, Jonathan Landay, who covered the initial stages of the war for Knight Ridder Newspapers, said that being a unilateral “gave me the flexibility to do my job.” [pdf link p. 2]

He added, “Donald Rumsfeld told the American people that what happened in northern Iraq after [the invasion] was a little ‘untidiness.’ What I saw, and what I reported, was a tsunami of murder, looting, arson and ethnic cleansing.”

Paul Workman, a journalist with over thirty years at CBC News, including foreign correspondent reporting on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote of the program in April 2003, “It is a brilliant, persuasive conspiracy to control the images and the messages coming out of the battlefield and they’ve succeeded colossally.”

Erlich said he thought most mainstream US reporters have been unwilling to candidly discuss the program because they “weren’t interested in losing their jobs by revealing what they really thought about the embed process.”

Now embedded with troops in Afghanistan for McClatchy, Landay told Raw Story it’s not that reporters shouldn’t be embedded with troops at all, but that it should be only one facet of every news outlet’s war coverage.

Embedding, he said, offers a “soda-straw view of events.” This isn’t necessarily negative “as long as a news outlet has a number of embeds and unilaterals whose pictures can be combined” with civilian perspectives available from international TV outlets such as Reuters TV, AP TV, and al Jazeera, he said.

Landay placed more blame on US network news outlets than on the embed program itself for failing to show a more balanced and accurate picture.

But when asked if the Pentagon and the designers of the embed program counted as part of their embedding strategy on the dismal track record of US network news outlets when it came to including international TV footage from civilian perspectives, he replied, “I will not second guess the Pentagon’s motives.”

Brad Jacobson is a contributing investigative reporter for Raw Story. Additional research was provided by Ron Brynaert.

On April 20th, 2009, The New York Times’ David Barstow was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for three stories he published about a supposedly “independent voice”, a “dispassionate expert” on the war in Iraq who, it turns out, was very much in the pocket of military contractors, businesses seeking an edge on contracts with the Pentagon, and a Bush Administration horn-tooter.

Retired General Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general and military analyst for NBC News, it turns out, was contracted by Defense Solutions, back in June 2007 to open doors for them at the Pentagon. Within days, McCaffrey had recommending Defense Solutions to David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq. McCaffrey had given the pitch in a 15-page briefing package to Petraeus, who also happened to be “the American commander with the greatest influence over Iraq’s expanding military”.

“Thus, within days of hiring General McCaffrey, the Defense Solutions sales pitch was in the hands of the American commander with the greatest influence over Iraq’s expanding military.

“That’s what I pay him for,” Timothy D. Ringgold, chief executive of Defense Solutions, said in an interview.”

McCaffrey didn’t mention to Petraeus that he was on contract with Defense Solutions, nor did he disclose this, or his lobbying to the Pentagon when he testified before Congress, criticizing a proposal by a competitor of Defense Solutions and suggesting that Congress needed to supply 5,000 armoured vehicles to Iraq, coincidentally, the same number pitched to Petraeus at the Pentagon.

Over the years since the 9/11, McCaffrey, who was an active promoter of the invasion of Iraq  has never disclosed his active involvement with the Bush Administration and Pentagon propaganda machines, or his ties to military suppliers as a lobbyist.

“BR McCaffrey Associates, promises to “build linkages” between government officials and contractors like Defense Solutions for up to $10,000 a month. He has also earned at least $500,000 from his work for Veritas Capital, a private equity firm in New York that has grown into a defense industry powerhouse by buying contractors whose profits soared from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, he is the chairman of HNTB Federal Services, an engineering and construction management company that often competes for national security contracts.”

Despite a long-standing and well publicized disagreement with Donald Rumsfeld, McCaffrey had been a very enthusiastic booster of the Bush policies, most especially those dealing with Iraq. His dispute with Rumsfeld, it appears also stemmed from his personal financial interests in promoting materials made by the companies he lobbied for. His chief complaint about Rumsfeld appears to have been that Rumsfeld didn’t want to overspend. Whereas, McCaffrey was urging the Bush government  and the Pentagon to spend.

As well as his lobbying, McCaffrey was also, it happens, involved in a surreptitious public relations campaign by the Pentagon to promote the Pentagon and the Bush Administration policies dealing with the war in Iraq. In other words, a propaganda campaign on behalf of the Bush Administration and the Pentagon.

However, McCaffrey, it seems was just one of many former military men who were involved with this campaign.

“In an article earlier this year, The New York Times identified General McCaffrey as one of some 75 military analysts who were the focus of a Pentagon public relations campaign that is now being examined by the Pentagon’s inspector general, the Government Accountability Office and the Federal Communications Commission. The campaign, begun in 2002 but suspended after the article’s publication, sought to transform the analysts into “surrogates” and “message force multipliers” for the Bush administration, records show. The analysts, many with military industry ties, were wooed in private briefings, showered with talking points and escorted on tours of Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.”

In order to promote the Bush/Pentagon slant on the war in Iraq, all these “independent analysts” were called upon by news organizations around the world to present their “independent opinions” as retired military personnel without ties to the military industry or the Bush Administration. They were, as we now know, anything BUT independent.

Since Barstow’s revelations, you would have thought that the media would be stepping up to strenuously assert that they knew nothing of “analysts’” ties to military suppliers or the Pentagon.

You would be wrong.

While the New York Times has run news stories on the issue, nearly every other major news organization, either print or broadcast has either under-reported or ignored the story completely.

Indeed, the announcement of the Pulitzer Prize awards in most new stories never made mention of Barstow or his win, at all.

NBC’s announcement was:

The Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and the arts were awarded today. The New York Times led the way with five, including awards for breaking news and international reporting.  Las Vegas Sun won for the public service category for its reporting on construction worker deaths in that city. Best commentary went to Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post, who of course was an on-air commentator for us on MSNBC all through the election season and continues to be. And the award for best biography went to John Meacham, the editor of Newsweek magazine, for his book “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.”

And, of course, the very news organizations who are ignoring the story and failing to react in any way, are the same ones who allowed Pentagon and Bush Administration mouthpieces an open forum on the war in Iraq in their studios and in their pages.

Just when WILL the media pony up and accept their responsibility in either, at worst, willingly, or at best unknowingly allowed themselves to become part of the propaganda machine (if they DIDN’T know they should have done — they are in the business to find these things out!)?

Interestingly, if you Google News David Barstow, you will find few stories and none are from the major news organizations.

What is particularly shameful is that the very men who promoted a continued presence in Iraq and lied to the public about the actual state of affairs there did so for money and at the expense of young men and women who will never, ever come home from Iraq. Shameful and disgusting.

Read the Glenn Greenwald (Salon.com) piece on this story.

In his New York Times column yesterday, Frank Rich reminded us of a news story that more or less came and went with barely a notice, and that was the withdrawal of the Pentagon Inspector General’s report which basically “exonerated the Bush Pentagon of allegations that it violated regulations in the conduct of its Retired Military Analyst program,” as Media Matters noted here about 10 days ago.

(Also, in the case of the WaPo, there was no notice of the withdrawal in the Post’s print edition, noted by Media Matters – the “exonerating report” was issued in January…a prior post on the Pulitzer-winning story of the defense analysts written by David Barstow of the New York Times is here).

This document, from TPM Muckracker, is the official notice of the report’s withdrawal from Donald M. Horstman, Deputy Inspector General for Policy and Oversight, citing “inaccuracies in the data concerning retired military analysts’ relationships with Defense contractors”; Horstman also noted that the report “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.”

That’s all well and good, but my question is this: who wrote the report?

The letter from Deputy IG Horstman lists an individual named John R. Crane, Assistant IG for Communications and Congressional Liaison, at (703) 604-8324 as the contact person (this DoD link also lists Thomas F. Gimble as the principal deputy IG – I’ll try to contact assistant IG Crane and I’ll let you know if I find out anything).

However, I have a feeling that the person who can answer my question (if he were disposed to do so) is Gordon S. Heddell, who formerly was the IG of the Department of Labor (didn’t know they had one – wonder how he “got on” with “Puffy” Chao?) before he also assumed his duty as the acting DoD IG in July last year, as noted here (and as noted here, concern over Heddell’s “split time” arrangement between the two agencies was voiced by Repug Sen. Charles Grassley).

The report that supposedly exonerated the military contractors should be the subject of a congressional hearing, and another DoD IG report should be commissioned at the earliest opportunity (yet another Bushco mess for the Obama Administration to clean up). And at the hearing, acting DoD IG Gordon Heddell should be the first person called to testify.

The NY Times investigative reporter who the mainstream media won’t interview, David Barstow, interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! (DN!) for the first time since winning the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for exposing the corporate war machine’s propaganda wing: the Pentagon.

8 May 09 | DN!

In his first national broadcast interview, New York Times reporter David Barstow speaks about his 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of the Pentagon propaganda campaign to recruit more than seventy-five retired military officers to appear on TV outlets as military analysts ahead of and during the Iraq war. This week, the Pentagon inspector general’s office admitted its exoneration of the program was flawed and withdrew it.

David Barstow: Investigative reporter at the New York Times. He won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for his articles “Message Machine: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand” and “One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex“.

Part One (10:39):

Part Two (10:34):

Part Three (10:36):

Part Four (8:22):

(h/t: Scott Horton)

RELATED:

• The Pulitzer-Winning Investigation that Dare Not Be Uttered on TV (21 Apr 09)
• VIDEO — Chomsky’s Lectern: Manufacturing Consent — The Political Economy of the Mass Media (19 Feb 09)

The Daily Double: Do you take your Newsweek pandering and slightly elitist? Then you’ll love Reinventing Newsweek, wherein Assistant Managing Editor Kathleen Deveny shrewdly sells the news outlet’s upcoming print and Web redesign (emphasis below is mine, all mine):

Our research indicates there is a large domestic audience — 17 million strong — of smart, educated readers who are looking for a publication that can help them put the flood of news into perspective.

Maybe some of those smart readers will pick up on the irony of narrowing one’s audience in an economic climate that has compelled a sickly industry to tout the importance of journalism to an informed democracy (again, emphasis mine):

We will drop our guaranteed circulation from 2.6 million to 1.5 million by next January. We will focus on a smaller, more devoted, slightly more affluent audience. Over time, we will increase subscription prices. I think the new design is sophisticated and airy, and makes the stories we work so hard on seem more inviting.

“Good journalism is expensive to produce,” writes Deveny. The power of the press belongs to those who own one. And, apparently, to those who can afford to buy its content. So this is what niche publishing is all about.

“Oh, snap!” of the day: “Does the Pulitzer give prizes for works of fiction? Perhaps they just got the wrong category” — former Pentagon Assistant Secretary Dorrance Smith, on David Barstow’s Pultizer Prize-winning story, “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand.”

People you’ve never heard of doing well for themselves: William Li survives the shuttering of Portfolio, (where he was publisher), and  is now associate publisher at Conde Nast Traveler.

Because you can never have enough Twitter: 5 Terrific Twitter Research Tools.

Published on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 by Salon.com

Yesterday, it was announced that David Barstow of The New York Times won a Pulitzer prize for his investigative journalism surrounding the use by the Pentagon of retired military Generals as propagandists to spin the Iraq War to US citizens. Barstow’s work can be seen HERE and HERE.

These articles came out in April and November of 2008, and are, by all accounts, blockbuster scandals that are so big, they virtually could not be ignored. Yet, that is exactly what every single major US broadcast network has done, including NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN, and MSNBC. Not once has any of these networks run this story on their broadcasts–not one time. Yet, this story, which appeared on the front page of the New York Times (twice!), did spark a Congressional investigation, as well as huge, widespread coverage from independent media sources, including Salon.com, HuffingtonPost.com, MotherJones.com, and scores of other respected and well-read news media outlets.

So why have they ignored it, you ask?

Simple. The major news networks used these retired generals as analysts over and over and OVER again, totaling some 4,500 appearances in all between late 2002 up to the present. The networks presented them as experts (and still do) offering their professional, “independent” opinions based solely on their knowledge and career military experience. Yet never, not even one time, has any of the major news networks revealed that nearly all of these generals:

• Were extensively and repeatedly briefed by the Pentagon and given detailed instructions on how to present the events of the Iraq War, and

• Most of these generals had lucrative financial or employment ties to many defense contractors, with investments and/or consulting fees reaching into the millions of dollars, creating a painfully obvious conflict of interest that should have been brought to the viewers’ attention so they could properly consider what was being said in light of those ties.

So it was no surprise that, when announcing the Pulitzer prize winners yesterday and last night on their evening news programs, not a single anchor mentioned Barstow’s achievements, once again completely refusing to acknowledge this huge scandal which all but destroys the networks’ credibility in terms of reporting news objectively and honestly.

Glenn Greenwald, one of the journalists who’ve been out front on this story since the beginning had this to say about this latest instance of the major media completely refusing to acknowledge this story:

By whom were these “ties to companies” undisclosed and for whom did these deeply conflicted retired generals pose as “analysts”? ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox — the very companies that have simply suppressed the story from their viewers. They kept completely silent about Barstow’s story even though it sparked Congressional inquiries, vehement objections from the then-leading Democratic presidential candidates, and allegations that the Pentagon program violated legal prohibitions on domestic propaganda programs. The Pentagon’s secret collaboration with these “independent analysts” shaped multiple news stories from each of these outlets on a variety of critical topics. Most amazingly, many of them continue to employ as so-called “independent analysts” the very retired generals at the heart of Barstow’s story, yet still refuse to inform their viewers about any part of this story.

And even now that Barstow yesterday won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting — one of the most prestigious awards any news story can win — these revelations still may not be uttered on television, tragically dashing the hope expressed yesterday (rhetorically, I presume) by Media Matters’ Jamison Foser that “maybe now that the story has won a Pulitzer for Barstow, they’ll pay attention.” Instead, it was Atrios’ prediction that was decisively confirmed: “I don’t think a Pulitzer will be enough to give the military analyst story more attention.” Here is what Brian Williams said last night on his NBC News broadcast in reporting on the prestigious awards:

“The Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and the arts were awarded today. The New York Times led the way with five, including awards for breaking news and international reporting. Las Vegas Sun won for the public service category for its reporting on construction worker deaths in that city. Best commentary went to Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post, who of course was an on-air commentator for us on MSNBC all through the election season and continues to be. And the award for best biography went to John Meacham, the editor of Newsweek magazine, for his book “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.”

No mention that among the five NYT prizes was one for investigative reporting. Williams did manage to promote the fact that one of the award winners was an MSNBC contributor, but sadly did not find the time to inform his viewers that NBC News’ war reporting and one of Williams’ still-featured premiere “independent analysts,” Gen. Barry McCaffrey, was and continues to be at the heart of the scandal for which Barstow won the Pulitzer. Williams’ refusal to inform his readers about this now-Pulitzer-winning story is particularly notable given his direct personal involvement in the secret, joint attempts by NBC and McCaffrey to contain P.R. damage to NBC from Barstow’s story, compounded by the fact that NBC was on notice of these multiple conflicts as early as April, 2003, when The Nation first reported on them.

Identically, CNN ran an 898-word story on the various Pulitzer winners — describing virtually every winner — but was simply unable to find any space even to mention David Barstow’s name, let alone inform their readers that he won the Prize for uncovering core corruption at the heart of CNN’s coverage of the Iraq War and other military-related matters. No other television news outlet implicated by Barstow’s story mentioned his award, at least as far as I can tell.

The outright refusal of any of these “news organizations” even to mention what Barstow uncovered about the Pentagon’s propaganda program and the way it infected their coverage is one of the most illuminating events revealing how they operate. So transparently corrupt and journalistically disgraceful is their blackout of this story that even Howard Kurtz and Politico — that’s Howard Kurtz and Politico — lambasted them for this concealment. Meaningful criticisms of media stars from media critic (and CNN star) Howie Kurtz is about as rare as prosecutions for politically powerful lawbreakers in America, yet this is what he said about the television media’s suppression of Barstow’s story: “their coverage of this important issue has been pathetic.”

Has there ever been another Pulitzer-Prize-winning story for investigative reporting never to be mentioned on major television — let alone one that was twice featured as the lead story on the front page of The New York Times? To pose the question is to answer it.

For more information on this story, you can find much more analysis from Greenwald HERE HERE and HERE as well as some of the latest comments from Media Matters HERE.

It is all very fascinating reading and very well documented. That’s your Mainstream Media at work. Looking out for you, Joe Q. Citizen. That’s “fair and balanced.”  Uhh, not.

If any of you would like to defend the MSM in this case, I would enjoy hearing your arguments. Personally, I find this repulsive, inexcusable, and entirely destructive on many different levels.

When David Barstow’s remarkable New York Times investigative pieces on corrupt propagandizing by the Pentagon first appeared,  they became required reading for my students.

And it wasn’t even the propaganda that was the mortal sin.   Our system is one in which politicians and agencies are allowed to vigorously promote their point of view while  we are obligated to vigorously monitor their output for spin and fluff and  other self-serving nonsense.  I have occasionally helped government agencies shape messages about safety and health emergencies.

But the “sins” uncovered in Bartow’s brilliant series “Message Machine” went way beyond the pale. The paid  military analysts were misrepresented by the networks  as neutral experts.  In fact, a number of them were shown to directly financially benefit from defense contractors when they promoted a certain point of view.  Sure, we are all drowning in phoniness. But this was phoniness for bucks that had life and death implications.

If you have any interest in the role of the press in society, the Barstow series is a must read.

A confession:  I am not naive about news management and spinning and lying and payoffs and all the rest.  May  God forgive me any spinning I have ever done that, well, spun more than it should have.

But this story shocked me.

Tonight David won a coveted 2008 Polk Award.

Perhaps I’ve been in Washington too long, but I thought that David Barstow’s Sunday New York Times investigation of Barry McCaffrey’s one-man “military-industrial-media complex” didn’t offer much in the way of scandal. Oh, it’s a fascinating read, an exploration of an influential subculture of retired military men who leverage their Pentagon connections with media exposure and lucrative defense consulting. It’s a follow-up to the excellent investigation earlier this year that showed how the Pentagon had incorporated these guys into a sophisticated messaging effort on the Iraq war. The earlier piece had some problems, but it laid out the TV networks’ complicity in – and willful blindness toward – an egregious government propaganda program.

When the New York Times pulls the trigger on something like this, we expect journalistic shock and awe, and the piece promises to take us through “a deeply opaque world, a place of privileged access to senior government officials, where war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests and network executives are sometimes oblivious to possible conflicts of interest.”

But the reality is mundane: McCaffrey appears frequently on TV as a supposedly unbiased commentator on military affairs; he has close ties to various Defense Department officials, who seek to influence what he says on TV; he makes a lot of money from military contractors, who prize his influence with DOD. These kinds of relationships are unsurprising; this is the way Washington works. People have experience, expertise and connections, and if they can, they turn themselves into consultants and TV “analysts” or “strategists” and use the exposure to sell their experience, expertise and connections. Moreover, the piece offers no smoking gun, no clear ethical transgression. It notes McCaffrey sometimes followed the Pentagon line. Except when he didn’t. It says he advocated policies on TV that benefited his clients – but policies that benefit a few contractors no doubt benefited hundreds of others too.

It all sounds a bit unsavory. But the Times is unable to put its finger on exactly why, or what should be done about it, if anything.

The piece seems to want to hang its outrage factor on NBC’s failure to disclose McCaffrey’s corporate connections to viewers. NBC should do so, and its blithe denials are laughable. But this is pretty weak tea: some of the statements of a blustery TV talking head should not be taken at face value. Network news is not the pristine redoubt of journalistic values it pretends to be. Great Caesar’s Ghost!

             I addressed the New York Times article on the accusation that the Pentagon sought to influence retired military officers serving as news media expert military analysts in my post April 28^th.  David Barstow of the NY Times put a whole lot of time and effort, not to mention printer’s ink, (8,000 words) on a long and thoughtful bludgeoning of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.  The casual observer might expect a bench clearing dog pile by the news media each lining up to take their swing at the Pentagon, especially since the balance of Barstow’s data came from the Rumsfeld era Defense Department.  The TV Infotainment programs, pundits passing for pseudo-journalists by the mere fact they sit behind a desk, should have had a field day rambling obnoxious opinion by cherry-picking snippets of facts off the backs of hard working real journalists to support their own biased agendas, but no.  They are all but silent.

            Where was all the follow up?  Where were all the rewrites so common in mass media today where journalists dig for one new detail, then hijack the bulk of the originating story and repackage it just to be able to put their own media outlet’s tag line on the one story that has already been told?

            It would appear that the casual observer failed to note that while the NY Times was pummeling the Pentagon, they missed the fact that a fair number of those punches and jabs were making contact with the news media itself.  With their nose bloodied, the news media, particularly TV news turned away to sit this one out.

            The American news media loves to portray themselves as the great protector of the First Amendment; the watch dog for the American people; the Fourth Estate keeping the institutions of power and influence in check, but they sure do a poor job looking themselves in the mirror.

            In the week after Barstow’s front page Sunday edition, the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research organization that specializes in using empirical methods to evaluate and study the performance of the press found only two related stories, both on PBS News Hour.  I would also submit the Op-Ed by Ralph Peters of the New York Post, one of the few who took the bait of lampooning the Pentagon off the time and work Barstow invested.  Maybe the Post doesn’t make PEJ’s top 48 news media outlets that they regularly monitor.  Regardless, three follow up stories pale in comparison to the 50 stories published regarding the raid on the polygamist’s compound in Eldorado, Texas.

            Why the difference in coverage?  To my knowledge, the shakers and movers of mainstream media are not polygamists.  They were however, the employers of the very military analysts, the NY Times sought to bludgeon the Pentagon with.  Barstow was apparently not following Geoffrey Chaucer’s well known proverb, “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”.  Or perhaps the NY Times doesn’t employ any retired generals as military analysts.  Regardless, throughout the news media neighborhood of glass houses, many a long standing military analysts were quietly dismissed once Barstow started peeping behind the curtains. 

            Who’s in the wrong here?  The Defense Department for tossing a bone to retired military officers already in the employ of major media outlets, to the media outlets for purposely seeking out these same analysts based on their access to the Pentagon?  It would stand to reason that all parties were fully aware of the dynamics and were quite satisfied with the arrangement until Barstow shined some light.  The main stream media was left to scurry for the shadows.

Military Public Affairs professionals across all the armed services have debated amongst themselves whether or not we “influence” or “inform”.  The debate has always existed, but never more prevalent than the past six years as our nation remains embroiled in a war whose end state will become something other than the traditional physical defeat of a nation-state, but rather the seizing and controlling an ideology. 

            I have always been in the “influence” camp.  Regardless of how idealistic some would portray the Department of Defense “Principals of Information” policy, we wear the uniform, we swore the oath of office, we are heart and soul, members of the United States Armed Forces and are partial to our institution.  Therefore, when we ‘inform’ the public about the actions of our military, we are doing so to present our service in the best possible light.  I have never taken any issue considering myself an ‘influencer’.  I have always known and understood my limits.  My ethical and moral compass has always provided me a clear azimuth.

            The debate within the public affairs community has really been about where the line exists between influence that is transparent, honest and morally just and manipulation whose workings are hidden from view and whose objectives are intended to deny disclosure of facts that would allow the public for formulate informed opinion. 

            David Barstow of the New York Times published a story Sunday, April 20^th claiming the Secretary of Defense ran a campaign to co-opt former military officers currently serving as Military Analysts for many major news agencies to serve as third party surrogates to influence the American public to support the Administration’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I make no assertions to the validity of Barstow’s claims because I have no first hand knowledge of the interworkings of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, but as a consumer of news and an American citizen, it does raise concern.

            As with many NY Times articles, Barstow’s is long and at times preachy, but I recommend you give it a read.  For those of us in uniform, and those who once wore the uniform, it’s easy to read the article and think, even if the Pentagon did actively pursue military analysts to carry the government’s messages to the public, it’s OK because Americans should support the war on terror.  To those, I ask that you replace the word “Iraq” with an issue that you personally disagree on whether it be pro-life/pro-choice, gun control, stem cell research, gay marriage or gas prices.  Read the article on those terms and see if the prospect doesn’t make you just a little bit uneasy.

            More recently, the Pentagon announced that it has suspended briefings to retired military officers pending an investigation.  It will be interesting to see if the number and frequency of military analysts declines on the major news networks.  To think that news networks were unaware of their military analysts’ access to Pentagon information would be absurd.  They were hired specifically because of their access to Pentagon decision makers.  They were also fully aware that those retired officers would have a predisposition to a certain level of loyalty to their former service.  For the any news outlet to feign their lack of knowledge would be absurd.  Of greater concern are the defense related businesses many of these analysts are associated with.  But again, where else would you expect retired generals to be employed, the ice cream industry, perhaps?

            If you prefer a fast read, Ralph Peters’ Op-Ed in Tuesday’s New York Post might float your boat.  I’m no fan of Monday morning quarterbacks riding the coattails of real news as a spring board to launch antagonism for antagonism’s sake, but it’s a quicker read.

            Although the relationship of the Defense Department and military analysts doesn’t have a practical application to the working stiff Public Affairs Officer, it should remind us all that perception is reality.  The military PAO is in the influence business. No doubt in my mind about that.  We are however, mandated to conduct ourselves out in the open, up front and transparent as to our objectives and motivations.  We don’t work our trade through slight of hand.  Leave that to magicians.  We must let our moral compass be our guide and make assertive corrections when outside factors would steer one off course.

Norman Solomon: 

While it’s a positive step, the big front-page New York Times article on Sunday – “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand” – is tardy by several years and now makes a remarkable detour around the active role of the television networks themselves in implementing systemic disinformation efforts for starting and continuing war. As I say in the documentary film War Made Easy, “Nobody forced the major networks like CNN to do so much commentary from retired generals and admirals and all the rest of it.” And that just begins to tell the sordid and bloody tale.

This kind of stuff is 24/7 wartime wallpaper for cable news. The extent of the war-propaganda problem is such that the Times just scratched the surface. For a look at some grim media cases-in-point and samples from War Made Easy, go to: www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org

Here is David Barstow’s New York Times article

Note that the Pentagon suspended their practise of providing analysts to news media, not the news media, according to Barstow’s follow-up here

Hey kids, The New York Times has published an eleven-page article by David Barstow that is absolutely fascinating, and I suggest you read the whole thing. Here are snippets:

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

Original DVD cover.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Of course, the networks don’t tell you in their introductions that these guys are shilling for defense contractors and the like.

Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

Some of them are expressing regret now for spreading the propaganda.

“It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said.

I wonder if all the regret means that they gave back all the money they made from spreading the BS.

The Pentagon defended its relationship with military analysts, saying they had been given only factual information about the war. “The intent and purpose of this is nothing other than an earnest attempt to inform the American people,” Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

…snip…

Many analysts strongly denied that they had either been co-opted or had allowed outside business interests to affect their on-air comments, and some have used their platforms to criticize the conduct of the war. Several, like Jeffrey D. McCausland, a CBS military analyst and defense industry lobbyist, said they kept their networks informed of their outside work and recused themselves from coverage that touched on business interests.

“I’m not here representing the administration,” Dr. McCausland said.

And the media?

Some network officials, meanwhile, acknowledged only a limited understanding of their analysts’ interactions with the administration. They said that while they were sensitive to potential conflicts of interest, they did not hold their analysts to the same ethical standards as their news employees regarding outside financial interests. The onus is on their analysts to disclose conflicts, they said.

Sure! It’s not up the the media, which is supposed to be unbiased, to point out that the people they are presenting as unbiased are really biased.

Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.”

Though many analysts are paid network consultants, making $500 to $1,000 per appearance, in Pentagon meetings they sometimes spoke as if they were operating behind enemy lines, interviews and transcripts show. Some offered the Pentagon tips on how to outmaneuver the networks, or as one analyst put it to Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, “the Chris Matthewses and the Wolf Blitzers of the world.” Some warned of planned stories or sent the Pentagon copies of their correspondence with network news executives. Many — although certainly not all — faithfully echoed talking points intended to counter critics.

“Good work,” Thomas G. McInerney, a retired Air Force general, consultant and Fox News analyst, wrote to the Pentagon after receiving fresh talking points in late 2006. “We will use it.”

Heckuva job, Pentagon!

Let’s meet one of the fellas, kids…..

John C. Garrett is a retired Army colonel and unpaid analyst for Fox News TV and radio. He is also a lobbyist at Patton Boggs who helps firms win Pentagon contracts, including in Iraq.

…snip…

In interviews Mr. Garrett said there was an inevitable overlap between his dual roles. He said he had gotten “information you just otherwise would not get,” from the briefings and three Pentagon-sponsored trips to Iraq. He also acknowledged using this access and information to identify opportunities for clients. “You can’t help but look for that,” he said, adding, “If you know a capability that would fill a niche or need, you try to fill it. “That’s good for everybody.”

At the same time, in e-mail messages to the Pentagon, Mr. Garrett displayed an eagerness to be supportive with his television and radio commentary. “Please let me know if you have any specific points you want covered or that you would prefer to downplay,” he wrote in January 2007, before President Bush went on TV to describe the surge strategy in Iraq.

And if you don’t play by the administration’s rules, then you are cut off from all access.

There was a mission to Cuba. About ten of these “analysts” were taken to Gitmo in June, 2005, when criticism of inhumane treatment was high. Pentagon officials spent the flight and the rest of the day telling the gang of ten how hunky-dory everything was at Gitmo. The result….

The analysts went on TV and radio, decrying Amnesty International, criticizing calls to close the facility and asserting that all detainees were treated humanely.

“The impressions that you’re getting from the media and from the various pronouncements being made by people who have not been here in my opinion are totally false,” Donald W. Shepperd, a retired Air Force general, reported live on CNN by phone from Guantánamo that same afternoon.

The next morning, Montgomery Meigs, a retired Army general and NBC analyst, appeared on “Today.” “There’s been over $100 million of new construction,” he reported. “The place is very professionally run.”

In 2002, plans were laid for the invasion of Iraq. The only problem was how to sell it to a population who didn’t see the point in invading a country who had no connection whatsoever to 9/11. Cue Torie Clarke:

Torie Clarke, the former public relations executive who oversaw the Pentagon’s dealings with the analysts as assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, had come to her job with distinct ideas about achieving what she called “information dominance.” In a spin-saturated news culture, she argued, opinion is swayed most by voices perceived as authoritative and utterly independent.

And so even before Sept. 11, she built a system within the Pentagon to recruit “key influentials” — movers and shakers from all walks who with the proper ministrations might be counted on to generate support for Mr. Rumsfeld’s priorities.

And, oh, how the networks ate it up! The so-called analysts often got more time than the reporters did. Even the ones who were not shilling for the Pentagon were complicit:

Even analysts with no defense industry ties, and no fondness for the administration, were reluctant to be critical of military leaders, many of whom were friends. “It is very hard for me to criticize the United States Army,” said William L. Nash, a retired Army general and ABC analyst. “It is my life.”

Torie Clarke put her analysts first, journalists second. There was a regular press office, and there was a small group of political appointees whose job it was to cater to the military analysts. The White House was in in the whole thing, asking who the Pentagon was thinking of using and making suggestions of their own. Clarke and her gang wrote summaries, and Donald Rumsfeld made the decisions of who stayed on the list.

Over time, the Pentagon recruited more than 75 retired officers, although some participated only briefly or sporadically. The largest contingent was affiliated with Fox News, followed by NBC and CNN, the other networks with 24-hour cable outlets. But analysts from CBS and ABC were included, too. Some recruits, though not on any network payroll, were influential in other ways — either because they were sought out by radio hosts, or because they often published op-ed articles or were quoted in magazines, Web sites and newspapers. At least nine of them have written op-ed articles for The Times.

The group was heavily represented by men involved in the business of helping companies win military contracts.

Some more of the fellas (all retired from the armed forces):

Army General James Marks–mouthpiece on CNN 2004-07, senior executive with McNeil Technologies.

Brigadier General Jeffrey McCausland–CBS, Dr. McC works for Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, a major lobbying firm that represents military contractors.

Air Force General James C. Ralston–CBS, vice chairman of the Cohen Group, which has among its clients, Lockheed Martin.

Navy Captain Barry R. McCaffrey and the late Army General Wayne A. Downing–NBC, both members of the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, and both heads of their own consulting firms as well as being on the boards of military contractors.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Timur J. Eads–Fox News, V.P. of Blackbird Technologies, a military contractor.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Maginnis–works in the Pentagon for a military contractor.

Well, kids, we are only up to page 4! Maybe we will revisit the rest of it, or you can read the rest for yourselves. Its really fascinating.

P.S. Here’s a slightly fuzzy enlargement of what’s on the TV set:

O’BRIEN: Don’t you think, though, that however you interpret all this, what is going to happen now is, you enter a stage where Saddam Hussein, who is an expert at these cat-and-mouse, 11th-hour games, is going to play this brinksmanship game as he has done in the past with these inspectors, and he’s just playing for time? So do you perceive this extending out well into the spring?

GRANGE: He’s going to try to do that, obviously. I mean, he’s a — just like you said, he’s an expert at denial, at deception, at dislocation, at disruption. So he’s going to continue to do that. And I — you know, the — for him to declare on the 8th of December that he has no weapons of mass destruction, when there’s clear evidence that he does, I mean, there’s a violation right there. I mean, he’s already violated it. (Bold added)

 It is my view that a supposedly intelligent, savvy, in the loop, high achieving military go to guy like David Grange knew full well that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when he slopped out this sorry excuse for the truth in a November 16 2002 interview the supposedly independent analyst had with CNN’s Miles O’Brien.

 Perhaps inspired by the forensic examiners who seek to find genetic traces left behind at a crime scene, and in light of David Barstow’s New York Times expose’ – Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand  - on the Pentagon’s psyops assault on the truth and reality using retired senior military people and the ever eagerly complicit mainstream media, I thought I’d go back to 2002 to see if former Brigadier General Grange was on the level when he offered his “independent” expertise to the world in the run up to the invasion of Iraq.

 For reasons beyond me now, I wanted to believe what he said, even though I have a lifetime of good reasons to distrust people who have managed to worm their way into a position of delusional authority over others.

 However, I can clearly recall twinges of doubt and misgivings roiling restlessly in the back of my mind whenever I heard him speak.

 I am now certain that all those ugly twinges were my smarter, not so easily fooled sub-conscience trying to warn me of the logical inconsistencies, the furtive, hastily corrected or hurridely re-worked verbal mis-steps and gaffes that even the most skilled sociopathic liar – as I now believe Grange to be – must always leave behind as they navigate the treacherous rocks of illusion just as any other common criminal leaves the aforementioned traces and strands of DNA at any other crime scene.

 His words, his body language, his eyes must have all been screaming out signals that, alas, only become clear to me as I go back and read the transcript of his words after the revelations in the NYT article.

 And if someone were to tell me that the CNN interviewer was reading off the same script, I’d be inclined to believe it.

 If I imagined that he had the capacity to feel such a thing, I would assume David Grange would be filled with humiliation, guilt, remorse and regret at his role in the Bush Crime Family’s endeavors and in being caught and nailed so clearly and publicly as a deeply dishonorable man.

There are sociopaths among us, many of them, and to the naked eye they look just like David Grange.

Update January 3rd 2009

David Grange is all over CNN covering the Gaza bombardment and invasion. Just a note to remind readers that Grange is a proven liar. No doubt his  military expertise is impressive, but whose lies is he being paid to mouth this time?

We will probably never know, but we do know one thing:

This guy is not worthy of our attention or our trust.

Proven liars on scale of Grange should not be listened to.

Tune him out.