-Caveat Lector-
>From South Africa
Whilst working on a project which had a (small) political effect I came
across
an organisation called "The editors" who consisted of the retired editors of
the major newspaper groups who at a price would act a s a loby and influence
the way that a news report would be slanted.
At the truth and reconciliation comission (the press have used it as a half
truth and humiliation comission--the comission has been relatively fair in
its basic reports but the press has not been " comprehensive in its
reporting)--the manipuation of the press was one of the things coverred. The
Nats had to admit that they controlled the flow of information by having
selected insiders in the press offices(they didnt do a particular good job
as they did not have the support of the owners) but that with the new ANC
goverment there are more spooks aand controllers in the press under the ANC
than with the previous government.
I could send articles on how the ANC government is ridding itself of
journalists who, although
sympathetic to the ANC in the "struggle" have been shafted because they are
to independent to control.
John
THIS TIME, THINGS ARE DIFFERENT
===============================
(CNNS, 05/10/99) -- The year is 1992, and the U.S. is shocked by
starvation in Somalia. But an article in EXTRA! asks, "If the
U.S. has not consistently acted in an altruistic manner toward
starving people in Africa, why did it dispatch troops to Somalia
at this point?" [1] But Washington Post lullabied us that,
"Unlike previous large-scale operations, there is no U.S.
strategic or economic interests in the Somalia deployments."
[2]. Later on though, we learned that "...four major U.S. oil
companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in
exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of
acres of the Somali countryside." [3]
Then the U.S. deployed into Haiti. The cover story was that we'd
again become very humanitarian, concerned about the Haitians.
What we didn't widely understand was that for years the U.S. has
been quietly involved in Haitian politics. [4] We wanted the
leader of Haiti to be *our* stooge, not just any stooge. It
turned out that Haiti is "a major transshipment point for cocaine
traffickers..." [5]
In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson authorized formation of the
Committee on Public Information (CPI). CPI was "a propaganda
machine headed up by George Creel." [6] The USA mass media
played along: "most newspapers reportedly published all 6,000
press releases sent out by the CPI News Division." [7] The USA
mass media even today is a "team player" with the U.S.
government; night after night their news coverage mostly just
relays whatever the government said that day. (Nightly "News":
"Bill Clinton said this"; "Madeleine Albright said that.")
In 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt "created the U.S.
Office of Censorship, appointing Byron Price, former executive
news editor of the Associated Press, director." [8] Also helping
control the news during wartime was the Office of War Information
(OWI), "a propaganda organization headed up by Elmer Davis,
formerly with CBS News and the New York Times..." [9]
In 1968, "some 570 South Vietnamese civilians were slaughtered in
Mylai." [10] But the U.S. mass media did not challenge the
Pentagon's story that it was really 128 commies that had been
killed, even though they were aware of controverting reports
coming from Europe and elsewhere. [11]. It's all in a day's
work for the lambkins of CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, etc.
In 1991, "the networks rejected uncensored videotape footage of
the heavy Iraqi civilian damage," during the Persian Gulf War.
[12] Instead, "the networks continued to feed the
Pentagon-approved, high-tech, smart-bomb, antiseptic,
non-threatening version of the war." [13]
In 1992, the "Department of Defense and a group of self-selected
media executives agreed on nine out of ten ground rules for press
coverage of America's next military engagement." [14]
President George Bush once exclaimed, "The American people are
not stupid!" Why did Bush feel he needed to say that? Polls
supposedly show that most of the U.S. public is supportive of
current U.S. intervention in Yugoslavia. They've obviously been
seduced by U.S. mass media news reports. In spite of a long
history of the consistent untrustworthiness of the U.S.
government and the mainstream news media, Americans seem to
believe that, "This time, things are different."
---------------------------<< Notes >>---------------------------
[1] "The Somalia Intervention: Tragedy Made Simple," by Jim
Naureckas. EXTRA! March 1993. Qtd. in *Censored: The News
That Didn't Make The News -- And Why* by Carl Jensen & Project
Censored. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1994. ISSN:
1074-5998. (A.k.a. The 1994 Project Censored Yearbook.)
[2] Washington Post, 12/6/92. Qtd. in Jensen, op. cit.
[3] "The Oil Factor in Somalia," by Mark Fineman. Los Angeles
Times, 1/18/93. Qtd. in Jensen, op. cit.
[4] Jensen, op. cit.
[5] Jensen, op. cit.
[6] *Censored: The News That Didn't Make The News -- And Why* by
Carl Jensen & Project Censored. Chapel Hill: Shelburne Press,
1993. ISBN: 1-882680-00-6. (A.k.a. The 1993 Project Censored
Yearbook.)
[7] Jensen, 1993. Op. cit.
[8] Jensen, 1993. Op. cit.
[9] Jensen, 1993. Op. cit.
[10] Jensen, 1993. Op. cit.
[11] Jensen, 1993. Op. cit.
[12] Jensen, 1993. Op. cit.
[13] Jensen, 1993. Op. cit.
[14] Jensen, 1993. Op. cit.
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