-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- Dave Hartley http://www.asheville-computer.com/dave U.S. Army 'Psyops' Specialists worked for CNN Trouw, 21 February, 2000 By Abe de Vries Translated from the Dutch by an Emperors-Clothes volunteer www.tenc.net [emperors-clothes] WASHINGTON, ATLANTA - For a short time last year, CNN employed military specialists in 'psychological operations' (psyops). This was confirmed to Trouw by a spokesman of the U.S. Army. The military could have influenced CNN's news reports about the crisis in Kosovo. "Psyops personnel, soldiers and officers, have been working in CNN's headquarters in Atlanta through our programme 'Training With Industry,'" said Major Thomas Collins of the U.S. Army Information Service in a telephone interview last Friday. "They worked as regular employees of CNN. Conceivably, they would have worked on stories during the Kosovo war. They helped in the production of news.'' These military, a "handful" according to Collins, stayed with CNN for at least a couple of weeks "to get to know the company and to broaden their horizons''. Collins maintains that "they didn't work under the control of the army." The temporary outplacement of U.S. Army psyops personnel in various sectors of society began a couple of years ago. Contract periods vary from a couple of weeks to one year. CNN is the biggest and most widely viewed news station in the world. The intimate liaisons with army psyops specialists raise serious doubts about CNN's journalistic integrity and independence. The military CNN-personnel belonged to the airmobile Fourth Psychological Operations Group, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. One of the main tasks of this group of almost 1200 soldiers and officers is to spread 'selected information'. American psyops troops try with a variety of techniques to influence media and public opinion in armed conflicts in which American state interests are said to be at stake. The propaganda group was involved in the Gulf war, the Bosnian war and the crisis in Kosovo. So far CNN has not commented on the allegations. "I don't believe that we would employ military personnel; it doesn't seem like something we would normally do," said CNN-spokeswoman Megan Mahoney on Friday evening. But when the U.S. Army Information Service confirmed the news, Mahoney said she would have to contact CNN's senior officials. However, on Sunday evening CNN still could not provide an offical statement to Trouw. CNN's coverage of the war in Kosovo, and that of other media, has attracted criticism from several sides as having been one-sided, overly emotional, over-simplified and relying too heavily on NATO officials. On the other hand, journalists have complained about the lack of reliable information from NATO; for almost all of them it was impossible to be on the battlefield and file first-hand reports. For more on the connection between CNN and U.S. Army opinion-control operations, see 'The American army loves CNN' [below !!] ===================== The American army loves CNN Trouw, 21 February, 2000 By Abe de Vries Translated by www.tenc.net [emperors-clothes] * "Not only do the PsyOps people want to spread handpicked 'information' and keep other news quiet, the army also wants to control the Internet, to wage electronic warfare against disobedient media, and to control commercial satellites." - Abe de Vries, Trouw, 2/21/00 BELGRADE - In the first two weeks of the war in Kosovo, CNN produced thirty articles for the Internet. An average CNN article had seven mentions of NATO politicians like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, NATO spokesmen like Jamie Shea and David Wilby or other NATO officials. Words like refugees, ethnic cleansing, mass killings and expulsions were used nine times on the average. But apparently the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (0.2 mentions) and the Yugoslav civilian victims (0.3 mentions) didn't exist for CNN. Concentration on one central message is a favorite technique in audiovisual mass media, but it is also important with military personnel trying to win a war using 'Psychological Operations' (PsyOps). A media organization may be interested in the maximum number of viewers and a state may have special goals; these two can share an interest in simplification and mystifying. The news that CNN employed PsyOps specialists really leaves only one question to be answered: Did the military learn from the TV people how to hold viewers' attention? Or did the PsyOps people teach CNN how to help the U.S. government garner political support? No doubt, CNN will soon declare that the military (of course) didn't influence their news. However, this whole thing looks very bad and appearances count in these matters. Colonel Christopher St. John is Commander of the Fourth Psychological Operations Group. In a military symposium on Special Operations on that was held behind closed doors in Arlington Virginia in early February, Col. St. John said the cooperation with CNN was a textbook example of the kind of ties the American army wants to have with the media. According to a report in the latest edition of the French magazine "Intelligence Newsletter" the Kosovo experience was the focus at this symposium. In the Kosovo crisis there was no military censorship of the kind that existed during the Gulf war. This time NATO tried to use more subtle methods to regulate the flow of information. The U.S. Army leadership seems to have concluded that new and more aggressive measures in Psychological warfare are needed. Not only do the PsyOps people want to spread handpicked 'information' and keep other news quiet, the army also wants to control the Internet, to wage electronic warfare against disobedient media, and to control commercial satellites. NATO's message in the Kosovo war was simple. That's how it's done in PsyOps. NATO's line was: it had had to confront Serbian troops who committed genocide, that it only waged war to allow the return of Albanian refugees, that when it bombed Yugoslavia it was very careful to avoid 'collateral damage'. Mass media like CNN took this message at face value and avoided disturbing questions. The war in Kosovo was far less bloody than the one in Bosnia; many Albanians fled Kosovo from fear of bombings or on orders of the KLA; NATO killed more than 500 innocent Yugoslav civilians in 'accidents'; by using imprecise and outdated cluster bombs NATO has, according to many experts in international law, violated the Geneva Conventions - but all of that, it seems, was not, or not really, worth mentioning. Still, the PsyOps people in Arlington were not completely satisfied. In their opinion, too much information about the unplanned results of the bombings has come to the surface. Rear-admiral Thomas Steffens of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) reportedly would like to have the capacity to bring down an 'informational cone of silence' over areas where special operations are in place. What that can mean in reality was shown by the bombing of the Serbian state television RTS in Belgrade. At least fourteen people died [in that NATO attack]. Another high-ranking officer of SOCOM, Colonel Romeo Morrissey, said in his review that NATO should have taken out the Serbian radio station B-92. The B-92 coverage of the bombings did not correspond with the information NATO brought out on its press shows in Brussels. Journalists who regularly logged in on the internet site of B-92 succeeded, bit by bit, in undermining NATO's message. And that is something PsyOps people don't like. PsyOps people love CNN. *** For more on the CNN-PsyOps connection see U.S. Army 'Psyops' Specialists worked for CNN by Abe de Vries, at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/devries/psyops.htm Here are some articles that examine techniques by which news is distorted: * Misleading from the Start by Jared Israel. Looks at how the Associated Press distorted news about the response of local residents to police attacks on the World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle. http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/misleadi.htm * Credible Deception by Jared Israel. Examines NY Times coverage of the U.S. missile attack on a pill factory in Sudan in 1998. Uncovers specific techniques which one is hard-pressed to ascribe to coincidence. http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/sudan.html * Reporting Kosovo: Journalism vs. Propaganda by Phil Hammond. In which the author discovers an amazing continuity of pro-NATO coverage including the use of identical language in stories by several journalists. http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/hammond/propagan.html * Collateral Damage in Seattle, by Jim Desyllus http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/collater.htm * Lies, Damn Lies and Maps, by Jared Israel. 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