[Infowarrior] - Embedding Military Propagandists into the News Media

[Richard Forno]

Embedding Military Propagandists into the News Media
Pentagon News Networks

By JOHN STAUBER and SHELDON RAMPTON

http://www.counterpunch.org/stauber04232008.html

David Barstow of the New York Times has written the first installment in
what is already a stunning exposé of the Bush Administration's most powerful
propaganda weapon used to sell and manage the war on Iraq: the embedding of
military propagandists directly into the TV networks as on-air commentators.
We and others have long criticized the widespread TV network practice of
hiring former military officials to serve as analysts, but even in our most
cynical moments we did not anticipate how bad it was. Barstow has
painstakingly documented how these analysts, most of them military industry
consultants and lobbyists, were directly chosen, managed, coordinated and
given their talking points by the Pentagon's ministers of propaganda.

Thanks to the two-year investigation by the New York Times, we today know
that Victoria Clarke, then the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public
Affairs, launched the Pentagon military analyst program in early 2002. These
supposedly independent military analysts were in fact a coordinated team of
pro-war propagandists, personally recruited by Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, and acting under Clarke's tutelage and development.

One former participant, NBC military analyst Kenneth Allard, has called the
effort "psyops on steroids." As Barstow reports, "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.' ... Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a
strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of
the public relations push to construct a case for war."

Clarke and her senior aide, Brent T. Krueger, eventually signed up more than
75 retired military officers who penned newspaper op/ed columns and appeared
on television and radio news shows as military analysts. The Pentagon held
weekly meetings with the military analysts, which continued as of April 20,
2008, when the New York Times ran Barstow's story. The program proved so
successful that it was expanded to issues besides the Iraq War. "Other
branches of the administration also began to make use of the analysts. Mr.
Gonzales, then the attorney general, met with them soon after news leaked
that the government was wiretapping terrorism suspects in the United States
without warrants, Pentagon records show. When David H. Petraeus was
appointed the commanding general in Iraq in January 2007, one of his early
acts was to meet with the analysts."

Barstow spent two years digging, using the Freedom of Information Act and
attorneys to force the Bush Administration to release some 8,000 pages of
documents now under lock and key at the New York Times. This treasure trove
should result in additional stories, giving them a sort of "Pentagon Papers"
of Iraq war propaganda.

In 1971, when the Times printed excerpts of the Pentagon Papers on its front
page, it precipitated a constitutional showdown with the Nixon
Administration over the deception and lies that sold the war in Vietnam. The
Pentagon Papers issue dominated the news media back then. Today, however,
Barstow's stunning report is being ignored by the most important news media
in America -- TV news -- the source where most Americans, unfortunately, get
most of their information.

Joseph Goebbels, eat your heart out. Goebbels is history's most notorious
war propagandist, but even he could not have invented a smoother PR vehicle
for selling and maintaining media and public support for a war: embed
trusted "independent" military experts into the TV newsroom. As with most
propaganda, the key to the success of this effort was the element of
concealment, as these analysts and the Bush administration hid the fact that
their talking points and marching orders were coming directly from the
Pentagon.

The use of these analysts was a glaring violation of journalistic standards.
As the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists explains,
journalists are supposed to

    * Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.

    * Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise
integrity or damage credibility.

    * Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and
shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service
in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.

    * Disclose unavoidable conflicts.

    * Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.

    * Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist
their pressure to influence news coverage.

    * Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money.

The networks using these analysts as journalists shamelessly failed to vet
their experts and ignored the obvious conflicts of hiring a person with
financial relationships to companies profiting from war to be an on-air
analyst of war. They acted as if war was a football game and their military
commentators were former coaches and players familiar with the rules and
strategies. The TV networks even paid these "analysts" for their propaganda,
enabling them to present themselves as "third party experts" while parroting
White House talking points to sell the war.

Now that Barstow has blown their cover, the TV networks have generally
refused to comment about this matter. Further compounding their violations
of the public trust, they are blacking out coverage of the New York Times
exposé, no doubt on advice of their own PR and crisis management advisors.

Since the 1920s there have been laws passed to stop the government from
doing what Barstow has exposed. It is actually illegal in the United States
for the government to propagandize its own citizens. As Barstow's report
demonstrates, these laws have been repeatedly violated, are not enforced and
are clearly inadequate. The U.S. Congress therefore needs to investigate
this and the rest of the Bush propaganda campaign that sold the war in Iraq.

The attack and occupation of Iraq continues, with no end in sight. Estimates
of the number of Iraqi dead range from the hundreds of thousands to more
than a million. The cost to American taxpayers will eventually be in the
trillions of dollars. More than 4,000 US soldiers have lost their lives, and
this is just a part of the horrific toll of mental and physical disability
that the war is taking on hundreds of thousands of troops and their
families.

This war would never have been possible had the mainstream news media done
its job. Instead, it has repeated the Big Lies that sold the war. This war
would never have been possible without the millions of dollars spent by the
Bush Administration on sophisticated and deceptive public relations
techniques such as the Pentagon military analyst program that David Barstow
has exposed. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Victoria Clarke,
who designed and oversaw this Pentagon propaganda machine, now works as a
commentator for TV network news. She may have changed jobs and employers
since leaving the Pentagon, but her work remains the same.

John Stauber is the executive director of the Center for Media and
Democracy.

Sheldon Rampton is its research director. They have co-authored two books
about the war: Iraq: Weapons of Mass Deception and The Best War Ever.