> >
> I don't watch Fox. I do watch CNN.
> >
> > Lotsa love,
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/internet.htm
"BROOKE GLADSTONE reporting: Last year, CNN played host to five interns from
the PSYOPS group. NPR says its three PSYOP interns were employed as
temporary administrative news interns, answering phones, filing scripts,
copying and preparing program schedules. They each worked for a couple of
months beginning in September 1998 and ending in May of last year. In a
statement today, NPR president Kevin Klose says that upon learning of the
pre-existing relationship of the three interns to the US Army, NPR news
management terminated acceptance of such interns in the future. Lieutenant
Colonel Paul Mullen(ph) deputy commander of the PSYOPS group, says the
internships offered his soldiers a chance to gain some first-hand experience
in the news business. (April 10, 2000, All Things Considered, National
Public Radio)"
In case you missed it (I did on the first two readings) note the splendid
piece of literary mendacity included in the above text: "In a statement
today, NPR president Kevin Klose says that upon learning of the pre-existing
relationship of the three interns to the US Army..."
Pre-existing relationship to the army? Is that like, you know, being a
soldier? "Hey! All you bums with a pre-existing relationship to the army
ATTEN-SHUN!" I wish I could do cartoons.
The story has now appeared in the influential British newspaper, the
'Guardian':
Guardian
US, April 12, 2000
"Two leading US news channels have admitted that they allowed psychological
operations officers from the military to work as placement interns at their
headquarters during the Kosovo war. Cable Network News (CNN) and National
Public Radio, (NPR) denied that the "psy-ops" officers influenced news
coverage and said the internships had been stopped as soon as senior
managers found out.
"CNN hosted five psy-ops officers as temporary, unpaid workers last year,
while NPR took three, all from the army's 4th Psychological Operations
Group, based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The army's psychological
operations are prohibited by law from manipulating the US media.
"After the existence of the CNN internship program was published in the
Dutch newspaper, Trouw, the network immediately cancelled it.
"For its part, the army said the program was only intended to give young
army media specialists some experience of how the news industry functioned.
The interns were restricted to mainly menial tasks such as answering phones,
but the fact that military propaganda experts were even present in newsrooms
as reports from the Kosovo conflict were being broadcast has triggered a
storm of criticism and raised questions about the independence of these
networks.
Commentary:
Somebody Better Investigate...soon?
by Jared Israel
The publication today of the story of the CNN-Army Psy-ops connection by the
Guardian, a key British daily, illustrates the new power of Internet
alternate media.
First published Feb. 21 as two articles by Abe de Vries in Trouw, the
Amsterdam daily, the expose was translated and posted at
Emperors-clothes.com the same day. From there it was picked up by
www.antiwar.com and then by www.worldnet.daily.com , Alexander Cockburn at
www.counterpunch.com and Fair, and other Internet-based alternative media
people as well.
With the NPR confession (In the form of "I confess: I didn't do it!") and
the Guardian story the exposé has gone mainstream.
I talked to Trouw writer Abe De Vries April 12. His question: What were
these Army Psy-ops people actually doing in the CNN and NPR news rooms? The
stories of Serbian atrocities have been exposed as media spin (
www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/spin.htm ). Just how did the army people
fit into the process of creating pro-NATO news?
Here's a little thought of my own: could it be that the major news
dispensers (like CNN and NPR) are already so thoroughly organized to
misrepresent the news about places like Yugoslavia that in fact they're
telling the truth when they say the Army Psy-Ops people were there to learn?
Anyway, this is all a bit too much, isn't it? Isn't a public investigation
called for? Or is "American free press" such an oxymoron that nobody would
take an investigation seriously? JI
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