Monday, March 14, 2005

Government "News" Tricks Public

Karen Ryan was the supposed "reporter" in several government-produced "news" reports.


Another expose today reveals that the White House successfully presented propaganda as regular news reports. The "reporters" appearing on TV news for a few of these were actually PR pros employed by government agencies, like the talking head in the photo above.
See the link above for a lot of detail. Or here: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031305Z.shtml

In related news, the rightwing Republican governor of California, the "Governator", "Herr Groppenfuhrer" himself was also revealed to have followed the lastest trend. Schwarzenegger's "administration has acknowledged making several videos masquerading as news stories to promote its agenda, creating an uproar from Democrats and labor leaders in a controversy parallel to one ignited by the Bush administration."
See here for more detail: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031205Z.shtml

So let's sum up the astonishing trend of successful propaganda nowadays:

  • The Bush Jr. team paid several journalists to publish pro-Bush agenda op ed pieces.
  • The Bush Jr. team created & ran on TV several "news" reports supporting their worldview.
  • The Bush Jr. team paid Jeff Gannon and gave him a press pass, a partisan freak who's not even a journalist, to pose as a journalist in White House press conferences in order to distract from real issues. Which Gannon did repeatedly.
  • The Bush Jr. team has the whole of Fox News on its side pushing all kinds of disinformation and spin. More Americans watch Fox News than those who watch CNN. In case you haven't heard, Fox News is now almost universally reviled among journalists for their unfair and hilariously biased reportage. It is owned by the richest Australian billionaire, Rupert Murdoch -- a fanatical rightwing partisan who sends daily orders to his news editors and anchors, telling them what not to say and how to frame the issues. Those who don't follow the Fox daily spin have been fired -- by the dozen.
  • Republican governors are apparently getting the same training in the above.
  • No one ever noticed or complained about any of the so-called "news" reports listed above. Only investigative exposes have revealed them long after they appeared.


As Chomsky and many others have shown, mainstream news generally functions as nationalist propaganda anyway. This wasn't a conspiracy though, it just falls into place because the top news corporations are businesses afterall and the journalists tend to be indoctrinated in a centrist ideology, buying into ideas of American Exceptionalism, etc. But this 21st century trend is the next phase into a conspiracy to deliberately run government propaganda as if it were actual news reports on TV. Chomsky will probably say that this isn't very important, since the propaganda simply repeats what the mainstream was already saying. True enough, nevertheless this latest trend opens the door to further abuse of an already misinformed public.

The proof of how far we've fallen into a post-American regime now is that no one will be indicted for this assault against democracy.

And that's the real news.

posted by E. Heroux @ 1:32 AM

2 Comments:

At 2:40 PM, Blogger E. Heroux said...

C.B. adds more:

"To add fuel to the warning fires, I must send along this:

Gov't Reducing Access to Info

By Martha Mendoza, Associated Press National Writer,
AP Review, Sunday, March 13, 2005

Since 1998, many federal departments have been
reducing the amount of information they release to the
public . . .

Full article:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=5&u=/ap/20050313/ap_on_re_us/sunshine_week_records


Und zo! The restriction of real information coupled with the dissemination of created stories intended to mold public opinion amounts to state brainwashing of
the masses so much more sophisticated than anything
that came before. It is clearly effective. Look at what's happening!"

 
At 11:32 PM, Blogger E. Heroux said...

Philippe P. sent a link to this French article from Libération about Bush's faux journalists:

Pub cachée pour Bush à la télé
Des dizaines de publireportages ont été diffusés sans précision de la source.

http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=282505

 

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