Beware the Government-Media Complex

Government Media Control Beware the Government-Media Complex Michael Savage addressing the Commonwealth Club of California Monday, May 15, 2000 Introduction by Master of Ceremonies: "We are proud to welcome you to the live broadcast of Michael Savage's address to the Commonwealth Club of California, the largest public affairs speaking forum in the United States. Since its founding in 1903, the Commonwealth Club has hosted every American president since Theodore Roosevelt, and it has welcomed persons from every field and endeavour, from Clarence Darrow to the Dali Lama. Please welcome Michael Savage." Michael Savage: Thank you very much; I'm honoured to be here. My case will be presented to you as though I were an attorney. My thesis is simple. The title is "Beware the Government-Media Complex." I hope to prove to you that perhaps never before in American history has there been so cozy a relationship between government and media. It is a relationship that transcends left and right. It has nothing to do with race and nothing to do with politics but everything to do with press freedom. At the outset let me give you a small, capsule, example of what I mean. Many of the speeches to the Commonwealth Club are not only picked up by the local radio stations, such as NPR, but are also transmitted by C-Span, whose broadcasts are paid for by your cable TV payments. Despite the press releases sent to them by my radio station, do you see any of their people here today? No! I understand my being here is not earth-shaking news. It certainly doesn't compare with Buddy's, the Clinton pooch's, castration, which is making the headlines. But at least some coverage might be appropriate, especially in light of the stature of your organization. As you know, the media is very badly needed to serve as a thorn in the side of government. In order to keep the government reasonably honest we need the media to be constantly poking at it. However, when the media becomes a thorn in the side of the skeptical private citizen, then it becomes an arm of the government. That's why I say, "Beware the Government-Media Complex." Let me go to some local stories and show you how it is coloured. When five revolutionary Mexican communists beat a lone, elderly white male in Los Angeles not long ago, they were featured as heros of the revolution in the local San Francisco newspaper. When a mob of homosexuals burned state offices a few years back because one of their platforms was not accepted by Governor Pete Wilson, they were called a collective voice of the oppressed by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner. When the homosexual radicals broke into San Francisco Republican Party headquarters and terrorised workers and destroyed computers, these terrorists were called valiant, oppressed voices. When agitators for the homeless riot, when they burn trash cans and break the law, they're held up as freedom fighters for the poor by the left-leaning press. But if one compassionate conservative dares to speak out, he's condemned to the Gulag of media silence, the Gulag of media exile. This startling bias in the media is more threatening to the pillars of our republic than even the most ardent conservative might believe. It is censorship by default as well. What do I mean by censorship by default? Where the commercial interests of the media moguls are so intertwined with government policy as to create an overly friendly image of government officials and their policies. It may not be as clear as a close conspiracy to bias the news, but it results in the same form of censorship of dissent. Now this bias is not limited to the left. It is largely a product of left-wing bias when it comes to certain social issues such as Affirmative Action and "gay" rights. But the right also biases the news when it wants to shape fiscal issues to its benefit. Example, Rupert Murdoch and the China scandal a while back. I first began my file on the government-media complex several years ago. I noticed an alarming bias, and I knew this could sink the ship of truth. Surely other administrations have had their friends in high media places. Still, there were many voices and many views of dissent that found their way into the national media. But now we have a growing media blackout of some serious crimes and misdemeanors, all unsolved to the satisfaction of those with critical faculties of reason. Which events am I refering to? The loss of confidential laptop computers by the head of the CIA and Albright's State Department. Vince Foster's death has still not been satisfactorily resolved in the minds of many Americans. Waco, where over 80 men, women and children were burned to death. Has anyone been tried and sent to jail for that event, or even been held accountable for it? Whitewater, also still unsolved. Travelgate, Ruby Ridge. What about all of the incriminating evidence in security-agent Gary Aldrich's book, "Unlimited Access"? What about Ron Brown's strange death that concerns so many African-Americans, or TWA Flight 800, or the wholesale give away of the jewels of our nuclear secrets from Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Communist Chinese? We know about these events because the dam of silence has cracked. But the old media hacks beat their journalistic bongos to the rhythm of fruit flies dancing on a rotten tomato. Who has paid for these crimes and misdemeanors? Who has paid for the execution of Sammy Weaver and his mother? Who has paid for leaking 900 FBI files, and who is being blackmailed by them? Now although the media's generally favourable coverage of Mr. Clinton's behaviour and politics is the main concern of most media watchers, it is not the only concern. Take any major policy issue, and you're going to see the government official line reflected by the media elite. Let's look at some issues: Affirmative Action; immigration, legal and illegal; the drug epidemic. How often do you hear about these issues? You hear a constant refrain, for example, about the dangers of tobacco. But how often do you hear about the crack epidemic, the growing use of marijuana, the heroin epidemic? You do hear about it now and then, but what you hear mostly is about tobacco, tobacco, tobacco, or welfare, the so-called homelessness issue, taxes, and the other favourite issues to beguile us. Each and every issue as reflected in the old-line news media â that is, the TV network news and the establishment newspapers and magazines â is a parallel reflection of official Clinton policy. Listen to this carefully if you will. Tell me if you agree. Hoover Institution historian Robert Conquest said that in the former Soviet Union the press was totally under the control of the state. All editors were members of the Communist Party. Here in the United States of America a frighteningly imbalanced Washington press corps exists. Eighty-nine percent of these apparatchiks of the DNC voted for Bill Clinton in 1992! Let me repeat, "The media is needed by the public to be and remain a thorn in the side of the government in order to keep the government relatively honest. But when the media instead becomes a thorn in the side of the sceptical private citizen, the media then becomes an arm of the government." Is this not worrisome? "Beware the Government-Media Complex." They sub-liminally program you as to what they want you to believe, think, eat, wear and attitude. Mind and body control, and maybe your spirit too!

Monday, April 21, 2008

Retired military officers act as Pentagon media machine

David Barstow provided a fascinating report in yesterday’s New York Times, about the Bush administration’s courting of retired military brass who provide military analysis to the TV networks and other media outlets.

"Members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated,” Barstow wrote. “Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.”

The Times sued the Defense Department to get access to thousands of e-mail messages, transcripts and records about private briefings and trips to Iraq and Guantanamo.

The records revealed a concerted effort to deploy the analysts to blunt news coverage that was critical of the Bush Administration’s military operations.

Media outlets do not hold these analysts to the same ethical standards that prohibit full-time journalists from engaging in business activities that would conflict with their coverage. Many analysts have close connections to military contractors trying to win government business.

Fox used the greatest number of analysts involved in the Pentagon effort. However, NBC, CNN, CBS and ABC also used these analysts.

The list of analysts was approved by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who met with the group repeatedly. When David H. Petraeus became commanding general in Iraq last year, one of his early meetings was with the analysts.

A 2005 internal memorandum, obtained by the Times, shows why interest went so high up. Written by a Pentagon official who had accompanied analysts to Iraq, the memo noted the analysts’ impact on network news coverage. “They have now become the go-to guys not only on breaking stories, but they influence the views on issues,” she wrote.

http://news.muckety.com/2008/04/21/retired-military-officers-act-as-pentagon-media-machine/2281

The Military-Media Complex

By Howard Kurtz

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 21, 2008; 8:53 AM

Talk about marching orders.

John Garrett, a retired Army colonel and a Fox News military analyst, was in regular touch with the Pentagon as President Bush prepared to announce his Iraq troop surge last year.

"Please let me know if you have any specific points you want covered or that you would prefer to downplay," Garrett wrote. That note was one of numerous documents published yesterday in a lengthy New York Times investigation of the close ties between the parade of former officers who serve as television analysts, Defense Department officials who feed them information, and corporations who hire them to win federal contracts.

It's hardly shocking that career military men would largely reflect the Pentagon's point of view, just as Democratic and Republican "strategists" stay in touch with aides to the candidates they defend on the air. But the degree of behind-the-scenes manipulation--including regular briefings by then-Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials -- is striking, as is the lack of disclosure by the networks of some of these government and business connections.

With an aura of independence, many of the analysts used their megaphones, and the prestige of their rank, to help sell a war that was not going well. Not all marched in lock step, of course, and a half-dozen former generals broke with the Pentagon in 2006 to call for Rumsfeld's resignation. But the networks rarely if ever explored the outside roles of their military consultants.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in an interview yesterday that the former officers are "highly educated, experienced in their field. To suggest they could be puppets of the Defense Department is a little insulting to all of them. . . . Not all of them are advocates for everything the department is doing." The department, he added, provides information not just to retired officers but to corporate, educational and religious leaders as well as journalists.

Marty Ryan, a Fox News executive producer, said yesterday that the analysts are hired not just for their expertise but also as people "who have access to and know what the thinking of the Pentagon is. That makes them valuable to us."

With so many military commentators retained in wartime, "it's a little unrealistic to think you're going to do a big background check on everybody," Ryan said. "Some of the business ties aren't necessarily relevant when you're asking them about a specific helicopter operation."

The credibility gap, to use an old Vietnam War phrase, was greatest when these retired officers offered upbeat assessments of the Iraq war even while privately expressing doubts.

Defense officials arranged for a number of the analysts to visit Iraq in September 2003, the Times reported. "You can't believe the progress," retired Gen. Paul Vallely, then a Fox analyst, told viewers, although he told the Times that he recognized at the time that "things were going south."

Ken Allard, a retired colonel and former NBC military analyst, told the Times there was a "night and day" difference between what Pentagon briefers told him and the deteriorating conditions in Iraq. "I felt we'd been hosed," Allard said.

The article, by David Barstow, was based on 8,000 pages of internal Pentagon documents obtained in a lawsuit by the newspaper.

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