"“Accusing the press of treason is dangerous,” the Times
communications team said."
Personally, I'd say a better term would be, "Brown Nosing".
But after all, just who is the "Press"? Who pays the staff and
printers and press men's wages? And why shouldn't the "Press" get
more into clearing its news releases with the Government, than
reporting on some far off major heatwave in Central Europe? It's only
a stupid dog that bites the hand that feeds it. If there is anyone on
this list who still believes in our "Free Press", then I have ten
million dollars I'd like to send off to their bank account.
It's way past time that we hold those who own the Press to be accountable.
Donald Trump is fond of crying, "Fake News!!!" And for once he is not
lying. But dear Donald, it's always been "Fake News". We, who want
to understand what is actually going on, have always had to read
between the lines, and seek out other news sources in order to get
some balance.
For years, during my life as a sighted man, I read a variety of
papers, the Seattle Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street
Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, the Daily Worker, Northern
Neighbors, People's World, and more. There was little in the way of
"in depth" reporting on either radio or on the budding TV networks,
but at least what passed for objective news was reported in a straight
forward manner. No grinning, posturing "Plastic People" prancing
about the Set.
We, the Working Class, have always had to rely on the news according
to the interests of those who own the presses...or the microphone.
Donald Trump seems to be the last to realize this. Actually, The
Trumpster is using the cry of "Fake News", like the boy who shouted,
"Wolf, Wolf", to gain attention to himself, and to cause turmoil in
the Village.
Donald Trump, and we need to underscore this, Donald Trump *Knows
*What *He *Is *Doing!!!
He is a Master of Fake Reality Television.
Donald Trump knows what he's doing. He is leading the American Empire
on its never ending Course of Expansion. From that fateful day when
the first Pilgrims landed, Expansion has been the name of the game.
Expansion is what keeps Capitalism Alive and Well!
But how does a Public that has been dominated by the propaganda of the
American Empire, learn how to fight back? At the moment we appear to
be tossing in the towel, heading for the TV or off to the ball park,
or the local Sports Bar, or cranking up our iPhone to some mindless
popular music.
Once our minds are controlled, the war is lost. And probably, so is
the Human Experiment.
Carl Jarvis...trying hard not to sound gloomy...
On 6/24/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
new york times building
Media June 24, 2019
NY Times admits it sends stories to US government for approval before
publication
The New York Times casually acknowledged that it sends major scoops to the
US government before publication, to make sure “national security officials”
have “no concerns.”
By Ben Norton
The New York Times has publicly acknowledged that it sends some of its
stories to the US government for approval from “national security officials”
before publication.
This confirms what veteran New York Times correspondents like James Risen
have said: The American newspaper of record regularly collaborates with the
US government, suppressing reporting that top officials don’t want made
public.
On June 15, the Times reported that the US government is escalating its
cyber attacks on Russia’s power grid. According to the article, “the Trump
administration is using new authorities to deploy cybertools more
aggressively,” as part of a larger “digital Cold War between Washington and
Moscow.”
In response to the report, Donald Trump attacked the Times on Twitter,
calling the article “a virtual act of Treason.”
The New York Times PR office replied to Trump from its official Twitter
account, defending the story and noting that it had, in fact, been cleared
with the US government before being printed.
“Accusing the press of treason is dangerous,” the Times communications team
said. “We described the article to the government before publication.”
“As our story notes, President Trump’s own national security officials said
there were no concerns,” the Times added.
Indeed, the Times report on the escalating American cyber attacks against
Russia is attributed to “current and former [US] government officials.” The
scoop in fact came from these apparatchiks, not from a leak or the dogged
investigation of an intrepid reporter.
‘Real’ journalists get approval from ‘national security’ officials
The neoliberal self-declared “Resistance” jumped on Trump’s reckless
accusation of treason (the Democratic Coalition, which boasts, “We help run
#TheResistance,” responded by calling Trump “Putin’s puppet”). The rest of
the corporate media went wild.
But what was entirely overlooked was the most revealing thing in the New
York Times’ statement: The newspaper of record was essentially admitting
that it has a symbiotic relationship with the US government.
In fact, some prominent American pundits have gone so far as to insist that
this symbiotic relationship is precisely what makes someone a journalist.
In May, neoconservative Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen — a former
speechwriter for President George W. Bush — declared that WikiLeaks
publisher and political prisoner Julian Assange is “not a journalist”;
rather, he is a “spy” who “deserves prison.” (Thiessen also once called
Assange “the devil.”)
What was the Post columnist’s rationale for revoking Assange’s journalistic
credentials?
Unlike “reputable news organizations, Assange did not give the U.S.
government an opportunity to review the classified information WikiLeaks was
planning to release so they could raise national security objections,”
Thiessen wrote. “So responsible journalists have nothing to fear.”
In other words, this former US government speechwriter turned corporate
media pundit insists that collaborating with the government, and censoring
your reporting to protect so-called “national security,” is definitionally
what makes you a journalist.
This is the express ideology of the American commentariat.
NY Times editors ‘quite willing to cooperate with the government’
The symbiotic relationship between the US corporate media and the government
has been known for some time. American intelligence agencies play the press
like a musical instrument, using it it to selectively leak information at
opportune moments to push US soft power and advance Washington’s interests.
But rarely is this symbiotic relationship so casually and publicly
acknowledged.
In 2018, former New York Times reporter James Risen published a 15,000-word
article in The Intercept providing further insight into how this unspoken
alliance operates.
Risen detailed how his editors had been “quite willing to cooperate with the
government.” In fact, a top CIA official even told Risen that his rule of
thumb for approving a covert operation was, “How will this look on the front
page of the New York Times?”
There is an “informal arrangement” between the state and the press, Risen
explained, where US government officials “regularly engaged in quiet
negotiations with the press to try to stop the publication of sensitive
national security stories.”
“At the time, I usually went along with these negotiations,” the former New
York Times reported said. He recalled an example of a story he was writing
on Afghanistan just prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Then-CIA
Director George Tenet called Risen personally and asked him to kill the
story.
“He told me the disclosure would threaten the safety of the CIA officers in
Afghanistan,” Risen said. “I agreed.”
Risen said he later questioned whether or not this was the right decision.
“If I had reported the story before 9/11, the CIA would have been angry, but
it might have led to a public debate about whether the United States was
doing enough to capture or kill bin Laden,” he wrote. “That public debate
might have forced the CIA to take the effort to get bin Laden more
seriously.”
This dilemma led Risen to reconsider responding to US government requests to
censor stories. “And that ultimately set me on a collision course with the
editors at the New York Times,” he said.
“After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration began asking the press to
kill stories more frequently,” Risen continued. “They did it so often that I
became convinced the administration was invoking national security to quash
stories that were merely politically embarrassing.”
In the lead-up to the Iraq War, Risen frequently “clashed” with Times
editors because he raised questions about the US government’s lies. But his
stories “stories raising questions about the intelligence, particularly the
administration’s claims of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, were being cut,
buried, or held out of the paper altogether.”
The Times’ executive editor Howell Raines “was believed by many at the paper
to prefer stories that supported the case for war,” Risen said.
In another anecdote, the former Times journalist recalled a scoop he had
uncovered on a botched CIA plot. The Bush administration got wind of it and
called him to the White House, where then-National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice ordered the Times to bury the story.
Risen said Rice told him “to forget about the story, destroy my notes, and
never make another phone call to discuss the matter with anyone.”
“The Bush administration was successfully convincing the press to hold or
kill national security stories,” Risen wrote. And the Barack Obama
administration subsequently accelerated the “war on the press.”
CIA media infiltration and manufacturing consent
In their renowned study of US media, “Manufacturing Consent: The Political
Economy of the Mass Media,” Edward S. Herman and Chomsky articulated a
“propaganda model,” showing how “the media serve, and propagandize on behalf
of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them,” through
“the selection of right-thinking personnel and by the editors’ and working
journalists’ internalization of priorities and definitions of newsworthiness
that conform to the institution’s policy.”
But in some cases, the relationship between US intelligence agencies and the
corporate media is not just one of mere ideological policing, indirect
pressure, or friendship, but rather one of employment.
In the 1950s, the CIA launched a covert operation called Project
Mockingbird, in which it surveilled, influenced, and manipulated American
journalists and media coverage, explicitly in order to direct public opinion
against the Soviet Union, China, and the growing international communist
movement.
Legendary journalist Carl Bernstein, a former Washington Post reporter who
helped uncover the Watergate scandal, published a major cover story for
Rolling Stone in 1977 titled “The CIA and the Media: How America’s Most
Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence
Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up.”
Bernstein obtained CIA documents that revealed that more than 400 American
journalists in the previous 25 years had “secretly carried out assignments
for the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Bernstein wrote:
“Some of these journalists’ relationships with the Agency were tacit; some
were explicit. There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists
provided a full range of clandestine services—from simple intelligence
gathering to serving as go‑betweens with spies in Communist countries.
Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs.
Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters
who considered themselves ambassadors without‑portfolio for their country.
Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their
association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who
were as interested in the derring‑do of the spy business as in filing
articles; and, the smallest category, full‑time CIA employees masquerading
as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists
were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the
managements of America’s leading news organizations.”
Virtually all major US media outlets cooperated with the CIA, Bernstein
revealed, including ABC, NBC, the AP, UPI, Reuters, Newsweek, Hearst
newspapers, the Miami Herald, the Saturday Evening Post, and the New York
Herald‑Tribune.
However, he added, “By far the most valuable of these associations,
according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time
Inc.”
These layers of state manipulation, censorship, and even direct crafting of
the news media show that, as much as they claim to be independent, The New
York Times and other outlets effectively serve as de facto spokespeople for
the government — or at least for the US national security state.
Ben Norton
Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for The Grayzone,
and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with Max
Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com, and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.
