I wrote earlier about how when a news story attributes information to an anonymous ‘senior intelligence official’, then you can be pretty sure that you are going to get government propaganda. Jack Shafer has an excellent article where he walks you through the ‘NSA charm offensive’ by the government to try and shape public opinion on the NSA whistleblowing story. He noted how so many news stories suddenly appeared that based their information on that given by ‘two US national security sources’. [Read more…]

Times are hard for the mainstream media. They are suddenly waking up to the fact that they are not such an exclusive and desirable club after all and that people do not need them that much anymore. In response they are trying to desperately reserve the label of ‘journalist’ only to those who belong to their club. It is amusing to see how some courtier journalists like David Gregory are forced to interview people like Glenn Greenwald and yet try to avoid at all costs calling him a journalist, instead referring to him as a blogger, columnist, activist, lawyer, and the like. [Read more…]

One interesting sideshow in the entire NSA-Snowden saga is the light it has shed on the courtier attitude that many members of the establishment media have, who seem to see themselves as an auxiliary arm of the government. We saw this with David Gregory’s questioning of Glenn Greenwald. Now along comes an even more egregious example. [Read more…]

The Guardian‘s Ewen MacAskill has a fascinating account of why Edward Snowden chose their paper to release his information rather than a US publication, and how the whole thing went down. The US media missed getting this scoop because it has developed a reputation for being highly solicitous of the needs of the US government, often consulting with them before publishing stories, and even withholding news at the government’s request. One well-known case is what resulted in Snowden going to Glenn Greenwald. [Read more…]

Somewhat overshadowed by the news about the government sweeping up phone and internet communications has been the other whistleblower release of a secret directive by president Obama calling for agencies to draw up a list of targets for cyberattacks. Some responders have said that there is no news here. They say that of course the US targets other countries for such attacks and only the naïve would expect anything else. A variant of this argument is also given for the revelations about the government collecting phone and internet records. That is true but they need to be aware that when they argue this way, they have fallen victim to a specific propaganda strategy. [Read more…]

The decision by Edward Snowden to reveal himself as the whistleblower was a public relations masterstroke. Long time readers of this blog will recall that I have documented case after case (Iranian Airbus, London subway ‘bomber’, KAL 007, Clinton’s bombing of a milk factory) of how governments, when they are faced with a situation that is potentially damaging to their image, will rush out an initial story that makes them look good. In doing so they will have no compunction about shamelessly lying and distorting the facts. This is because they have realized a major truth about manipulating people: It is the first impression in the public’s mind that is important because that is what sticks. [Read more…]

PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) and NPR (National Public Radio) are not driven by the profit motive but they do need money to function and as such do depend on donors. This makes them vulnerable to pressure by their corporate sponsors and big donors and this has been documented in the past. I long ago stopped watching The NewsHour because of its corporate friendly approach, that I suspected was influenced by the high-profile corporate sponsors it had. [Read more…]

President Obama has presided over one of the most opaque administrations in history, even worse than the Bush administration that was so bad that Obama’s promise to have the most transparent administration ever was greeted with great hope and optimism by advocates of open and clean government. [Read more…]