War coverage - dictated to the media by the Pentagon?

30.06.2022 | www.kla.tv/22933

Russia is repeatedly accused of not allowing press freedom and of suppressing critical voices in the press. But is reporting in the West any better? Is the current war reporting neutral, so that war crimes are uncovered on both sides, for example, or must we assume that the reports already appear manipulated here as well? In his book "INSIDE CORONA", investigative journalist Thomas Roeper writes, among other things, about the role of the media in reporting. He looks back to 2008, when the New York Times in America and the SPIEGEL in Europe revealed that a huge PR (public relations) force of the Bush administration had been deceiving the public for years. The goal was to present in the media coverage the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at the time as a good work and a success. Subsequently it came to light in 2009 that the Pentagon and thus the US Department of Defence employed 27,000 people who were exclusively responsible for the media polishing of American wars. The Swiss Tages-Anzeiger also took up the topic at the time and specified the scope of what had happened by quoting the knowledge of Tom Curley, the head of the AP agency at the time: „"The military's PR machinery costs taxpayers $4.7 billion a year. Since 2004, spending has grown by 63%. [...] For 2009, the military plans to issue 5,400 press releases, 3,000 television spots and 1,600 radio interviews - twice as much as in 2007. This service is just a small slice of the ever-growing Pentagon media empire. It is already bigger than the vast majority of press corporations in the US." The SPIEGEL article went on to show how "Pentagon employees" played themselves up as experts in the media, but never declared exactly from where they had received the precise information and analyses. Roeper concludes: When SPIEGEL, as well as other media, speak of "unnamed sources" from a ministry or from secret services, it can almost certainly be assumed from sentences introduced in such a way that it is a matter of deliberate misleading of the public, deliberately passed on to the media by relative agencies. Back to Tom Curley, then head of the AP news agency, who knew the facts and figures of Pentagon propaganda. The Swiss Tages-Anzeiger also took up the topic of the enormous number of Pentagon employees and how they would feed the news agencies with trimmed war reports. However, it also reported an important detail: In February 2009, Tom Curley had reported to journalists at the University of Kansas about the pressure exerted by the US Department of Defence on its reporters in the war zones. More than eleven AP journalists have already been arrested in Iraq for more than 24 hours since 2003. Senior generals had threatened that the AP and he would be ruined if the reporters continued to insist on their journalistic principles. Obviously, even then the Pentagon was only superficially following its motto "the West fights for democracy and a free press". Tom Curley resigned as head of the AP in 2012 and there were hardly any further reports on this subject, Thomas Roeper reports in his book "INSIDE CORONA". He concludes by saying that unfortunately nothing has changed with the publication of these facts, it would not have triggered critical questions or storms of protest at the time. However, this example is still exemplary today of how the media arrive at their reports and how the Pentagon exerts direct influence on war reporting. It makes sense to keep these examples of past war reporting in mind when we read current war reports!

from pb

Sources/Links: Book "INSIDE CORONA" by Thomas Röper J.K. Fischer Verlag p. 263-270 Article in Der Spiegel: https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/gekaufte-meinung-pentagon-beschaeftigt-pr-armee-fuer-us-tv-a-598419.html
Article in the Swiss Tages-Anzeiger: https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/ausland/amerika/27000-PRBerater-polieren-Image-der-USA/story/20404513