Managed News: Inside The US/NATO Military Industrial Media Empire

Posted by: Peter Phillips Posted date: July 03, 2010 In: World News | comment : 10

Managed News: Inside The US/NATO Military Industrial Media Empire
By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff

“There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.”
–– Charles Dickens

We face what appears to be a military industrial media empire so powerful and complex that truth is mostly absent or reported in disconnected segments with little historical context. A case in point: The London Times reported on June 5, 2010, that American troops are now operating in 75 countries. Has President Obama secretly sanctioned a huge increase in the number of US Special Forces carrying out search-and-destroy missions against al-Qaeda around the world? If so, this increase is far in excess of special-forces operations under the Bush administration and reflects how aggressively Obama is pursuing al-Qaeda behind his public rhetoric of global engagement and diplomacy. Somehow this information didn’t make it into the US media.

The US, in cooperation with NATO, is building global occupation forces for the control of international resources in support of Trilateralist—US, Europe, Japan— corporate profits. A New York Times report on the availability of a trillion dollars in mineral wealth in Afghanistan, on top of the need for an oil/gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea, suggests other reasons for U.S objectives in the region.

Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service writes on June 15, 2010, “The timing of the publication of a major New York Times story on the vast untapped mineral wealth that lies beneath Afghanistan’s soil is raising major questions about the intent of the Pentagon…Blake Hounshell, managing editor at Foreign Policy magazine, says that the US Geological Service (USGS) already published a comprehensive inventory of Afghanistan’s non-oil mineral resources on the Internet in 2007, as did the British Geological Survey. Much of their work was based on explorations and surveys undertaken by the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s.”

Given the previous reports, there is nothing new about resources in Afghanistan that the Pentagon and US multinational corporations didn’t already know. On the contrary, the public should consider whether the surfacing of this resource story is a managed-news press release being done at a time of sensitive concerns regarding NATO’s mission in Afghanistan. A deliberate news insertion such as the mineral wealth story is designed to create support for a US/NATO global empire agenda.

Managed news includes both the release of specific stories intended to build public support as well as the deliberate non-coverage of news stories that may undermine US goals. Have you been told about the continuing privatization of this global war? Independent journalist Jeremy Scahill, wrote in The Nation magazine November 23, 2009, how Blackwater (Xe) operatives in the Pakistani port city of Karachi are gathering intelligence and helping to direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign in that country.

There has not been much coverage of the report in Global Research, May 27, 2010, regarding new US capabilities for cyber warfare, announced recently by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as the activation of the Pentagon’s first computer command and the world’s first comprehensive, multi-service military cyber operation. CYBERCOM is based at Fort Meade, Maryland, which also is home to the National Security Agency (NSA).

The US’s Israeli partner in the Middle East demonstrated a skilled manipulation of the global media’s coverage of the May 31 attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. Israel controlled the news and images that emerged from the attack on the ships, asserting that the invading Israeli paratroopers were viciously attacked by crewmembers—resulting in the killing of several in “self defense.” Israel sought to divert the focus of public discussion away from the illegitimate use of excessive force against a group of humanitarians– of diverse religious and national affiliations– to the blaming of the victims for causing their own deaths.

Managed news creates a Truth Emergency for the public inside the US/NATO Military Industrial Media Empire. Deliberate news management undermines the freedom of information on the doings of the powerful military/corporate entities though overt censorship, mass distractions, and artificial news— including stories timed for release to influence public opinion (i.e., propaganda).

A Truth Emergency is the lack of purity in news brought about by this propaganda and distraction. It is the state in which people, despite potentially being awash in a sea of information, lack the power of discernment resulting in a knowinglessness about what is going on in the world. In short, we are living in a time where people do not know whom to trust for accurate information and yearn for the truth.

One antidote to the ongoing Truth Emergency is the creation of validated independent news by colleges and universities around the globe where students and professors use research skills and databases to fact check and verify information that is reported to the public. For more about this, and what we can all do to counter managed news, see Project Censored International’s new website at http://mediafreedominternational.org. Together, we can build accountability in our media and breathe life back into our withering republic.
_______________________
Peter Phillips is professor of sociology at Sonoma State University, President of Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored, former director of Project Censored, and co-editor of Censored 2010.

Mickey Huff is associate professor of history at Diablo Valley College, Director of Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation, and co-editor of Censored 2010.

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About The Author

Peter Phillips

Number of Entries : 142

http://www.dailycensored.com weilunion
The current military budget (2008-2009) maintains “268 bases in Germany, 124 in Japan, and 87 in South Korea. Others are scattered around the globe in places like Aruba and Australia, Bulgaria and Bahrain, Colombia and Greece, Djibouti, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Romania, Singapore, and of course, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — just to name a few. Among the installations considered critical to our national security are a ski center in the Bavarian Alps, resorts in Seoul and Tokyo, and 234 golf courses the Pentagon runs worldwide.” (David Vine, “The Costs of Empire: Can We Really Afford 1,000 Overseas Bases?” FPIF, March 10)
Ambricourt
National Public Radio in June made a one sentence statement that President Obama authorized the deployment of additional special forces in 75 countries.There was no follow-up and no later discussion by “experts”.
The work of Peter Dale Scott becomes more important. He has sought to discover socio-political facts beneath media-appearances throughout a dedicated lifetime. Does he offer a model to contemporary investigators of how to seek real information from beneath media disinformation?
John Reimann
The news has always been managed by the capitalist class. They have always used events to justify their policies, from the bombing of the battleship Maine onwards. In an earlier era here in the US, they murdered hundreds of union activists, claiming that they were bomb-throwing anarchists, or such like. They used blatantly racist news coverage in an earlier period. It’s true that the news is somewhat more managed now than it was, say, in the 1970s, but I think this was because there was a much greater social movement back then and also the capitalist class, itself, was much more divided.
I think any effort by university professors and others to offset this distortion of news is good, but in the end the most powerful factor will be the protest movement itself.
http://www.newsfrombelow.com newsfrombelow
the story about the resource bonanza in afghanistan suddenly discovered by the pentagon was first published around midnight sunday, roughly less than 48 hours after a very important research report was announced in the european press. this research report, carried out by the highly prestigious london school of economics, reported that based upon their investigative interviews with hundreds of low, middle, and high ranking contacts in the pakistan military and ISI (intelligence operation), as well as the Taliban itself, they concluded that the Taliban were being supported by both the Pakistan military and the ISI, which would be in keeping with their history and all previous investigations making this link, as well as US defense intelligence reports previosuly declassified years ago.
so the real story was what the london school of economics found to be true regarding the war inside afghanistan being a pakistan-sponsored effort. of course, since we have been funding the pakistani military for decades now, and even more so with billions per year since 9-11, this is the kind of investigative researh report which absolutely needed to be buried by the us government.
hence james risen of the ny times published this pentagon news about the resource bonanza in afghanistan around midnight the following day.
in doing so, the london school of economics story never gained any traction inside the usa.
for the record, the european public does not support the nato effort in afghanistan. so this story in europe just served to reinforce existing public opinion about the legitimacy of nato’s involvement there.
the pentagon’s media operations took a little less than 24 hours to come up with an explosive alternative narrative on afghanistan to make sure there was no chance for any talking heads in the usa to start making reference to the london school of economics report.
give the pentagon and the ny times reporter credit for a propaganda response well done.
ignorance continues to rule public opinion in the usa, thanks to a compliant media mainstream.
John Reimann
The links between the Pakistani regime, including both the military and the ISI and the Taliban have been known for years. In part, they are generated by Pakistani capitalism’s rivalry with Indian capitalism. This has led the ISI to support all sorts of Islamic fanatic groups. Both regimes are jockeying for influence in Afghanistan. The Pakistani regime – or the ISI wing of it in particular – has long sought a peace deal in Afghanistan that included bringing the Taliban in as part of a new regime there.
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http://www.newsfrombelow.com newsfrombelow
it would appear wikileaks has finally busted through the myth making machinery of the pentagon-national security state complex on pakistan-aghanistan. somehow, i believe there is a relationship between the smothering of the london school of economics report and wikileaks’ ability to get a whisteblower on the inside to finally get these documents out.
obama’s pentagon papers moment has arrived. what follows will say alot about how corrupt the political process is inside dc.
short term, i do not see much change in policy, long term, this will be viewed as an important moment in the democratization of american foreign policy. a baby step, for sure, but a step forward nonetheless.
exposing the lies and deceits is more important than ever, given the state of state secrecy.
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