The Pulitzer-winning investigation that dare not be uttered on TV

The Pulitzer-winning investigation that dare not be uttered on TV

www.salon.com

The New York Times' David Barstow won a richly deserved Pulitzer Prize yesterday for two articles that, despite being featured as major news stories on the front page of The Paper of Record, were completely suppressed by virtually every network and cable news show, which to this day have never informed their viewers about what Barstow uncovered. Here is how the Pulitzer Committee described Barstow's exposés:

"Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended."

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
mediamatters.org

[edit on 22-4-2009 by baseball101]

I think this is very interesting how the media didn't mention how this pulitzer prize winner got his award ... i'm not surprised by his finding's though ...

here are the two articles the pulitzer was won for (has anyone even heard about these?):

www.nytimes.com...

www.nytimes.com...

what are your thoughts?



www.salon.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 22-4-2009 by baseball101]

If I may quote your own source:

www.salon.com...

Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended. By whom were these "ties to companies" undisclosed and for whom did these deeply conflicted retired generals pose as "analysts"?

ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox -- the very companies that have simply suppressed the story from their viewers. They kept completely silent about Barstow's story even though it sparked Congressional inquiries, vehement objections from the then-leading Democratic presidential candidates, and allegations that the Pentagon program violated legal prohibitions on domestic propaganda programs.

The Pentagon's secret collaboration with these "independent analysts" shaped multiple news stories from each of these outlets on a variety of critical topics. Most amazingly, many of them continue to employ as so-called "independent analysts" the very retired generals at the heart of Barstow's story, yet still refuse to inform their viewers about any part of this story.

Wow-- what else is there to say, really?

There are more and more reasons to be frightened and sad, and extremely angry. Congratulations to David Barstow, who is probably not long for this world (yeah, I'm paranoid).

Hah!

For some added irony: on his NBS News broadcast last night suppressing any mention of David Barstow's Pulitzer Prize, Brian Williams' lead story concerned Obama's trip to the CIA yesterday. Featured in that story was commentary from Col. Jack Jacobs, identified on-screen this way: "Retired, NBC News Military Analyst." Jacobs was one of the retired officers who was an active member of the Pentagon's "military analyst" program, and indeed, he actively helped plan the Pentagon's media strategy at the very same time he was posing as an "independent analyst" on NBC (h/t reader gc; via NEXIS). So not only did Williams last night conceal from his viewers any mention of the Pentagon program, he featured -- on the very same broadcast -- "independent" commentary from one of the central figures involved in that propaganda program.

Ugh. They're all guilty. Obviously if all the media was in the bucket so hard for the liberal agenda as people make it out to be they would have loved to report on this. But not when they're so ridiculously guilty themselves.

This is why traditional media sources are losing their power....and why blogs and websites are taking over in providing information.

This is a great find- no matter the network you prefer....keep in mind you're never getting the whole story.

well done........not really surprised but when ATS writes a book on conspiracy's and coverup's this needs to be included.......you know the smaller stuff that the public can swallow

which leads to an appetite for more

We are destined to live in a perpetual state of ignorance. The www. is really no better a source of unbiased information than the MSM. The ptb have their paid droids pumping out disinfo and lies on the web just like EVERYWHERE. the big money does the talking and the plebiscite rabble does the walking.

It's a brave new world, welcome to the monkey house. 1984 is only 3 days away.

Hmm, was it really as supressed as they claim? Isn't this just the same "Military Analyst" story from last year?

The story that the New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, Reuters, The Independent, The Nation, World Net Daily, FOX News (O'Reilly), Politico, The Guardian, and many others all covered?

While FOX is the only mainstream TV network that covered this that I know of, and they skirted around it, it was covered in many major newspapers and magazines. I don't think it's really a suppressed story as such, although it is fair to say that those networks who used the analysts didn't cover it properly.

I think this is just one more reason why it's good to be bilingual. Not only is it good for your brain muscles to speak a second language, but it also increases your outside news radius and gives you a new perspective to evaluate. I always try to get my news from within and without US sources. (Also I think it helps if your second language comes from a country with a reputation for good journalism and a low rating on the government corruption scale.)

My own news "wake-up" call was at the beginning of the Iraq war when news sources from 4 different countries reported on particular event 4 totally different ways. From that day forward I doubled my grain of salt with every bit of news I read ))

This is also the sort of thing that makes me feel sad for the way PBS is being funded more and more by corporate sponsors. For now I think they still present a solid alternative to commercial news but I fear for many viewers it's a snoozefest to hear people calmly presenting or discussing current events for longer than 20 second sound bites.

reply to post by mysterybee


You are absolutely correct. More sources of news can only serve to improve the chances we have of at least realizing that we are NOT getting 'news' anymore. We are being entertained. Even FOX testified to this effect. It's not 'news' - it's entertainment. Thus they NEVER have to worry about lying.

This IS the story about military analysts.... The story died in it's tracks because we were busy chanting political slogans and watching the Madison Avenue/Hollywood production known as 'elections'.

We have been conditioned since early on by television programming to only remember tiny bits of information, and even then, only until something more 'appealing' comes along. It's all part of the psychological war that has been waged on America to turn us into 'consumers' of news, rather than informed citizens.

reply to post by Maxmars


Yeah, we're being infotained until our brains turn into mush! And then there's the other side, we're not just being infotained, but many are also being stressertained by overblown op-eds and constant streams of hyperbole to the point of nervous breakdowns! I for one know a few people in my family who might not need their blood pressure meds if they'd just block all 24 hour commercial cable "news" stations from their tv's.

reply to post by baseball101


Great post - is there anyone actualy left that doesn't beleive we're living
in a highly agenda driven mediocracy?

The book 'Toxis sludge is good for you' makes some very good points about incredibly bias 'Pentagon motivated' and 'corporate sponsered'
TV analysts/experts.

The website 'PR Watch.org ' is also well worth a look:
www.prwatch.org...
Cheers.

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

man this is just ONE aspect that was found out.....
think about actual prime time television programs, movies, radio, and internet

everything has been infiltrated, i really feel i can only trust myself anymore, which is sad.

the solon link is not bringing up the story; anyone else have this problem??

going to poke around a bit more and see what I can find.

S&F~!

reply to post by Komodo


i just clicked it, didn't work, clicked it again, now it works ... i don't know what happened ... if it still doesn't work there is a related article at the bottom of the OP

[edit on 22-4-2009 by baseball101]

If the media buried the investigation and story, then it must go a long way to implicate several folks of power on the left. It's the only reason why the media would play ball to this extent since the majority of the media lives to crucify the neo-con right.

I remember reading and hearing about this story, not the pulitzer prize, but the "Military Analysts" just being retired generals, cycled through the MSM to both make money by lobbying for their firms and helping change policy.

Remember that most military are respected outright, Generals obviously more so, same as most of the higher ranks.

It's quite interesting to hear about Gene Robinson's Pulitzer but not one mention of this other all day yesterday. I love how the MSM seriously thinks that were all still asleep, I watch it to keep abreast but have a lot of other sources to review those stories from another point as well as unheard stories.

Just sad, but the reckoning is coming that's for sure.

All of of these media outlets are connected to the military/industrial complex in one way or another of course they don't touch this story,if they actually did their jobs then our entire system would crumble,in the end they wanna keep the Pentagon happy and that's more important then keeping us informed.

Lets apply a little logic here.

The pentagon deploys it's 'analysts' to positively spin the war in Iraq. The only reason to do so, would be to bolster public opinion of an unpopular war. This steerage pushes the war swingometer toward 'just' and away from 'criminal'. While the analysts may not turn the opinion of many it will lessen the public resistance. The lower the resistance, the less pressure on the administration to end the war.

The longer the war, the more casualties.

If we look at the point of body armor. Less pressure may have delayed the deployment of better armor. How many soldiers died, who might have lived if their body armor was of the superior type? Class action anyone?

If we look at the civilian casualties. Numbers vary but if we take a conservative estimate at 500 000. To today, the war has lasted 2228 days. Thats 224 dead Iraqi civilians per day per day (90% of those killed were civilians). If the war has lasted only one day longer because of the analysts, would they not at least in part be responsible?

If they are in part responsible, then coercing a nation to murder, is an act of high treason.

OK, I'm not a big time conspiracy buff, not American, not in favour of the Iraq, Afghanistan, or any war for that matter.

What I do know, compliments of old friends who were covering the political scene in Europe at the time -

The back story has never been fully told, in part due to compromising relationships and activities so many are embarrassed about.

France, Russia, Germany, to a lesser extent China, were the major opponents to the invasion of Iraq. Do not for a second believe that this was from any wish to prevent an unnecessary war or out of humane considerations. All were benefiting from Saddam's under-the-table selling off of deeply discounted oil. A billion dollars alone was siphoned off in the oil-for-food program the UN imposed on Iraq.

The above mentioned countries had extended credit to Saddam to the tune of so many billions, they were terrified his overthrow would mean they would never collect.

Were there to have been full disclosures of the maze of kickback schemes, it would have toppled the incumbent leadership in France, and Kofi Annan of the UN. The latter, thorough his son, was a direct beneficiary to the tune of millions.

The US invade Iraq to stop this, and in part because they were being cut out of the loop.

No one wants to talk about it, and it's still unclear the politics, but there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Mostly chemical and bacterial stuff, but substial and deadly. Russian convoys exported the stuff to Syria just days before the US invasion.

The assumption is the US agreed not to make an issue of this, in exchange for silence on some other matter. Major powers often do a neutering of blackmailable dirty secrets by agreeing not to release or downplaying certain stories to the press.

In many cases, the really juicy stories are only known to a few active in the field. The ones the general public are made aware of are often just deflections from the more deeply hidden scandals.


Mike



[edit on 22-4-2009 by mmiichael]

reply to post by baseball101

Thanks for sharing the truth. For years, people have been telling the public that news-corporations support the government/military industrial complex. This is not a secret. Honest reporters have been exposing the governments' involvement in mainstream-media programs since documentaries like "War Made Easy", "Zeitgeist", and several of Alex Jones' documentaries came out in public:

War Made Easy

Google Video Link

War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.

Mainstream Media Silence on The Pentagon's Military Analyst Program

Last year, David Barstow of the New York Times revealed the Pentagon's efforts to control the media's message on the war by feeding talking points to television military analysts.

NBC/MSNBC/ABC/CNN/FOX News did not report Barstow's story and they didn't reveal their own complicity. read more: tiny.cc...

But one media outlet did explore Barstow's investigation -- this is a clip from The IFC Media Project: ifc.com...

On April 20th, 2009, David Barstow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his report.

The Mainstream Media to this day has not acknowledged this story. Will they now?

CAUGHT: Pentagon-scripted TV News Interviews

The New York Times has exposed a secret Pentagon campaign to infiltrate the media with pro-war propaganda. The scheme reaches all the way to the Bush White House, where top officials recruited dozens of "military analysts" to spread favorable views of the war via the news.

Many of these propaganda pundits didn't reveal that they were working from Pentagon scripts or lobbying for companies seeking to cash in on major military contracts.

Matt Thompson of Free Press.net, a group that advocates for media reform reports this is a violation of every conceivable standard of journalism — and possibly of federal law.

EXPOSED: Media ignore Pentagon Pundits scandal

TAKE ACTION HERE: FreePress.net...
Mainstream media are ignoring one of the biggest political scandals in recent memory. Demand a full Congressional investigation here:
freepress.net...

Note: CNN's Rick Sanchez is actually a "late evening" host, not a morning host (2:38)

Rep. Skelton - Trust at Stake in Pentagon's Media Relations

Rep. Ike Skelton, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, speaks on the House floor on recent revelations from the New York Times. The story, "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand," explained how the Pentagon set up an elaborate network of "military experts" to achieve "information dominance" in the American media.

[edit on 22-4-2009 by News And History]