The N.Y Times has a great piece today about the U.S. paying to plant favorable articles in Iraqi newspapers and giving reporters "stipends" to write positive articles.
N.Y Times: U.S. is said to Pay to Plant Articles in Iraq Papers
Western press and frequently those self-styled 'objective' observers of Iraq are often critics of how we, the people of Iraq, are proceeding down the path in determining what is best for our nation," the article began.
But far from being the heartfelt opinion of an Iraqi writer, as its language implied, the article was prepared by the United States military as part of a multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends, military contractors and officials said.
First the Bush admin paid reporters like Armstrong Williams to write favorable articles and damaged our media's credibility (not that the MSM hasn't destroyed its own credibility). And now look who wants to rewrite history and rewrite reality by paying reporters and newspapers to print bogus stories.
In addition to paying newspapers to print government propaganda, Lincoln has paid about a dozen Iraqi journalists each several hundred dollars a month, a person who had been told of the transactions said. Those journalists were chosen because their past coverage had not been antagonistic to the United States, said the person, who is being granted anonymity because of fears for the safety of those involved. In addition, the military storyboards have in some cases copied verbatim text from copyrighted publications and passed it on to be printed in the Iraqi press without attribution, documents and interviews indicated.
What's worse is the fact that our government is using your tax payer dollars and my taxpaying dollars to pay private PR firms in the U.S. such as Lincoln to create propaganda pieces and keep the public in the dark about the failures in Iraq. Poll numbers tanking, favorables at record lows, administration in trouble, all the Bush admin understands is how to lie and create false perceptions.
The Government Accountability Office found this year that the Bush administration had violated the law by producing pseudo news reports that were later used on American television stations with no indication that they had been prepared by the government. But no law prohibits the use of such covert propaganda abroad.
I wonder if Armstrong Williams has been spotted in Iraq recently. Knowing the Bush admin, he's probably running this propaganda operation...and Brownie is his hired gun.