Glenn Greenwald: CNN, the Pentagon’s ‘Military Analyst Program’ and Gitmo="FAIL"

[babylonsister]

CNN, the Pentagon’s ‘Military Analyst Program’ and Gitmo
by Glenn Greenwald


The Pentagon has posted to its website the roughly 8,000 pages and audio tapes it was forced to provide to the New York Times regarding its “military analyst” program. Anyone who reads through them, as I’ve now done, can only be left with one conclusion (other than being extremely impressed with David Barstow’s work in putting together this story): if this wasn’t an example of an illegal, systematic “domestic propaganda campaign” by the Pentagon, then nothing is.

Despite this, the truly extraordinary blackout by the major television and cable news networks — which were complicit in this program — continues. Howard Kurtz of CNN and The Washington Post previously called this blackout “pathetic”, and yesterday, The Politico published a relatively impressive article further documenting the “deafening silence” from the networks at the center of this story. As the article noted:

While bloggers have kept the story simmering, Democratic congressional leaders also are speaking out, calling for investigations that could provoke the networks to finally cover the Times story - and, in effect, themselves.

Beyond the networks’ keeping this scandal completely concealed from their viewers, The Politico story noted that only two network executives — CNN’s President Jim Walton and ABC’s President David Westin (.pdf) — even bothered to respond to the letters sent by Rep. Rosa DeLauro to all networks demanding answers with regard to their complicity in this program. When responding, the two executives — exactly as Brian Williams was when he was finally forced by blog-inspired commenters to respond (on his blog, but not on NBC) — were casually dismissive of the entire matter, insisting that they had done nothing wrong (other than CNN’s acknowledgment that they failed to detect a conflict of interest with regard to a single military analyst they had used).

Let’s just lay out some of the relevant facts about what happened — looking at one episode illustrating how this entire program worked and what CNN specifically did. Then, we can see whether CNN served as an eager instrument for a corrupt domestic propaganda campaign by the Pentagon, or whether, as Walton claims, CNN acted with perfect propriety. Tomorrow, we’ll do the same with regard to ABC.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/09/8851/

[gratuitous]

1. Yeah, but who's going to report the illegality?

The willing accomplices from the major networks and cable shows? Har de har har. :rofl:

The print journalists who are too busy scribbling down the latest propaganda to think about what a load of manure they're being fed? Uh uh.

Who's left to tell us about even more corruption and criminal wrongdoing? As Helen Thomas famously asked, "Where is everybody?" Katie? Charlie? Brian? Tim? Chris? Anyone interested in doing a little real journalism?

[babylonsister]

2. A bunch of House reps. are investigating, as is Kerry and Levin from

the Senate. I think people are ticked that this isn't seeing the light of day. I know, I'm an optimist, but there are rumblings. The media is culpable; no surprise they don't want to mention it.

[babylonsister]

3. I must kick Greenwald (not literally). nt