As I have reported on many
occasions, the presstitutes constitute not a free press but a Ministry of
Propaganda for the government and ruling oligarchic interests. Ben Norton explains that the New York Times gets permission from
Washington before it prints a story:
The
New York Times has publicly acknowledged that it sends some of its stories to
the US government for approval from “national security officials” before
publication.
He explains that CIA control and
manipulation of the media has a long tradition, a tradition exposed by
journalists who know:
Legendary
journalist Carl Bernstein, a former Washington Post reporter who helped uncover
the Watergate scandal, published a major cover story for Rolling Stone in 1977
titled “The CIA and the Media: How America’s Most Powerful News Media Worked
Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee
Covered It Up.”
Bernstein
obtained CIA documents that revealed that more than 400 American journalists in
the previous 25 years had “secretly carried out assignments for the Central
Intelligence Agency.”
Bernstein
wrote:
“Some
of these journalists’ relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were
explicit. There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists
provided a full range of clandestine services—from simple intelligence
gathering to serving as go‑betweens with spies in Communist countries.
Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs.
Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters
who considered themselves ambassadors without‑portfolio for their country. Most
were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with
the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested
in the derring‑do of the spy business as in filing articles; and, the smallest
category, full‑time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad. In many
instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for
the CIA with the consent of the managements of America’s leading news
organizations.”
Virtually
all major US media outlets cooperated with the CIA, Bernstein revealed,
including ABC, NBC, the AP, UPI, Reuters, Newsweek, Hearst newspapers, the
Miami Herald, the Saturday Evening Post, and the New York Herald‑Tribune.
However,
he added, “By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA
officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.”
These
layers of state manipulation, censorship, and even direct crafting of the news
media show that, as much as they claim to be independent, The New York Times
and other outlets effectively serve as de facto spokespeople for the government
— or at least for the US national security state.
Udo Ulfkotte, an editor of the German
newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Explained
in his book, Gekaufte Journalisten (Bought
Journalism), that no significant journalist in Europe is free of CIA influence.
The English language edition, Journalists For Hire: How The
CIA Buys The News, has been suppressed. A few copies managed to
escape destruction. Two
are currently available on Amazon, one for $910.99 and one for $1,994.99.
As I have often reported,
in the “Western democracies” truth is suppressed and controlled explanations
are put in its place. Western peoples are largely unaware of the agendas of the
national security state and ruling elites. People in all walks of life serve these
agendas without knowing it. Those who try to inform them are usually dismissed
as “conspiracy theorists.” Obviously, there can be no democracy
when the electorate is kept in the dark.
