Open Letter to the Associated Press: Government Propagandists 1; AP 0
To: Matthew Lee, Anne Flaherty and AP Washington editors
CC: Americans and American media who rely on the AP
Bcc: Washington press corps reporters, if they exist, who have a shred of independence from the government left.
Mr. Lee and Ms. Flaherty, you should be ashamed. You know somewhere in your hearts that your stories about President Bush's upcoming speech have helped the government float a trial balloon it desperately needed to watch before the final text and talking points are approved on Thursday.
The initial AP report on the speech ran among other places on the Dallas Morning News Web site yesterday without a byline under the headline "Bush to announce Iraq troop reduction."
The lede was amazing in both its simplicity and its ability to mislead. It read:
"President Bush will tell the nation this week he plans to reduce the American troop presence in Iraq by about 30,000 by next summer, but will condition those and further cuts on continued progress, The Associated Press has learned."
That story and the follow-up with your bylines did nothing more than allow government speech writers and communications staff to test the waters further to see whether mainstream reporters for the national media would buy their frame -- that the president wants to "reduce" troop levels in Iraq -- when the evidence and the facts in the story show that nothing of the sort is under consideration.
Let's be honest. The AP knew when it took this information yesterday "on background" with no attribution and no direct quotes and reported it around 4 p.m., just in time for evening newscasts all over the country that it was being used. The reporters knew it, and the editors knew it.
The AP didn't break this story after tireless research and independent verification. The AP didn't uncover any new information on its own. The AP was fed -- with a wink and metaphoric handshake that this somehow was some sort of leak -- the way this administration has fed national reporters all of its propaganda since it began building its case for this disastrous war.
My journalism students at Columbia and NYU know the difference between a leak and a feed. They know the technical difference, and they know the ethical implications. (A leak is when someone gives you something they shouldn't release and risks consequences if they are discovered. A feed is when propagandists hand you something to print with the tacit approval of their bosses.)
The White House gave you the information with a specific purpose. It wanted to see if national media would buy the frame "Bush to announce troop cuts." And the national media did, as the Kansas City Star and others showed today by running the follow-up that bears the Lee and Flaherty byline.
The government that is running this war wanted to make sure that the story that comes from the president's speech on Thursday isn't framed or given the more precise and accurate headline "Bush to continue surge for at least another year." And the AP happily obliged.
In return for a feed, the AP gave the government a lede and frame its propagandists desperately need to sell a war Americans overwhelmingly want to end. The AP confirmed to the propagandists that their frame is plausible -- at least to the Associated Press.
And by virtue of the role the AP plays in American media, the frame and the word "reduce" were distributed to virtually every newspaper and most television stations in the country yesterday.
The truth is that this administration pitched a "surge" to Americans last spring with the same hubris and "thumb in the eye" lies it pitched the original war. Our government told us it wanted to increase troop levels in Iraq temporarily during the summer of 2007. It's propagandists fought desperately to keep anyone from using the word "escalation," claiming that was an unpatriotic frame that invoked images of Vietnam.
What you have learned -- let's be honest here; what this speech will say -- is that instead of a temporary, three-month escalation, our government plans to continue the surge for at least another year.
White House propagandists gave you information that shows the government plans to make the 30,000 troops called-up for the surge effectively permanent, and that it will not even consider reducing the number of troops to pre-surge levels until next summer.
And you reported they are planning a troop "reduction."
Instead of reporting what the government is doing now, you chose to report what its spin doctors are saying it may (or may not) do a year from now. What other word is there for your work than propaganda?
My students and most Americans can tell you missed the lede. The question is why.
For some reason you chose to parrot the line the government you are supposed to watch and when necessary call on the carpet fed to you. Instead of telling people what that government is doing now, you chose the propagandists' phony frame and effectively reported on a future you have no way of reading.
A beginning journalist knows better, and so should you.
The question now is will you and your editors find a reason to attack me or anyone else who calls you on this embarrassing dereliction of your duty as some anti-war or anti-Bush zealot -- or will you simply ask yourself if this critique of your reporting is fair? This column has been about your journalism, not your or my politics.
The reason this is dire -- and you know this -- is the AP has a special agenda-setting effect. With fewer and fewer independent reporters in Washington D.C., more and more local and regional outlets depend on the AP for news from our nation's capital.
Now, that isn't all that important, relatively, when the story is: Who is responsible for a standoff between the president and Congress over a farm bill; or when it is a "he said/ he said" attack ad during a political campaign.
But this story is about America's place in the world today and in the history books for generations. It's also about the thousand or more young Americans likely to die in this war built on lies if the surge continues -- as the government plans, as you know.
Your decision to show the government that at least the AP will buy its frame has historic and moral implications, which wartime propaganda often does. Whether you want to abdicate your responsibility as a free and independent press to sort through what you are spoon fed, does, too.
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We don't have freedom of the Press when only 3 to 5 persons/corporation controls the press in the English speaking world. It doesn't matter if the Democrats or Republicans are in office, Murdock's empire will remain the same, and we will still be feed the same lies.
We are constantly feed one heinous assault against a female or a child after another until we just numb out and fail to object to any corporate crimes committed in our name.
Cherish what is left of the internet as the last reminant of free speech.
It is about time you guys and gals showed some testicular fortitude and ova. Thanks.
AP is ALL PROPAGANDA. THEY RARELY PRINT THE TRUTH OR ARE PRO-PEACE.
It is a useless exercise invoking Journalistic ethics to the Associated Press or any main stream media. We have a Corporate system with its own ethic which every graduate soon recognizes after losing the job for not going along.
The administration, the cowardly Democrats, and the treasonous press have sold the nation into Oblivion.
Dead Troops = Halliburton Profits = Money in Dick Cheney's bloody pockets.
It's that simple folks.
Dear Mr. Cutbirth,
Where ya been? Excellent, eloquent, and profound essay/post, Kudos on ya!
Great calling'em out. Agape.
How might we be done with this? The press is owned. The congress is owned. The judicial branch is owned. The executive branch is owned. This is corporativism empowered by false electoral means. Where is the remedy? Perhaps we must become Al-Qaeda, driven by other philosophies and using other means.
Thirty per cent ( perhaps a bit less) of the U.S. populace will believe in bush's supposed reduction of troops. Reductio ad absurdum. Many more will absorb the soothing sounds of the informative equivalant of Muzak (Newszak?).
Generals hedging their bets for a sinecure will believe and promote. Young enlistees will die, be maimed, suffer brain trauma. Older Reservists and National Guard troops will die, be maimed, suffer brain trauma and, if returning whole, be rarely available (as they'll be needed by almost any head of government for "anti-terroist" work) to assist in national disasters and emergencies. Families of wounded enlistees, Reservists and National Guard will be rent by impossible demands and little assistance in becoming whole. We will not help them so very much. They will remind us of our failures in regard to our government. Unless we, the people, decide to become the government.
What shall we do for the Iraqi's we've bludgeoned in our quest? What did we do for the Vietnamese in our quest? What did we do for the Koreans in our quest? Grenadians and Panamanians? Haitians and Dominican Republicans? Nicaraguans and El Salvadorans and Guatemalans? Cubans? Mexico? Chile? Argentina? Colombia? Indonesia? Philipines? Many of these twice over.
Perhaps it's simply the price of empire and/or maintaining 'our' standard of living.
George Bush and his ilk, should we continue to allow them to dictate our standard of living, deserve to own us.
"To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them."
I'm going with take arms. I think it's nobler.
SNEWZAK?
The Washington bureau of the Kansas City Star (a McClatchy paper) didn't buy into this. You might want to read: "After two days, no answer to 'how this ends' " -- http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19632.html and the other stories that are attached to that story.
Not all the media bought in.
Tish Wells, McClatchy (formerly Knight Ridder) Washington Bureau
"The president kept a low profile Monday and Tuesday, but he's expected to announce in a prime-time address Thursday that he's adopting Petraeus' troop recommendations."
And that isn't buying into it?
McClatchy is the one bright spot in a sea of ineptitude or worse.
I have nothing to do with journalism, other than being a consumer, but I can tell you that one trend that is just driving me away from any MSM news is the "non-attribution" of the news. I'd be hard pressed to find any MSM story anymore where one can actually find the source, it's all down to being attributed to a source that can't be named due to "not being authorized", so on, and on..
Also, folks seem to just be blaming the fall of the MSM to recent events, but I can remember thinking of how badly things were covered (or not covered) back in the Iran Contra story. It seems to me that the media really started to fail during the Reagan era, possibly due to their tearing apart of the FCC and the Fairness Doctrine? Again, just a consumers opinion..
3 words:"What is truth"?
Yes, I spotted the obvious feed too, as well as the slavish way the media propagated it.
I don't consider myself particularly insightful - I suspect only the media were fooled.
Absolutely Joe. I have a BSJ from Northwestern and I can tell ya AP missed the story to give it the approved spin. Glad other students recognized it, too.
When do We the People against all the Bu$hit as well as Bu$hitters like AP get to say: I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore???
This vaguely promised "reduction" is merely to removed the "surge" troops. And it is provisional at best. If Bu$hco cooks up an excuse to go to war with Iran, buh-bye to this "reduction" and buh-bye to our Constitution.
Where's THAT story?
Stenography, the new Journalism...with appologies to Maureen Dowd
Joe, Thank you! I'd elaborate, but I'd be preaching to the choir. A simple read of the whitehouse press release establishes what you shared here is fact! Unfortunately this desire to editorialize stories is happening in all the main newsfeeds. It's sad, because at times it takes a read of at least three or more sources to finally discover the story beneath the propoganda. This is where bloggers have stepped up to the plate, in sharing details often left out of the stories. Of course you have to sift through the partisanship of those blogs, but its worth it to find that rare thing called information. Hopefully more people will speak out when information is replaced with propoganda and editorialism, and demand these newsfeeds get back to the work we need them to do. Armed with information, most human beings can draw their own conclusions.
The source of information or "news" is so important, that the identity of that source should precede the information itself.
Otherwise, it's a little like hearing voices in the dark, where you hear what's being said, but not who's saying it.
Because without a doubt there are people in our lives, who by way of our experiences with these people, we wouldn't care to lend them our ears for even a moment; we wouldn't want to listen to even a single word they had to say.
I think the worst part of the AP item being cited here, is that the title to it seems to make a factual statement:
"Bush to announce Iraq troop reduction"
That's not a fact; it's not even an announcement of someone's intentions, because it lacks identifying the person making the announcement.
The AP item doesn't identify George W. Bush as saying he's going to announce "Iraq troop reduction"; just that "officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Bush's speech is not yet finally drafted"...
Voices in the dark.
Which person, identified as a source of this information or "news", would have us believe such a thing?
Tony Snow?
Stephen Hadley?
Dan Bartlett?
Karl Rove?
Dick Cheney, or "scooter" Libby maybe?
The darkness has more credibility, and a better reputation, than those names.
Which is why the thing was said, in a voice in the darkness...
...the only name I recognize attached to it, was the formerly good name of the Associated Press.
The AP item's title should have been:
"Anonymous White House sources tell the AP that Bush will announce Iraq troop reduction"
Not only is that the fact, but it's the whole story too, right there.
We'd have been saved the trouble of reading the AP item, and other stuff that followed it up, were we to have seen that factual title.
It'd have been like turning on the light, to see the face attached to the voice in the dark...
...and then we'd have paid no attention, because we'd know better.
We're sick and tired of being misled in these matters.
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