Fox News Still Featuring Pentagon Pundits

The New York Times publishes an exposé on the hidden ties between media military analysts and the Pentagon that most likely violate federal "covert propaganda" laws.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) calls for an investigation of the propaganda purveyors, especially those with business ties to the Pentagon.

The Pentagon announces that it is immediately suspending their Retired Military Analyst Program.

On Sunday, a week after the Times story broke, Fox was still airing -- without disclosure -- exposed pundit Thomas McInerney. Last Wednesday, they aired another pundit, Robert H. Scales. See them for yourself:

Thousands of Americans are calling on Congress to launch an official investigation, and hold the Pentagon and their lapdog corporate media pals accountable.

As Elizabeth Edwards said in a New York Times op-ed this weekend:

"News is different from other programming on television or other content in print. It is essential to an informed electorate. And an informed electorate is essential to freedom itself. But as long as corporations to which news gathering is not the primary source of income or expertise get to decide what information about the candidates 'sells,' we are not functioning as well as we could if we had the engaged, skeptical press we deserve.

...If voters want a vibrant, vigorous press, apparently we will have to demand it. Not by screaming out our windows as in the movie "Network" but by talking calmly, repeatedly, constantly in the ears of those in whom we have entrusted this enormous responsibility. Do your job, so we can -- as voters -- do ours.

Comments

[realpolitic]

Fox News may as well merge its operations with the Pentagon because it speaks with one voice already and its military analysts on on the Pentagon take. Fox is the only channel that continues to air these same military consultants. Fox is hypocrisy run rampant. The old editors of Pravda could learn a few things by watching how Fox operates.

[MGhamma]

Just goes to show how clueless fox news viewers are.

[mcthorogood]

You gotta give it to ole'Rummy, he had all the bases covered. First he stovepipes intelligence via the Office of Special Plans to start the fire. Then he insures the fire stays stoked with propaganda. Donald was a pure genius, Herr Doktor Goebbels would be proud of him.

[realpolitic]

Yes, he was not good at preparing for an occupation, but he sure could manipulate the press.

[RussT]

I refuse to look at representatives from the Pentagon as "the enemy". Maybe some campaign they launched was illegal or wrong, but my God, this is not Watergate. Everyone should calm down on this.

[realpolitic]

Yes, we love it in America when the press is no longer free, but bought and paid for to sell the government message.

[mamacat]

Faux experts on Faux news? How shocking. Maybe they should just let Fox have an office in the RNC headquarters, and broadcast from there.

[realpolitic]

You may they're not right now?

[outnow]

Disgusting abuse of the journalist ethics and the military ethics. The Pentagon is part of a "military industrial media congressional" complex. Trillions of dollars run through that complex every year. Why is killing the biggest business? Nobody is looking for a peace dividend.

[Americanium]

Here I am thinking only communist regimes uses the state apparatus to spread propaganda to control its people.

[omahkohkiaayo]

Faux News is to "Fair and Balanced" what Ted Bundy was to women's rights. You might call them the No. 1 serial killer of the truth.

Yet the most effective propaganda is that which is more covert and subtle rather than the overt vitriol and hate mongering that goes on on Faux News. These slick types like Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson, George Stephanopoulos, Leslie Stahl etc, that give the appearance and illusion of being measured, rational and even open minded and a tad bit liberal, , they are the most effective and insidious of the propagandists.

[iBgood]

The neo-cons are getting desperate to start a war with Iran before the bush/cheney criminals leave the WH. I wouldn't put anything past them including not leaving the WH when their term ends.

Their propagandists, especially faux reflect this by having the gall to continue to have these war profiteers pose as 'experts' even after they have been exposed.

[magen]

Have you seen the show "Are you smarter than a fifth grader?"

Most Americans aren't.

Fox is "news" for idiots.

[drumz]

Faux news's base doesn't care if it's propaganda as long as it fits their noecon view of the world.

[McLaren]

Yeah, unlike the "fair and balanced" "news" on the Huffington Post, and all you clear-minded, rational, objective news analysts......

[TexasDem0]

People don"t go to Faux News for News. They go there for the mud slinging and hate mongering and to charge up on the latest from the echo chamber in preparation to regurgitate it yet again. I wonder if one in a hundred of them can actually explain what a liberal is, or what a conservative is, without meaningless slanders and calumnies, and without blaming the disastrous failures of the right on everyone else.

The absence of undistorted facts is no more a problem than the outright fiction.