[Sivad]

Sy Hersh on fake news and the deep state -

I can tell you right now Brennan is an asshole. Uh, I’ve known all these people for years. Clapper is sort of a better guy but not rocket scientist, the NSA guy’s a fucking moron, and they don’t- you know the trouble with all of those guys is that the only way they’re going to make it to a board or two and get hired by (?) and get some fat cat contracts is if Hillary stayed in. With Trump they’re gone, they’re done, they’re going to live on their pension, they’re not going to make it. And I gotta tell you guys, they don’t want to live on their pension, they want to be on boards.

I have somebody on the inside, you know I’ve been around a long time, and I write a lot of stuff. I have somebody on the inside who will go and read a file for me. This person is unbelievably accurate and careful, he’s a very high-level guy and he’ll do a favor. You’re just going to have to trust me. I have what they call in my business a long-form journalism, I have a narrative of how that whole fucking thing began, it’s a Brennan operation, it was an American disinformation and fucking the fucking President, at one point when they, they even started telling the press, they were back briefing the press, the head of the NSA was going and telling the press, fucking cock-sucker Rogers, was telling the press that we even know who in the GRU, the Russian Military Intelligence Service, who leaked it. I mean all bullshit. They were telling the studp- I worked at the New York Times for fucking years, and the trouble with the fucking New York Times is they have smart guys, but they’re totally beholden on sources. If the president or the head of the (?) to actually believe it. I was actually hired at the time to write, to go after the war in Vietnam War in 72 because they were just locked in. So that’s what the Times did. These guys run the fucking Times, and Trump’s not wrong. But I mean I wish he would calm down and had a better a better press secretary, I mean you don’t have to be so. Trump’s not wrong to think they all fucking lie about him.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/04/18/poll-just-6-percent-people-say-trust-media/

According to a poll carried out by an affiliate body of the Associated Press, only 6% of Americans trust the MSM.

Ah, that's how to twist statistics. The actual poll report says:

Public confidence in the press by many measures is low. In this survey, for instance, 6 percent of people say they have a great deal of confidence in the press, 52 percent say they have only some confidence, and 41 percent say they hardly any confidence. These findings are similar to the results of other recent studies. For example, a September 2015 Gallup survey found 7 percent of Americans have a great deal of trust and confidence in the mass media, 33 percent have a fair amount, and 60 percent have either not very much or none at all.

https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/ ... ose-trust/

but by pretending that "a great deal" isn't there, you can give a completely different impression.

[Hong Wu]

If you can't trust someone all the time, you don't think they're a trustworthy person... it's not complicated.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

"The press" or "the media" are not a person. It's not complicated. If what you're saying is that "the media" ought to be regarded as a monolithic entity which needs to be trusted either completely or not at all, then you're talking bollocks.

[skinster]

Yeah, of course shitloads of Americans are still allowing themselves to be played by the MSM, things would be very different here otherwise.

[Godstud]

I find most Americans can't tell the difference between reporting the news, and the anchors giving their opinions.

One is facts. The other is opinion(eg. Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, etc.).

[skinster]

Nope, both sides of the MSM are bullshit, Godstud. MSNBC & CNN are as bad as FOX and all the other bullshit right-rightwing channels.

[Godstud]

Fake news isn't really happening. MSM networks print retractions when they make these errors, and they don't happen on a daily basis. The problem is most Americans can't discern between spin and new, as the US networks constantly do this far too much.

[skinster]

It's not so much "fake news" but news that's been created to serve the corporations that are selling it. The right (Fox) and the other right (MSNBC) are as shit as each other.

[Sivad]

More from a real journalist on the deep state and the fake news -

Hersh denounced news organizations as “crazy town” for their uncritical promotion of the pronouncements of the director of national intelligence and the CIA, given their track records of lying and misleading the public.

“The way they behaved on the Russia stuff was outrageous,” Hersh said when I sat down with him at his home in Washington, D.C., two days after Trump was inaugurated. “They were just so willing to believe stuff. And when the heads of intelligence give them that summary of the allegations, instead of attacking the CIA for doing that, which is what I would have done,” they reported it as fact. Hersh said most news organizations missed an important component of the story: “the extent to which the White House was going and permitting the agency to go public with the assessment.”

Hersh said many media outlets failed to provide context when reporting on the intelligence assessment made public in the waning days of the Obama administration that was purported to put to rest any doubt that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the hacking of the DNC and Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s emails.

The declassified version of the report, which was released January 7 and dominated the news for days, charged that Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election” and “aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.” According to the report, the NSA was said to have had a lower confidence level than James Clapper and the CIA about the conclusion that Russia intended to influence the election. Hersh characterized the report as full of assertions and thin on evidence.

“It’s high camp stuff,” Hersh told The Intercept. “What does an assessment mean? It’s not a national intelligence estimate. If you had a real estimate, you would have five or six dissents. One time they said 17 agencies all agreed. Oh really? The Coast Guard and the Air Force — they all agreed on it? And it was outrageous and nobody did that story. An assessment is simply an opinion. If they had a fact, they’d give it to you. An assessment is just that. It’s a belief. And they’ve done it many times.”

Hersh also questioned the timing of the U.S. intelligence briefing of Trump on the Russia hack findings. “They’re taking it to a guy that’s going to be president in a couple of days, they’re giving him this kind of stuff, and they think this is somehow going to make the world better? It’s going to make him go nuts — would make me go nuts. Maybe it isn’t that hard to make him go nuts.” Hersh said if he had been covering the story, “I would have made [John] Brennan into a buffoon. A yapping buffoon in the last few days. Instead, everything is reported seriously.”
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/25/sey ... ing-story/

[QatzelOk]

"The press" or "the media" are not a person. It's not complicated. If what you're saying is that "the media" ought to be regarded as a monolithic entity which needs to be trusted either completely or not at all, then you're talking bollocks.

Yes, but commercial media is constrained and acts as one single entity.
There are Five Media filters - five ways in which commercial media is limited in what it is free to say.

OWNERSHIP

Commercial media is owned by private shareholders, and has a duty to increase earnings for them. Virtually all commercial media is owned by large, multinational corporations, which have financial interests that prevent them from revealing so much of what is nasty about Western capitalism.

For the other media filters, go here.

Please read about how these filters work (in the link above) before commenting any more in this thread.

[skinster]

Seymour Hersh is cool. I saw him speak at New York Public Library and he had me laughing A LOT. Dude does not give a fuck.

[Hindsite]

Yes, but commercial media is constrained and acts as one single entity.
There are Five Media filters - five ways in which commercial media is limited in what it is free to say.

OWNERSHIP

Commercial media is owned by private shareholders, and has a duty to increase earnings for them. Virtually all commercial media is owned by large, multinational corporations, which have financial interests that prevent them from revealing so much of what is nasty about Western capitalism.

For the other media filters, go here.

Propaganda model describes the liberal MSM of today very well. Without FOX News and a couple conservative talk radio hosts, the political opinions would all be for the liberal Democrats and other crooks like Hillary.

[skinster]

^ No.

[QatzelOk]

Propaganda model describes the liberal MSM of today very well. Without FOX News and a couple conservative talk radio hosts, the political opinions would all be for the liberal Democrats and other crooks like Hillary.

If you take the time to read the five filters, you will see that they all apply to FOX news and most other mass media as well, both left and right-wing scented.

FOX is owned, runs advertising, and is part of the same culture of comptetition and violence as almost all other commercial and non-commercial media (unfortunately). The shareholders of FOX, MSNBC, PBS etc. all go to the same country clubs. None of them can claim to speak for anyone except the 1%.

Left and right media, the 1% talking AT you.

[Hindsite]

If you take the time to read the five filters, you will see that they all apply to FOX news and most other mass media as well, both left and right-wing scented.

FOX is owned, runs advertising, and is part of the same culture of comptetition and violence as almost all other commercial and non-commercial media (unfortunately). The shareholders of FOX, MSNBC, PBS etc. all go to the same country clubs. None of them can claim to speak for anyone except the 1%.

Left and right media, the 1% talking AT you.

One could interpret it as you do. However, the 99% benefit from the fact they push opposite narratives most of the time.
HalleluYah.

[skinster]

Corporate Media Hires CIA, Pentagon Officials as Talking Heads - Who Push for More War
CNN, MSNBC, and more corporate news networks hire former top U.S. government officials as analysts, who call for a more belligerent foreign policy.

Americans frequently boast of how free and independent their press ostensibly is. Overlooking the fact that, according to the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders, media freedoms in the United States come in at a measly 43rd place globally, some of the liberties that do indeed exist are being whittled down.

And it is not just the government that is cracking down on press freedoms in the U.S. (although it certainly is). In recent years, leading corporate media networks have also, of their own accord, abrogated their independence by directly hiring former top government officials as analysts and commentators.

The latest example of the revolving door between U.S. intelligence agencies and the corporate media came on February 1, when NBC News announced that John Brennan, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, had been hired as a senior national security and intelligence analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.

Brennan joins a slew of other former senior U.S. intelligence officers who can now be seen across television.

In April 2017, CNN added three new government officials to its ranks.

Michael Hayden, the only person to have served as the director of both the CIA and the National Security Agency, was hired as a CNN national security analyst. Hayden is not exactly known for being a friend of journalists. As I previously reported for Salon, Hayden has likened Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Glenn Greenwald to the devil and disparaged other prominent investigative journalists, such as Seymour Hersh, Laura Poitras and Jane Mayer. He also joked about putting whistleblower Edward Snowden on the drone assassination program’s kill list.

John Kirby, the former spokesperson for the State Department, was also hired as a military and diplomatic analyst for CNN. Kirby was previously a press secretary for the Pentagon and served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for media operations. That is to say, he spent years playing the media on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense, and subsequently became a prominent voice in the very media he had worked for so long.

Moreover, Lisa Monaco, who was homeland security advisor under President Barack Obama, joined CNN’s ranks as a senior national security analyst. Upon her promotion to the president’s top counterterrorism advisor, Monaco had taken over the previous position of new MSNBC analyst Brennan, as CNN itself noted at the time.

That’s not all. Later in 2017, CNN likewise hired James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence under Obama and previous head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, as a national security analyst. Lawmakers have called for Clapper to face perjury charges for lying under oath. During congressional testimony in 2013, the top spy chief was asked if the NSA was collecting any of the data of Americans; he insisted the agency was not doing so. Months later, Edward Snowden showed otherwise, with the help of journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras — all of whom have been excoriated by CNN national security analyst Hayden.

These new hires joined CNN military and national security analyst James “Spider” Marks, a retired major general who previously led the U.S. Army Intelligence Center; along with longtime CNN counterterrorism analyst Philip Mudd, an intelligence agency veteran who helped lead counterterrorism operations at both the CIA and the FBI, and who sat on the White House National Security Council.

Many of these U.S. government officials were frequent guests on corporate media networks before becoming regular paid contributors. Top CIA and FBI official Mudd boasts on his website, for instance, that “he has been featured by ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox, BBC, MSNBC, al-Jazeera, NPR, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.”

The latest figure to cross through the revolving door from the U.S. intelligence community into the media, former CIA Director Brennan, is far from the only top government official MSNBC has added to its roster. NBC and its subsidiary hired as a national security analyst Jeremy Bash, who previously served as the chief of staff for both the Pentagon and the CIA. Bash is also the founder and managing director of the Washington, D.C.-based advisory firm Beacon Global Strategies, which, as I detailed in AlterNet, is populated by former government officials and is closely linked to UAE ambassador to the U.S. Yousef al-Otaiba, one of the most influential foreign diplomats.

Calling for a More Aggressive Foreign Policy

Predictably, the former government officials hired by corporate media networks have toed the U.S. government line in their analyses on air.

All have openly demanded more aggressive U.S. actions against Russia in particular. As the media watchdog FAIR noted, Bash has all but called for war on Moscow. Hayden has warned, as CNN puts it, “that Russia is still trying to influence American minds.” Monaco has defended “the imposition of unprecedented sanctions” as necessary “consequences” for Moscow. Clapper has implied the Kremlin is pulling the strings over Trump. And Kirby has fear mongered about Russian jets — while promoting uber-bellicose Senator John McCain.

On Syria, they have been equally hawkish. After a Syrian military attack on the district of Khan Shaykhun, in al-Qaeda-controlled Idlib province, Bash took to NBC News to propose “airstrikes from U.S. military aircraft or cruise missile strikes from U.S. naval warships operating off the coast of Syria. The objective… would be to punish Assad.” In order to do this, Bash added, “We’d effectively have to push Russia aside, because they are there. And that’s not something I’m sure this White House is willing to do.”

When Trump responded by attacking the Syrian government, launching 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles on its Shayrat airbase and destroying some 20 percent of the Syrian military’s operational planes, according to the Pentagon, Bash applauded. In an NBC News report, the former Pentagon and CIA official praised the strike for sending “an important message to Assad” and a “critical message” to other countries targeted by the U.S., such as Iran and North Korea.

Former CIA and NSA director Hayden likewise penned an op-ed in The Hill extolling “the first real military action of the Trump era.” On CNN, Hayden saluted Trump for his “remarkable flip.”

For some of these spy chiefs-cum-analysts, nevertheless, Trump’s missile strike on Syria was not quite aggressive enough. On CNN, Mudd lamented that the dramatic attack was not enough to deter Russia. On the same network, General Marks wishfully observed that the strike

“is not like Kentucky basketball, one and done; this is the start of a series of operations. We will continue to maintain a very strong intelligence presence on top of this target. And we’ll be able to roll more Tomahawks and we'll be able to escalate and we’ll be able to do additional types of operations in order to achieve the results that we’re looking for, which is number one politically, I think we’ve done that and we’ve sent a very strong message. But to degrade and ultimately, eliminate his WMD, weapons of mass destruction capability and his ability, Assad’s ability to deliver.”

Similarly, these government officials turned reliably hawkish pundits have called for more threatening action against North Korea. Kirby has declared that “the credibility of the threat from North Korea is palpable.” Hayden has defended the Trump administration’s extremely belligerent posturing. Both Hayden and Bash have called for an aggressive approach on North Korea. Clapper has proposed more sanctions on the country as a way forward. And CNN even created a hologram animation showing what war would look like with Korea, starring General Marks.

The embrace of former top U.S. officials as go-to employees and this willing abandonment of putative independence by the corporate media further underscores just how closely the press mirrors the government on issues of war, national security, and foreign policy.

This approach combines the worst of both worlds: while Americans are told that their media apparatus is free because it is not state owned, the news broadcasts on their televisions are replete with pugnacious talking heads who have spent most of their lives working for the government, and its notoriously violent military and intelligence agencies.
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:21093:C ... r-More-War

Former top US officials who now are paid analysts for CNN:
—Michael Hayden, director of CIA and NSA
—John Kirby, State Department spokesperson, Pentagon press secretary
—James Clapper, director of national intelligence
—Lisa Monaco, homeland security advisor
—James "Spider" Marks, commander of US Army Intelligence Center
—Philip Mudd, head of counterterrorism operations at CIA and FBI

[QatzelOk]

One could interpret it as you do. However, the 99% benefit from the fact they push opposite narratives most of the time.
HalleluYah.

Your halleluyah is premature.

I remember, a few years back, I was in San Francisco witnessing the presidential "debate" on a bar TV. The two candidates were ferociously debating "stem cell research." It was a lively debate with millions watching.

Thing is, they both agreed on: bombing defenceless countries, cutting taxes to billionaires, reducting social programs, letting corporations introduce more technology into our food supplies, etc.

The only "opposite narratives" Western politicians seem to push are trivial ones that don't change much of anything for anyone. They just provoke emotional responses in people, which "feels like" important politics, but isn't.

The "facts" that our political oligarchs "dispute" are purely decorative.

[Sivad]

Ex-Tribune reporter said to have 'collaborative' relationship with CIA

Ken Dilanian, a former staff writer for the newspaper chain that includes the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, had a "closely collaborative relationship with the CIA," according to the article, published Thursday by the online news site the Intercept.

In documents made public by the website, Dilanian appeared to promise positive news coverage and on occasion sent the CIA press office entire story drafts for review prior to publication. In at least one instance, the CIA's reaction appears to have led to significant changes in a story eventually published by Tribune newspapers, according to the emails.

[Sivad]

Nearly two dozen of the commentators who appeared on major media outlets to discuss a possible US military strike on Syria had relationships with contractors and other organizations with a vested interest in the conflict, according to a new report.

The Public Accountability Initiative, a non-profit research group dedicated to “investigating power and corruption at the heights of business and government,” determined that 22 of the pundits who spoke to the media during the public debate over whether the US should bomb Syria appeared to have conflicts of interest. Seven think tanks with murky affiliations were also involved in the debate.

Some analysts held board positions or held stock in companies that produce weapons for the US military, while others conducted work for private firms with the relationships not disclosed to the public.

Raytheon director Stephen Handley.

Perhaps the most notable example is that of Stephen Hadley, a former national security advisor to President George Bush who argued in favor of striking Syria in appearances on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and Bloomberg TV. He also wrote an editorial in The Washington Post with the headline, “To stop Iran, Obama must enforce red lines with Assad.”

Nowhere in those appearances was it disclosed, according to the report, that Hadley is a director with Raytheon, a weapons manufacturer that produces the Tomahawk cruise missiles the US almost certainly would have used had it intervened in Syria. Hadley earns an annual salary of $128,5000 from Raytheon and owns 11,477 shares of Raytheon stock. His holdings were worth $891,189 as of August 23.