Pentagon Pumps Up the Propaganda

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In their books The Best War Ever and Weapons of Mass Deception, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber examine the Pentagon's propaganda machine and how much of it has been focused on propagandizing US citizens. Now UPI reports that "the U.S. Department of Defense is creating a Public Affairs 'rapid response team' to respond to what it sees as unfair or inaccurate coverage. Many of the additional staff at the Pentagon Public Affairs Office will be dedicated to ... trying to convince reporters and newspapers to cover the stories that the Pentagon wants to see more of. Others will be dedicated to monitoring the Internet, creating podcasts and responding to reports on blogs, negative stories and terrorist propaganda. The Pentagon press office in the last few weeks has also inaugurated a new blog on its Web site defenselink.mil to respond immediately to news reports it objects to. ... Pentagon spokesman Eric Ruff ... noted that Donald Rumsfeld this year gave Pentagon media operations a "D+", compared with the enemy. 'We're trying to do better than a D+,' Ruff said."