Propaganda

One Less Cog in the Propaganda Machine

by Sheldon Rampton — April 10, 2004 - 11:00pm

A senior defense advisor to the Australian government says she was fired after refusing to write media briefings that supported claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. "I felt like I was part of the propaganda machine. As a public servant I shouldn't be expected to write propaganda," said engineer and analyst Jane Errey. Rather than participate in pro-war briefings, she took a leave of absence and has now been terminated permanently.

Main Source: 
News.com.au, April 11, 2004

Former Public Affairs Officer Speaks Out Against Bush

by Laura Miller — March 26, 2004 - 12:00am

Former navy public affairs office Lt. John Oliveira told Democracy Now! that he didn't realize how stressful his military oath would be for him when aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt last year. "I had to get on television every day to talk to the American people and the international public and continue to sell them on the administration's policies, which I did not believe in," Oliveira said. He oversaw embedded journalists on the aircraft carrier, which at the time was in the eastern Mediterranean. "I'm [now] doing what I can to support our troops.

Main Source: 
Democracy Now! March 26, 2004

One Person's Propaganda Is Another's News

by Diane Farsetta — March 22, 2004 - 12:00am

The General Accounting Office is investigating whether the Department of Health and Human Services' video news releases touting the new Medicare law constitute illegal "covert propaganda." Some PR pros think it's much ado about nothing: "VNRs have been around since the dawn of TV," said the CEO

Main Source: 
PR Week, March 22, 2004

Iraq on the Record

by Laura Miller — March 17, 2004 - 5:22pm

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has released a report and database that identifies 237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq uttered by the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq: President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

Main Source: 
http://democrats.reform.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord/

INC Fed Media False Stories

by Laura Miller — March 16, 2004 - 12:00am

"The former Iraqi exile group that gave the Bush administration exaggerated and fabricated intelligence on Iraq also fed much of the same information to newspapers, news agencies and magazines in the United States, Britain and Australia," Knight Ridder reports.
"A June 26, 2002, letter from the Iraqi National Congress to the Senate Appropriations Committee listed 108 articles based on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress's Information Collection Program, a U.S.-funded effort to col

Main Source: 
San Jose Mercury News, March 16, 2004

Spun Out of Office

by Sheldon Rampton — March 15, 2004 - 12:00am

"We have won without lies," chanted the crowd outside the Madrid headquarters of Spain's socialist party, PSOE, which swept to victory in the country's March 14 elections. "Spin was indeed at the centre of PSOE's extraordinary, unexpected triumph," notes reporter David Mathieson. "There is no word in Spanish for 'spin,' but there has been no absence of the practice in Madrid over the last year - and especially in the past few days. The spectacular gains made by PSOE ...

Main Source: 
Guardian (UK), March 15, 2004

Occupation Is Sell

by Diane Farsetta — March 14, 2004 - 12:00am

The White House is marking "this Friday's first anniversary of the invasion of Iraq with a week-long media blitz arguing that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was essential to combating global terrorism and making the United States safer." Another goal is to set "realistic expectations" for the rebuilding of Iraq.

Main Source: 
The Washington Post, March 14, 2004

Some Spies Saw Through the Lies & Blew the Whistle

by John Stauber — March 10, 2004 - 12:00am

"When David Kay, the CIA's former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, announced earlier this year that his team had found no stockpiled weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he touched off an explosion of blame, finger-pointing, denial, and hasty 'clarifications' about the extent and accuracy of the intelligence that the Bush Administration used to buttress its decision to invade Iraq. Kay's startling conclusion, though, came as no surprise to many analysts in the U.S. intelligence community -- particularly the members of a self-described 'movement' of some 35 retired and resigned high-level U.S.

Main Source: 
Mother Jones, March 10, 2004

Another WMD Post-mortem

by Sheldon Rampton — March 9, 2004 - 12:00am

The Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland has published a new study on "Media Coverage of Weapons of Mass Destruction," and the picture isn't pretty. "Most media outlets represented WMD as a monolithic menace, failing to adequately distinguish between weapons programs and actual weapons or to address the real differences among chemical, biological, nuclear, and radiological weapons," the report states.

Main Source: 
Editor and Publisher, March 9, 2004

Blair's 45-minute Gap

by Sheldon Rampton — February 29, 2004 - 12:00am

Britons continue to debate the Blair government's now-discredited claim that Iraq was 45 minutes away from launching chemical or biological weapons. Glenn Frankel and Rajiv Chandrasekaran British review in detail the history of the 45-minute claim and Blair's failure to "disclose that the claim had come secondhand from a single, uncorroborated source, and that some of the government's own experts believed it was questionable."

Main Source: 
Washington Post, February 29, 2004
Syndicate content