mass media

fair advertising and governement bodies

"Capture the press!
Through it everything will come to you in the natural course of events."
- Adolphe Cremioux* 1907

"Persuasion is often more effectual than force
and appearances often are deceiving." - Aesop

"Our minds are being impacted through a long standing series of programs aimed at manipulating public opinion through intelligence agencies, think tanks, corporate media and a host of non-governmental organizations designed to engender fear, division and uncertainty in the public."
- Peter Phillips, Lew Brown and Bridget Thornton

"One need look no further than all of the attention being lavished on new "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric to see the current sad state of our mainstream media. It is no longer about informing the public but about personalities and attractiveness. What's amazing is that highly paid executives still don't grasp why millions like me flock to non-mainstream sources to find out what's really happening; meanwhile, their ratings continue to decline. I recommend these execs go back and view Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" to get a grasp of what the media could and should do to fulfill their duty of informing the public." - Matt Giorgi

"Nothing real issues from the American media. The mindlessness of the news reflects the mindlessness of the government, for which it is a spokesperson. The American media does not serve American democracy or American interests. It serves the few people who exercise power."
- Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury in the Reagan Administration

"Inevitably, the media create a circus,
elevating everything and elucidating nothing."
- Stephany Yablow

“The mainstream media ignore information they don't want people to know about. Television is the modern weapon. It's better than a bomb. Whoever controls it controls the people and the people don't even realize it. This television fantasy world is what we are fighting against.” - Eric Hufschmid

Mass media is existent today for one purpose and one purpose alone; to market - to sell product to the target audience. That product may come in a solid form such as an iPod, a digital form such as the songs sold by iTunes or the product may come packaged as an idea, an opinion or a popular 'notion'.

"The first step is to understand that television is just a delivery system for ads. The only programming that really matters to those in power is the advertisements. The success of a show is not measured by how good it is, or who says they loved it, or even how many people watch. A show is a success if the people who watched it go and buy the products that were advertised." - Dean Batali

The collection of personal information has long been a standard American corporate process as that information has long been understood to equate with the ability to further 'serve' and 'supply' the American consumer.

The extent of personal information collection took on dramatic new dimensions in the 1990s due to profound improvements in computing and the advent of the internet. Most of this increase in personal information collection takes place out of the public's view without the public's direct consent.

Marketers want to know their customers better.

Marketers want to automate the process of customer relationships.

Marketers ask questions that can only be answered with more data.

Who is someone really?

What motivates an individual?

How is someone likely to behave?

How can we get a certain type of individual to open his/her wallet?

How do we separate the relatively few very profitable customers from the 'herd'?

"The press can be corrupted by tyrannies other than the political. The tyranny of the bottom line or profit margin is equally insidious." - Thomas Wortham

To answer these questions marketers are on a data collection binge, gathering, parsing, and shaping more information about more people than ever before in history. These include not just credit bureaus, banks and telemarketers but each and every corporation that wants to know when, what, why and where you purchase products. Ever had a 'club' account?

Grocers - do you eat fresh or processed food? what toiletries do you use? do you drink alcoholic beverages and if so what type and how much?

Pharmacists - which prescription drugs do you use? which over-the-counter drugs do you use? what medical conditions apply to you - hemorrhoids? hay fever? femine itch?

Airlines - who flies where? when? why?

Politicians - who donates money to who? who 'knows' who?

Publishers - who reads what, when, where and in what form?

The direct mailer who sold you sex toys wants to understand your sexual needs and desires. (yuk!)

The multitude of corporations give you a toll-free number to make your life more convenient, give you the no charge debit card, give you credit card accounts, provide you with the 'chip' in the card, in your pet cat or implanted in you which activates your account - and companies you've never heard about harvest data from surveys, public records, credit card applications, warranty cards, and so many other forms, like giant combines harvesting wheat.

After the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, American aristocracy could not resist the promise that information technology could make them feel safe again. American aristocracy turned to computers, surveillance gear, and mountains of information about Americans as part of their nascent war on terror.

If law enforcement could only know nearly everything about everyone, American aristocracy reasoned, then law enforcement would be able to easily identify potential evil doers. Less would be unknown.

This imaginative ideology was foisted on the military and all levels of law enforcement.

This ideological fantasy required a data revolution to make it feasible on an epic scale and is only now possible due to the profound improvements in data storage.

After the terror attacks the federal government wedded itself to the information brokers and database marketers who had quietly amassed vast reservoirs of information about Americans and created tools to track, assess, and predict individual American behavior. The owners of the vast reservoirs of information about Americans understand and predict collective behavior better than an average American individual can predict his or her own individual behavior.

Government and corporations now use exactly the same tools to predict and modify collective as well as individual behavior. Government and corporate goals have become one and the same - predict and modify the behavior, collectively and individually, of every American. (Their collective goal is to make all Americans slap happy, sensually addicted adherents to the cult of materialistic consumerism.)

"The myth of the liberal media is continually advanced by conservatives. What drives coverage is corporate ownership, which is increasingly concentrated and beholden to advertisers, not to liberal values and ideals." - Bill Dunn

This successful endeavor, designed psychologically to alter common popular opinion to facilitate government and corporate control of the populace, uses mass media to modify the behavior of individual Americans collectively.

Purveyors of mass media engage in psycho logical operations to create popular cultural opinions, expectations and preconceptions.

Psycho logical operations are planned operations to convey selected information and opinions to select audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of organizations, groups, and ultimately individual Americans. (This is also the definition of marketing, see branding.)

Psycho logical operations became a standard part of federal government programs when the Psychological Strategy Board was established by a Harry S. Truman Presidential Directive of April 4, 1951. Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the name to the Operations Coordinating Board.

Psycho logical operations, psycho logical warfare or marketing is based on simply learning every little thing about your target audience, their beliefs, likes and dislikes, strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities. Once you know what motivates your target, you are ready to begin your mass media propaganda campaign.

Psycho logical operations, the use of deception, is one of the oldest weapons in the arsenal of man.

Psycho logical operations, known as marketing in it's milder form and propaganda in it's harsher forms, may be defined broadly as the planned use of communications to influence human beliefs, opinions and behavior ... to create in target audience or groups behavior, emotions, and opinions that support the attainment of objectives.

A psycho logical operations warfare or propaganda campaign is a war for the soul using deception.

The primary weapons used are sights and sounds.

Psycho logical operations can be disseminated by face-to-face communication, audio visual means (television), audio media (radio or loudspeaker), visual media (leaflets, newspapers, books, magazines and/or posters).

"Through their international news agencies they mould your minds and have you see the world not as it is, but as they want you to see it. Through their cinema, they are the educators of our youth - and with just one film in two hours, can wipe out of a child's brain what he has learned in six months in the home, the church or the school." - Adrien Arcand October 31, 1937

On the Earth today it is as easy to deceive through visual ‘reality' as it is to deceive with spoken fallacy. Computer-generated digital imagery images are easily manipulated making it extremely easy to stage and invent scenes as propaganda.

The signature image of the fall of Baghdad, the toppling of a statue of Saddam Hussein surrounded by a large, jostling crowd of celebrating Iraqis, was staged. The crowd was not the "massive demonstration" that was widely reported, a depiction buttressed by the dense congestion in the close-up images. A Reuters long-distance shot of the entire square where the statue was downed shows the crowd was small, no more than about 200 people. (Those 200 were all given asylum in the good old US of A.)

In February 2004 a 1972 image of Jane Fonda speaking at a Vietnam War protest in Miami Beach was spliced with a 1971 image of John Kerry preparing to speak at an antiwar rally in Mineola, New York. The composite image was designed to suggest that Kerry and Fonda had been closely allied in the Vietnam War antiwar effort, which they were not. This image raced around the web and convinced a large number of individuals of it's legitimacy.

Faking or staging photos is not a new idea. There are many ways to deceive the eye as any magician will attest to. The stakes in recent times have been particularly high and many individuals have been taken in repeatedly by potent fictions with serious consequences.

It is human nature to believe your eyes, giving images a visceral power words can not match.

Images are often the only thing individuals will recall.

A healthy dose of skepticism is needed in judging the authenticity of images.

Deceptive images that appear truthful and speed across the digital transom will continue to poison our sense of reality creating a conceptually false reality and re-writing history.

The fine point in the weapon of propaganda is not how the message is sent, but the message the weapon carries and how that message affects the recipient.

For instance, our American flag, when it goes by in a parade do you feel a sense of pride?

How about when you hear our American anthem played?

Music or sound can be a major factor in motivating emotion.

It has long been said that: "The pen is mightier than the sword".

That is because, if used properly, words can be an inspiration to motivate others.

Some examples:

"Remember the Alamo"

"Give me liberty or give me death"

"I regret I have but one life to give for my country"

"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

For psycho logical operations to be effective, you must carefully plan your propaganda campaign. You must make sure that you know every minor thing about your audience, that you are targeting audience beliefs and not using beliefs the target audience can easily identify as other than their own.

In a memo written to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles on 24 October 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower defined psycho logical operations warfare as any thing "from the singing of a beautiful anthem up to the most extraordinary category of physical sabotage."

Persuading rather than compelling physically, psycho logical operations warfare relies on false logic, fear, desire and/or other emotional factors to promote specific emotions, opinions or behaviors.

There are three ‘colors' of propaganda:

‘white'- truthfully-attributed and non-attributed messages.

‘gray'- falsely attributed to a third party messages.

‘black' - nothing less than a form of intellectual subversion.

The giant strides made in the area of behavioral, psycho logical sciences, which can now enable us to know and understand why humans behave as they do, combined with the development and perfection of mass media communications, have greatly multiplied the capability and intrinsic value of psycho logical operations as a means of achieving objectives.

Historically, the application of psycho logical operations in one form or another has proven to be almost as essential to the successful waging of war as the use of manpower and weaponry. Use of psycho logical operations as a force multiplier may be easily recognized in it's use by warriors and perceptive politicians.

Alexander the Great of Macedonia had conquered most of the known world during his reign. With each region he conquered he left behind soldiers to control the newly conquered area. At one point Alexander realized he had stretched his army too thin and he was now in danger of losing to a large opposing force. Alexander the Great's only option was to retreat and regroup forces with the armies he had left behind.

To do so would incite the opposing force to pursue him and possibly capture or defeat his now smaller army. Alexander the Great instructed his armor smiths to make several oversized armor breastplates and helmets that would fit "giants", men 7 to 8 feet tall.

As Alexander the Great and his forces withdrew during the night they left behind the oversized armor. The oversized armor was of course found by the opposing force who then were deceived into believeing that they had come close to engaging in a battle with giants.

A battle that they surely would have lost.

The oversized armor coupled with the stories they had heard from travelers of the savagery of Alexander the Great's army caused enough doubt and fear that they elected not to pursue Alexander the Great's army.

Sun Tsu, recognized as one of the greatest military tacticians of all times,
strongly advocated the use of psycho logical operations warfare as a force multiplier.

Sun Tsu wrote that:

"To capture the enemy's entire army is better than to destroy it; to take intact a regiment, a company, or a squad is better than to destroy them. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence. Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy. Next best is to disrupt his alliances by diplomacy. The next best is to attack his army. And the worst policy is to attack cities."

Sun Tzu understood that given the opportunity,
an adversary will surrender to a superior commander prior to conflict.

Mongol leader Genghis Khan was widely known for leading hordes of savage horsemen across Russia and into Europe. While not totally unfounded, the Mongols' image of total, barbaric domination was greatly enhanced by Genghis Khan's use of deception, operational security, and targeting his adversaries' decision-making process.

"Agents of influence" were sent in advance of his armies to do face-to-face warfare, telling of brutality and large numbers in the Mongol army. Genghis Khan also used deception to create the illusion of invincible numbers by using rapid troop maneuver, making his army look larger than it really was. Genghis Khan had a network of horsemen called "arrow riders" to communicate quickly with his commanders, and he targeted enemy messengers to prevent enemy commanders from communicating with each other. All these actions caused a weakness in the enemy's psyche, and the Mongols were feared wherever they went.

Adolf Hitler rose to power by exploiting the dissatisfaction of supporters of the traditional left and right wing parties, by dwelling on the failure of these parties to solve the problems created by the conditions imposed on Germany under the Treaty of Versailles.

Adolf Hitler then presented national socialism as the one movement capable of uniting conservative nationalists with international socialists, the professional classes with the working classes in the service of the nation. The speeches he delivered urged national pride and unity and placed the blame for all of Germany's problems on ‘others'.

Sound familiar?

Adolf Hitler's oratory techniques and use of propaganda gave him a truly hypnotic grip over the German masses. Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's minister of propaganda, practiced the techniques of psycho logical operations both to unite Germany and to intimidate their enemies.

The most well known innovative use of psycho logical operations warfare must be attributed to a radio broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC.

In 1940, when the German invasion of England seemed imminent, a regular BBC radio program, easily heard and often listened to by the Germans, began a series of English language lessons for the invaders. These broadcasts of course were presented in flawless German.

The British announcer stated the purpose of these broadcast like this:

"…..and so it will be best if you learn a few useful phrases in English before visiting us.

For your first lesson, we take ‘DIE KANAUEBERFAHRT'. The channel crossing."

"Now, just repeat after me: ‘DAS BOOT SINKT.' The boat is sinking. The boat is sinking"

"DAS WASSER IST KALT. The water is cold. SER KALT. Very cold"

"Now I will give you a verb that should be very useful. Again, please repeat after me. ICH BRENNE. I am burning. Du Brennst. You are burning. ER BRENNT. He is burning. WIR BRENNEN. We burn. IHR BRENNT. You are burning. SIR BRENNEN. They are burning."

This crude propaganda proved extremly effective. The phrases about burning in the English Channel seemed to confirm the intensive rumors already being spread by British agents on the continent that the British had perfected an apparatus with which they were going to set fires in the Channel and on the English beaches whenever Hitler launched his invasion.

Although not true, the rumors were so well planned and cleverly spread that to this day many Germans still believe them.

The power of the subconscious to facilitate belief should never be underestimated.

Documents found after the war confirmed that the German high command believed that the British had a workable plan to set fire to the English Channel. Masters of propaganda were beaten at their own trick! Obviously they were not in touch with their subconscious.

This propaganda worked on a subconscious level as a fantasy seen as a reality.

Perhaps the most ambitious and spectacular psycho logical operations of modern times was the effort of the Allies to convince the German high command that the upcoming Allied invasion of Europe would occur across the beaches near the Pas de Calais.

Psycho logical operations of the Allies created the fictitious "Army group Patton," which was poised to strike across the English Channel at the Germans 15th Panzer Army defending the Pas de Calais.

Even after the Allied invasion came at Normandy, Adolf Hitler would not allow for the deployment of the 15th Panzer Army from the Pas de Calais. Adolf Hitler was convinced that the Normandy invasion was only a prelude to the real invasion. The 15th Panzer Army waited in vain at the Pas de Calais for nearly SEVEN WEEKS for Army group Patton, an invasion that was never to come.

General of the army Omar Bradley later referred to this propaganda operation as "the biggest hoax of the war".

The German army never fully recovered from the reversals
set in motion by their delay in releasing the 15th Panzer army and Germany lost the war as a result.

The next example concerns another objective of psycho logical operations, it's use is to promote cooperation, unity and morale within a target audience.

With Josef Stalin's regime reeling under the blows of the German blitz in 1941, Josef Stalin sensed that the ideological abstractions and communist platitudes, which the communist party had driven into the minds of its captive domestic audience were in reality barren. Ideological abstractions and communist platitudes did not have the emotional and spiritual impact necessary to fortify the Russian people for their struggle against Hitler's armies.

Therefore, Josef Stalin systematically set about identifying the communist regime with "Holy Russia", "Mother Russia", Russia's ancient heritage and the accompanying archetypical symbolism.

The two Russian institutions with the deepest roots in the past, the army and the church, were cultivated by Josef Stalin's propagandists as never before in the Soviet Socialist Union's history.

The historic accomplishments of Russian armies were glorified. The church hierarchy and class distinctions were returned to pre-revolution standards. "PRAVDA," dropped its Marxist motto, "WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE," and substituted the openly nationalistic slogan, "DEATH TO THE GERMAN INVADER."

The ensuing struggle became and is still officially known in Soviet history as "The Great Patriotic War".

Even Josef Stalin, one of the most ruthless murdering dictators of the 20th Century, realized that his conventional military weapons alone, were not enough to meet the challenge of the German armies.

Josef Stalin's choice of utilizing psycho logical operations to augment his conventional military forces played a major role in maintaining the survival of his communist regime.

By this time radio broadcasts had become a major means of passing propaganda and deceiving the target audience.

During WWII Japan used the notorious "Tokyo Rose" to broadcast music,
propaganda, and words of discouragement to allied forces.

The Germans used Mildred Gillar, better remembered as "Axis Sally".

In Vietnam "Hanoi Hannah" broadcasted a daily radio program where she played music, coupled with the North's view of the news and messages of discouragement to our troops.

Today Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Al Franken and Howard Stern are heard throughout America.

"I submit that as long as folks continue to belly up to the trough to feed on the slop that folks like Rush Limbaugh are serving daily on talk radio, despicable lies will still be credited as truth." - Gary L. Platt

American propagandist's ability to divide the American people
into ideological divisions is quite easy to recognize.

A truly effective psycho logical operations program must have the input of highly-qualified clinical psychologists " who specialize in the unconscious dynamics of human behavior and motivation'' (ie market specialists) and who are knowledgeable about the "social and cultural values of different target audiences.''

Through mass media communications, market specialists have demonstrated , time and time again, that they can appeal to the emotions of the target audience to get them to think and act as they desire.

"In order to turn reluctant consumers with few unsatisfied core needs into permanent shoppers, consumer product producers must dumb down consumers by shaping their wants essentially taking over their lives by encouraging impulse buying, cultivating shopoholism and manufacturing new desires." - Benjamin R. Barber

It should be clear, anyone with vision will see, that modern psycho logical operations in the form of marketing and advertising are embedded within all mass media and that Americans are exposed to it every day.

As well as corporate interests the State, which is firmly in the control of American aristocracy, uses communications via mass media to build an image of reality concordant with the interests of American aristocracy.

Psycho logical operations are a vital part of the broad range of American political, military, economic and ideological activities used by the American government to secure objectives of American aristocracy by the government's own admission. (See Federal Bureau of Investigation and propaganda, Central Intelligence Agency and propaganda, the broadcasting board of governors, the Gulf war, Gulf of Tonkin and the Committee of Public Information as examples)

Psycho logical operations prevent many Americans from recognizing the simple truth that this deception creates a conceptual fallacy within which individual understanding of the reality of the Earth is warped, American's place on the Earth is elevated to godlike status and American notions of freedom are corrupted along with popular historical American ethical beliefs.

As Americans are begining to awaken to the reality of mass media's psycho logical operations and deception they are turning away from mass media monopolies as shown in the following mass media study:

mass media study finds few bright spots to report

The audience for most news mass media outlets is either shrinking or stagnant, according to a study released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The study examined newspaper, television, magazines, radio and internet news industries, and found that only online journalism and ethnic or alternative sources of news, such as Spanish language newspapers, are seeing growth.

"We're in a period of change and dislocation," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, part of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

The study found that English language newspaper circulation has declined 11% since 1990 and network evening news ratings are down 34% over the last decade. Despite major news events such as the war in Iraq, the median cable news audience has not grown since 2001.

The study also found that, overall, trust in news sources is down. The percentage of people who believe what they read in newspapers has declined from 80% in 1985 to 59% in 2003, and the percentage who give high grades in credibility to network news dropped from 74% in 1996 , to 65% in 2002.

"Most of what we, the audience, thinks is news is just PR that is pitched to program producers by the publicity department of an entity with a vested interest in seeing that person or idea promoted." - Nancy Snow

"As a democracy we extol the virtues of the free press, but the reality is that our press really is not free." - Syed Hussani

deception

"The major news media have failed the American public for years and are still doing so." - Darrell Williams

The most insidious part of any deception is not its outrageous claims but its appeal to the needs of its potential audience. The real art of deception lies in understanding how subtle touches and preconceptions can be twisted in the minds of the audience.

Successful deception requires a cooperative audience. The key is finding smart people with shared expectations and preconceptions. These people are then hired to staff think tanks. Audiences with shared expectations and preconceptions will make allowances, will reach the 'right' conclusion and will unwittingly participate in the deception. This is the case with all celebrity figures which include news anchors, talk show hosts, movie stars, well known authors, corporate CEO's and popular politicians all of which have an economic interest in furthering the status quo.

Deception may require complicity, but a little disorientation helps as well.

Indian street fakirs, sleight of hand artists, have a simple game: Indian street fakirs get their audiences to laugh, then tap into another emotion, fear. Once frightened their marks are ripe to be sold whatever is promised to soothe their fear. The need for emotional comfort will often overrule reason. The fakir's amulets and rings are guaranteed to assure an emotionally 'happy' ending.

"The psychology of deception is not a mature field, and the neural mechanisms that underlie the ability to intentionally suppress, distort, or fabricate information are not yet well understood. Consequently, if the investment is correct in stating that confidence in a given technique will require a solid theoretical base, then a significant research investment into the underlying neuropsychological mechanisms of deception must be made before any practical system for detecting deception can be developed and employed." - Intelligence Science Board Study on Educing Information

Deceptions are extremely useful in the halls of commerce and politics.

"Deceit fills hearts that are plotting evil." - Proverbs 12:20

Marketers, politicians and pundits play on our fears
then deliver the fatherly, and false, embrace of their protection.

Fairness Doctrine

"The idea that somebody's home-made Internet content can ever have the wide audience and reach of a big city newspaper, a television network like Fox or a radio show like Rush Limbaugh's is merely a variation of the old argument that the rich and the poor are equally free to sleep under a bridge.

Under today's privatized, hyper-concentrated American media system, the views of those with money and power are disproportionately represented. Those who oppose American imperialism and pro-corporate trade policy, and who advocate labor rights and serious pro-consumer regulation of corporations, have to struggle to be heard at all.

To say Americans don't need the Fairness Doctrine because opinions censored by private owners of big media companies can still appear somewhere on the Internet - even though only a tiny fraction of the public will ever encounter them - is to proclaim the absolute right to forward only opinions of the plutocrats and oligarches controlling the industrial-military-media-corporate complex." - Mark Gabrish Conlan

From the birth of the broadcasting industry, the airwaves - from which most Americans obtain their news - were regarded and regulated as a public trust, a communal resource like the clean air and clean water, the commons.

The Federal Radio Act of 1927 required that broadcasters, as a condition of their licenses, operate in the public interest by covering important policy issues and providing equal time to both sides of public questions.

Those requirements evolved into the powerful Fairness Doctrine, which mandated that the broadcast media has a duty to maintain an informed public. Broadcasters had to set aside time to air program content that was community-based and program content made for children. The rules set were weighted to encourage diversity of ownership and local control.

The Fairness Doctrine governed television and radio for most of the twentieth century.

In the 1960s the Federal Communications Commission and the courts applied the Fairness Doctrine to require cigarette manufacturers to include the surgeon general's warnings in their television and radio advertisements, and polluters to notify the public when advertising a polluting product. Advertisers of gas guzzling automobiles, for example, had to provide rebuttal time for public interest advocates to debate the impact of wasteful fuel consumption on our environment and public health.

"The clear intent was to prevent a monopoly of commercial values from overwhelming democratic values - to assure that the official image of reality - corporate or government - was not the only image of reality that reached the people." - Bill Moyers

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Fairness Doctrine in the Red Lion case in 1969, confirming that it is "the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters which is paramount."

Ronald Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine in 1988 as a favor to the studio heads that supported his election.

A Syracuse, New York, television station had broadcast nine paid editorials advocating the construction of a nuclear power plant. When the station refused to air opposing viewpoints an anti-nuke group complained. The three Ronald Reagan appointees who ran the Federal Communications Commission sided with the television station, applying the same laissez-faire philosophy to the airwaves as the Ronald Reagan administration did to the other parts of the commons.

They reasoned that the recent proliferation of cable television allays the Supreme Court's concern that listeners and viewers have access to diverse sources of information.

Broadcasters would henceforth be under no obligation to air views that opposed their own.

Today cable operators carry C-SPAN which covers legislative and public policy issues. The State and American aristocracy claims that opposing views are aired on C-SPAN.

How many Americans actually watch C-SPAN?

"C-SPAN is seen regularly by twice as many men as women. Less well educated individuals and those who do not use computers most often say they never watch the channel." - Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

In January 1995, C-SPAN launched Washington Journal, a political talkshow that C-SPAN now describes as its “flagship viewer call-in program.” Airing seven mornings a week, usually three hours per day, Washington Journal generally features a host, guests and viewer calls.

Extra! studied Washington Journal’s guestlist, tabulating all 663 guests that appeared on the show in the six-month period from November 1, 2004 to April 30, 2005. Guests were classified by gender, ethnicity, party affiliation (if any) and profession. The study also looked at the think tanks most prominently represented on the television show.

Extra!’s study found Washington Journal skewing rightward, favoring Republican and right-of-center interview subjects by considerable margins over Democratic and left-of-center guests. The study also found that women, people of color and public interest viewpoints were substantially under represented.

Republicans outnumbered Democrats nearly two to one. No representative of a third party appeared during the study period. The American Enterprise Institute and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace were the best-represented think tanks, providing ten guests each. The Brookings Institution had seven guests, followed by the Heritage Foundation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, two conservative groups whose experts each appeared five times. Among left-leaning think tanks, only the Center for International Policy provided as many as two guests. Citizen-based organizations and public interest groups accounted for just nine percent of total guests. Union representatives, environmentalists and consumer rights groups accounted for just six guest appearances, or one percent of the total.

"No more than four out of ten [cable viewers] ever watch C-SPAN.

I took at face value what people were saying - in the government and in the mass media and in business over the years - that all they really cared about was fairness and objectivity.

The closer I got to it, the less I believed they really cared about was fairness and objectivity.

I don't want the government to tell me what I can listen to.

I would trust the public at large any day to make a decision over what is good and what is evil and how many choices there are out there before I would a government based in Washington were there is a sense that only a certain group of people should be controlling the air waves, because they're more responsible and they have the right kind of opinions.

To put a media industry represenative on the Federal Communications Commission and say, "You decide what's fair" is outrageous!

We've asked to put our own cameras in the chamber of the House and the Senate, and have been laughed at. We show up with our cameras, and they'll have a public meeting, and then they'll shut it down and do private meetings until they get their decisions made, and you'll never see how the deals are cut.

Telecommunications has been this humongous tin cup for politicians for a lot of years, and it's gotten to the point where you've got to watch very carefully to see why a new piece of legislation is dropped in the hopper because it could do nothing more or less than generate tremendous amounts of money into the political coffers of both parties."
- Brian Lamb, CEO C-SPAN

The State does not want an educated public that is why the State reduced funds for public television and radio by $95 million in 2006.

Concerns that the loss of the nation's most popular open forum diminished American democracy were scoffed at by Ronald Reagan's Federal Communications Commission chairman.

"Television is just another appliance - it's a toaster with images." - Mark Fowler

The Federal Communications Commission's pro-industry, anti-regulatory philosophy effectively ended the right of access to broadcast television by any but moneyed interests. As an unregulated part of the commons, television and radio are today subject to the same dynamic that is polluting our other public trust assets, with behemoths consolidating control of the airwaves.

Absent a resurrection of the Fairness Doctrine, America's broadcast mass media, which should include an open forum for American democracy, will continue to devolve into a marketplace exclusively for commerce. It allows corporations to extend the reach of their empires into American homes with customized, interactive multimedia transforming American's into 24-hour-a-day consumers.

The news and entertainment is now dictated by advertisers with personalized appeals calculated to program American's to buy, buy, buy.

American civic life, already invisible on television, will become an irrelevant relic to the next generation which will know little about relevant issues or why they should participate in democracy.

adapted from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Crimes Against Nature

News Distortion Rule

In 2003, the North American winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the "Nobel Prize for grass roots work," were former Fox television network reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson. The two investigative reporters lost their jobs when they refused to change a news report that had displeased Monsanto.

The reporters had visited regional dairies and discovered that Monsanto's bovine growth hormone was being injected into cows. The chemical was present in the state's milk supply despite commitments by Florida's supermarkets not to sell milk tainted by bovine growth hormone.

In various studies bovine growth hormone has been linked to cancer and is banned by many countries, including Canada, New Zealand, and the entire European community. Jane Akre and Steve Wilson's report said that Monsanto had been accused of fraud in connection with information it had provided to the Environmental Protection Agency concerning food safety and had attempted to bribe public officials in Canada.

Jane Akre and Steve Wilson testified that the local Fox television network station manager, David Boylan, carefully reviewed the investigative reports for factual accuracy, found no errors, and scheduled them to run the following week. Monsanto hired a powerful law firm before the show ran and threatened to sue Fox television network if the report was run. The station offered Monsanto an opportunity to appear on the show and respond but Monsanto declined the offer.

Jane Akre and Steve Wilson testified that the local Fox television network station manager, David Boylan, then ordered the reporters to edit the show in a way that was favorable to Monsanto and deceptive. Declining to cooperate in the deception both reporters were given a ‘special assignment' with full salaries for their contract period provided they agreed to sign a confidentiality agreement and provide a report acceptable to Monsanto. For nine months they worked on 83 different drafts of the story - none of which satisfied Monsanto.

"For every fact we intended to broadcast, we had documentation six weeks from Sunday. The station's lawyer told us, 'You don't get it. It doesn't matter what the facts are, we don't want to be spending money to defend a lawsuit.'" - Steve Wilson

Jane Akre testified that the station had tried to force her to say that the bovine growth hormone milk was safe and no different from milk without bovine growth hormone, despite abundant studies that proved otherwise. "We told them to go ahead and kill the story," Steve Wilson says, "just don't make us lie."

They were fired. They sued. They won on whistleblower statute law. Overturned on appeal.

The Federal Communications Commission's 50 year old News Distortion Rule which prohibits broadcast of false reports was declared to not qualify under the whistleblower statute since it had been created over the years in judicial decisions and was never promulgated in a rule creation process.

- adapted from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Crimes Against Nature

Monsanto is a perfect example of a rogue corporation that has only one concern, profit. Monsanto does not care about the ultimate effect of its products on people or how its products might be detrimental to humanity as a whole.

In February 2006 Monsanto agreed to pay $100 million to the University of California for patent infringement. It seems that University of California scientists patented the bovine growth hormone that Monsanto pushes. So, apparently, Monsanto has no qualms about stealing either.

fair advertising and government bodies

Dairy cows live miserable lives on over crowded dirt lots. Dairy cows are artificially inseminated annually because they do not produce milk without pregnancies. Dairy cows are pumped full of hormones, including bovine growth hormones, so that they will give 10 times as much milk as they would naturally. Their calves are carted off to veal crates. Then at about age 5, the 'happy' cows are turned into hamburgers.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, PETA, filed a law suit that stated that the California Milk Advisory Board, a State of California governmental agency, had falsely advertised the condition in which dairy cattle live in it's "happy cows" advertising campaign.

PETA's suit failed on the grounds that government institutions are exempt from fair advertising laws.

Government institutions are free to say whatever they want, even if what is said is entirely false. And they do so with regularity in their attempt to forward whatever policy is now on their agenda.

So the basic truth comes down to this:

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe anything that a government employee or agency states to be a fact as those employees and agencies have no obligation whatsoever to tell the truth.

"If you're in government, you can lie to your heart's content so long as the lie is intended to advance your agenda." - Jonathan Chait

blogging

Think that blog opinion is honest? Think again. Thousands of bloggers are writing sponsored posts.

"Using a blog to attract and engage customers is fast becoming a popular marketing strategy." - Karen E. Klein

Check out PayPerPost Inc. which states on it's web site:

"PayPerPost is the leading marketplace for Consumer Generated Advertising. The PayPerPost platform connects advertisers and Consumer Content Creators to deliver compelling marketing messages. The marketplace is fueled by the self-expression of bloggers, videographers, photographers, podcasters and participants in social networks."

A blogger convention teaches bloggers how to "monetize your voice."

"Why should you attend PostieCon '07? Two words: Rock Star. Bloggers and Internet personalities are the Rock Stars of the information age. Bloggers reach millions of dedicated fans on a day to day basis, it's easy to see why today's humble blogger could potentially be tomorrow's Rock Star. That's why PostieCon '07's theme is "You're A Rock Star". We are here to educate bloggers on how to build traffic and readership, and use your notoriety and unique brand to create value and monetize your voice."

"Advertisers are trying to buy a blogger's voice, and once they've bought it they own it." - Jeff Jarvis

"PayPerPost versus authentic blogging is like comparing prostitution with making love to someone you care for deeply." - Jason MaCabe Calacanis

Other pay per post sites include ReviewMe, Loud Launch, SponsoredReviews.com.

Here I must disclose all the sponsors for unique-library. There are no sponsors! And there is only one writer/editor - me.

Blogging has become just another way for commercial endeavors to propagandize.

"Corporate blogs are giving established companies and obscure brands alike the ability to connect with their audiences on a more personal level, build trust, collect valuable feedback and foster strengthened business relationships. More importantly, these companies are enjoying tangible returns in their blogging investment in the form of increased sales, partnerships, business opportunities, press coverage and lead generation." - http://www.backbonemedia.com

CEO and exec bloggers include Alan Meckler, Bill Marriott, Bob Langert, Bob Lutz, Bob Parsons, David Bain, David Sifry, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Jonathan Schwartz, Karen Christensen, Mark Cuban, Richard Edelman, Ted Leonsis and Zane Safrit.

Alan Meckler = Jupitermedia, Inc.; Bill Marriott = Marriott International; Bob Langert = Senior Director for Corporate Social Responsibility at McDonald's; Robert "Bob" A. Lutz = General Motors Vice Chairman of Product Development and Chairman of GM North America; Bob (Robert) Parsons = CEO and founder of Go Daddy; David Bain = 'viral mrketing' PurpleInternetMarketing.com; Dave Sifry = Technorati; Irving Wladawsky-Berger = Chairman Emeritus, IBM Academy of Technology; Jonathan Ian Schwartz = President and CEO of Sun Microsystems; Karen Christensen = CEO Berkshire Publishing Group; Richard Edelman = CEO Edelman, first to employ the Web in crisis management; Ted Leonsis = Vice Chairman of America Online; Zane Safrit, CEO Conference Calls Unlimited.

Journalistic Integrity

"The single most frightening aspect of our current national dilemma is the abdication of the media's responsibility to report important news." - Steve Cagan 11/26/07

"Our analysis confirms an economically significant demand for news slanted toward one's own political ideology." - Matthew Gentzkow, Jesse M. Shapiro, November 2006

"There is universal distrust of the media by Americans, because of their notorious monopoly and bias. The media unanimously urge higher taxes on working people, more government spending, a welfare state with totalitarian powers, close relations with Russia, and a rabid denunciation of anyone who opposes Communism." - Eustace Mullins

"It is a fact that most editors and newsmen on the staffs of Life, Look, Time, Newsweek, etc., and most editors, reporters, and commentators at NBC, CBS, and ABC take their news and editorial cues from the New York Times. Technically, it is a great newspaper; but it reports much of the news in conformity with its editorial policies." - Alice Widener

I hardly ever see anything on the nightly news about these corporations doing anything sinister

I hardly ever see anything on the nightly news about these corporations doing anything sinister

"Years ago, if I wanted to place a bad story, I would have to con-vince an investigative reporter. He'd resist due to journalistic standards. He'd have to spend weeks, if not months, on the research." - Eric Dezenhall

"The days when dignity counted for anything on this continent are long gone. A society afflicted with an almost pornographic fascination with the foibles of the idle rich has no time to spend thinking about the poor, and, as a result, the lower classes have largely dropped off the radar screen. The agenda-setting tendencies of the media have had much to do with this. A profession once dominated by tough, streetwise refugees from the working class is now dominated by dainty alumni from our finest schools, people to whom poverty is not only unpleasant and unhygienic but totally uncool." - Joe Queenan

Journalism of verification has ceded ground for years on talk shows and cable to a new journalism of assertion, where information is offered with meager attempts independently verify the informations veracity.

The result is that stories are sometimes true and sometimes false.

All this makes it easier for those who would manipulate public opinion - government, think tanks and corporations.

Those who distrust the news media are often heavier consumers of news outlets than those who are more trusting. This is explained by the fact that there is so much conflicting content.

Journalists need to make significant changes by documenting their reporting process openly so that audiences can decide for themselves whether to trust their reports.

Viewers of PBS will see a different range of concerns from those who watch cable, where entertainment and celebrity are a notable part of the agenda.

On Fox news, the journalists themselves offer their opinions, without attribution to any reporting, in seven out of ten stories. That happens in less than one story out of ten on CNN, and in fewer than three stories out of ten on MSNBC. Fox news' stories are more deeply sourced than those of its cable rivals, but are also more one-sided. PBS's NewsHour, however, is noticeably even more thorough in its sourcing.

"News organizations often willingly collude with efforts to censor because media owners are members of the political elite themselves and therefore share the goals and outcomes of government leaders. Profit ranks higher than truth telling in the minds of media owners and many of their employees." - Nancy Snow

"In 2004 magazines, the big new growth area is in

(or psychological operations)

"Capture the press! Through it everything will come to you in the natural course of events." - Adolphe Cremioux* 1907

"Persuasion is often more effectual than force and appearances often are deceiving." - Aesop

"Inevitably, the media create a circus, elevating everything and elucidating nothing." - Stephany Yablow