Military Admits Planting "News"

On Friday, Pentagon officials confirmed, in a 25-minute briefing with Sen. John Warner (R-VA, Chair, Armed Services Committee) it had paid for "news" articles to be run in Iraqi papers and that all were not properly identified as paid advertisements. In addition, the Pentagon has run a program that pays Iraqi journalists a monthly stipend. Editorial boards large and small and columnists have criticized the act.

Allentown (PA) Morning Call, 'Planted' stories in Iraqi news media undermine truth, U.S. mission, 6 December 2005

Both the President and Vice President Dick Cheney have criticized U.S. reporters for not reporting positive news about U.S. troops. If the ''truth'' comes only after secret payments, then it isn't much truth at all...

But earlier this year it was revealed that secret payments to journalists were part of the Bush administration's communication policy. Columnists Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher received $240,000 and $21,500, respectively, to write columns for U.S. newspapers in support of administration policies. President Bush ended the practice after it had been exposed, sending the message, one supposes, that paying for what looks like news no longer was acceptable in his administration.

Someone in the Pentagon wasn't paying attention.

The Daily Free Press (Boston University), Staff Edit: Pentagon propaganda, 6 December 2005

U.S. military officials in Iraq said the program is "a function of buying advertising and opinion-editorial space, as is customary in Iraq." It may be customary in a country not supported by democracy, but that is exactly what the United States is there for, to change the custom to one supported by Western principles...

Benjamin Franklin said that if he had to choose between the existence of government and the existence of fair journalism, he would certainly choose the latter. Though we support the existence of both, in a democratic country they should at least remain independent from one another.

Miami Herald, All the good news that money can buy, 5 December 2005

The Pentagon's ill-advised campaign to plant positive stories in the Iraqi media is disgusting no matter how you look at it. It insults the intelligence of the Iraqi people, undermines the U.S. war effort and delivers a black eye to the purported U.S. campaign to promote democracy throughout the Middle East...

The hubris inherent in the propaganda campaign presumes that Iraqis cannot properly judge the war's effect on their lives in all that they see around them. The campaign undercuts the credibility of the military's erstwhile efforts to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

USA Today, Another credibility gap widens in Iraq, 5 December 2005

... Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "In Vietnam, the Johnson Administration misled journalists and the public, and both stopped believing what they said. In this case, bribing and misleading the fledgling Iraqi press will undermine trust in that press. It risks causing the most credible journalists in that country to doubt what U.S. officials tell them."

See prior coverage and Issue Analysis: Covert Propaganda.

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Source: Eric Schmitt, The New York Times