It simply feeds perception of US as inept&hypocritical puppetmaster

The Real Price Of Propaganda
Exporting a bunch of budding Jayson Blairs simply feeds the unhelpful image of Americans as inept and hypocritical puppetmasters.

Iraq: Policy & Propaganda
12/4/05: Michael Hirsh, NEWSWEEK senior editor, Washington; and Jonathan Alter, NEWSWEEK Columnist/NBC news analyst

This outsourcing of covert propaganda (everything is outsourced these days) tells us a lot about the two biggest stories around—the venality of Republican Washington and the colossal failure in Iraq—and how they're connected by a shadowy world of global public relations. We got into the war with the help of something called the Rendon Group, a secretive firm that won a huge government contract to "create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power." (According to an article by James Bamford in last week's Rolling Stone, Rendon invented the "Iraqi National Congress" and put Judith Miller and other reporters in touch with their bum sources on WMD.) Now the PR pork scandal is moving to a different level. This year, the Pentagon granted three contractors $300 million over five years to offer "creative ideas" for psychological operations aimed at what the PR experts call "international perception management." That $300 million will buy a lot of Arabic press releases, but it's unavailable for, say, body armor.

Obviously the United States needs to do better in countering Arab libels. But the cold war taught us that propaganda works best when it's served straight up—by Radio Free Europe (a hugely positive influence) or by the commercial broadcasters who hawked capitalism behind the Iron Curtain. Some of that is going on in today's Middle East. The beaming of American-produced Farsi programming into Iran, for instance, is working well. It's the culture of secrecy, self-dealing and subversion of truth that's killing us.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10313724/site/newsweek/from/RSS/

could actually create some good, like fix the power or water. Then reporters could write actual stories about it.

No, it's all about perception and propaganda with these people. It seem they actually think an impression is better than something being true. Maybe because you can control an impression, but not the truth?