NBC anchor Williams: Bush administration has "right" to buy media coverage

http://mediamatters.org/items/200512050010

Appearing on the December 4 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams told host Howard Kurtz that the Bush administration has "the right" to pay a columnist to tout its views in his column. Williams also condoned the "politiciz" of programming on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS).

Discussing the recent disclosure by the Los Angeles Times of, in Kurtz's words, the "Pentagon planting positive stories, in some cases paying for positive stories in Iraqi newspapers," Kurtz asked Williams for his views on the propriety of actions in which the administration and former Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson were reportedly involved, including: 1) the administration's payment of $240,000 to conservative pundit Armstrong Williams in exchange for promoting the administration's No Child Left Behind education policy; and, 2) Tomlinson's alleged use of "political tests" for hiring a president and chief executive officer (CEO) for CPB and Tomlinson's involvement in direct contact with Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul A. Gigot while securing a programming spot for the Gigot-hosted PBS program The Journal Editorial Report. Asked by Kurtz if the two incidents were something to be "worr about," Brian Williams, who had moments earlier emphasized that expressing opinion is "a line I've always been unwilling to cross," responded: "Well, this is all part of the -- they have the right to do this on their team, I think."

Contrary to Brian Williams's claim that the Bush administration, Armstrong Williams, and Tomlinson have a "right" to engage in such activities, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and CPB's inspector general have determined otherwise.

In a September 30 report by General Counsel Anthony H. Gamboa, the GAO found that the Department of Education "violated the fiscal year 2004 publicity or propaganda prohibition" by contracting with Ketchum Inc. to obtain commentary by Armstrong Williams without requiring Ketchum to ensure that Williams disclosed the Education Department's role. The GAO similarly found that Armstrong Williams's commentary "violated the publicity or propaganda prohibition because it was 'covert,' in that it did not disclose to the targeted audiences that it was sponsored by the Department and was paid for using appropriated funds."

:thumbsup:

Ummm ... isn't there a law against propaganda?

who put it in the catapult :sarcasm:

The BEEF don't need laws.

So that way it will be OK for a Democratic president to pay off the LA Times, Washington Post for puff-piece stories, along with Molly Ivins, Clarence Page and Paul Krugman.

Brian Williams is a whore.

the largest Military Defense Contractors to say? He was bought and paid for years ago.

if someone in our media is being paid by a politician to further said politician's agenda?




























Oh, that's right, we were not using the free press anyway! :grr:

Taxpayers again?

Why wasn't it public information?

Who owns Brian Williams?

Is Williams another Operation "Mockingbird"?

So if Bush is allowed to "buy" media, why isn't everyone else?

eom

Contact him at Nightly@NBC.com I told him he was certainly no Brokaw and certainly should not promote the RW agenda at taxpayer's expense.

or are they just brothers in whoredom?

you can pay anyone you want, as long as every time they talk about you, they say "full disclosure, NNN0LHI pays me a consulting salary" or some such thing.

how much they got ...and right up front and throughout the piece.

as explained in "Public Opinion" by political writer Walter Lippmann (ca 1921)

"the manufacture of consent ... a revolution in the practice of democracy"... a technique of control "usefull and necesary, because the general interests elude the public"... this has to be the domain of "a specialized class"..


That's where Noam Chomsky got the title for his book "Manufacturing Consent".

It's all propaganda and distraction from the truth and what Americans need to know the most.

Malloy was telling on his show he was with a friend or former co-worker at CNNI and this person he was with could point out who was CIA and who wasn't. According to him this was quite a good while ago too, so it's been a practice for a long time. So I wonder if Mr. Williams answers to any CIA.

Everyone should know about the role of PR (propaganda) has played since WWI.

Start with Edward Bernays, and work your way up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

very nice...
It's interesting to see what's known to the politically educated, while it's unknown to the public at large. 'They' have this PR thing down as a science, while we don't even realize it's being used on us.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
"Bernays also pioneered the PR industry's use of psychology and other social sciences to design its public persuasion campaigns. "If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it," Bernays argued. He called this scientific technique of opinion molding the "engineering of consent."

One of Bernays's favorite techniques for manipulating public opinion was the indirect use of "third party authorities" to plead for his clients' causes. "If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway," he said. In order to promote sales of bacon, for example, he conducted a survey of physicians and reported their recommendation that people eat hearty breakfasts. He sent the results of the survey to 5,000 physicians, along with publicity touting bacon and eggs as a hearty breakfast."

<more>

A check to the plebian demagogues of the equestrian order in the lower house. The Founding Fathers loved the Roman Republic, there's no coincidence that the same mechanisms to control popular revolt in a democracy would take the same form. Heck were even bombing carthage.
:freak:

for information, he wouldn’t embarress himself on TV making uninformed statements.

the law. It's illegal for the government to propagandize.

Hell, they bought off William's happy ass years ago, so Brian just figures that is the natural state for all journalists, bought and paid for propaganda whores. He knows no different.

And it is also natural for Brian to think that politics should play a part in the hiring and firing of the heads of PBS and CPB. Politics played a part in his own hiring so :shrug:

Yep, Williams and NBC, bought and paid for media whores, spewing out that propaganda for their corporate master, GE. I wonder how much money GE has made off of this illegal, immoral war? Enough that they keep pumping it up every chance they get.

I am thinking- damn close!

said:

I do listen to Rush. I listen to it from a radio in my office, or depending on my day, if I'm in the car, I will listen to Rush. And he will tell you I've been listening for years. I think it's my duty to listen to Rush. I think Rush has actually yet to get the credit he is due, because his audience for so many years felt they were in the wilderness of this country. No one was talking to them.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200501240007