Anatomy of a Media Manipulation...

In “Whatever happened to the "ground zero mosque”?”, Salon Writer Justin Elliot nails media manipulation by a manufactured story to the door. Having lived through that episode and commented on it at democratic underground and elsewhere, it is clear that the idea for this story was simply to manufacture outrage, to get people frightened, and stampede them to the voting booth.


Now, that the election is over, we are off to other stories that get the electorate riled and scared. It is interesting that we can see here just how we were manipulated. Whatever side of the story people supported, it did not matter. The only point was to frighten people through media manipulation. Now that it is passed, the “ground zero mosque” is being built and the tempest in the teapot is over.


The much vaunted free press in the U.S. of A. does not exist. People might as well read the droppings on the bottom of a bird cage to get information. Shit in, Shit out.


Now, that all the rage is the “Debt Ceiling” it seems to me that we are watching another media event brought to you by information manipulators. We will take up positions to defend, and say the other side is stupid.


Maybe the story isn’t “ground zero mosque”, “Debt Ceiling”, or any other manufactured event to keep the entrenched sides entrenched and facing each other over a no man’s land of old entrenchments. Maybe the story is Oz, behind his smokes and fires telling us what to be frightened of. And maybe the trench we set in doesn’t matter.

*Cross posted at [link://eclecticwriter.posterous.com/Eclectic Writer\

What one could say is "whatever the actual facts of the story, it did not matter".

Secondly, we do have a free press. They are free to print what they are fed or paid to print.

What we do not have is a mainstream truly labor-supportive press.

of manipulating fear and outrage. People were needed in the trenches to fight over the story and keep in public view.

A labor-supportive press, would be no less biased, only biased in a different way.

I can't find the text of the Rolling Stone article. However, this DU thread from 2005 quotes a portion. Thanks to DUer shance, wherever you are these days.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5387558

"Oct. 20, 1977

In 1953, Joseph Alsop, then one of America’s leading syndicated columnists, went to the Philippines to cover an election. He did not go because he was asked to do so by his syndicate. He did not go because he was asked to do so by the newspapers that printed his column. He went at the request of the CIA.

Alsop is one of more than 400 American journalists who in the past twenty-five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters.

(snip)

The history of the CIA’s involvement with the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and deception . . . .

Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were William Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Time Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the Louisville Courier-Journal and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, The Miami Herald, and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald-Tribune. By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with The New York Times, CBS, and Time Inc.

(snip)

Many journalists were used by the CIA to assist in this process and they had the reputation of being among the best in the business. The peculiar nature of the job of the foreign correspondent is ideal for such work; he is accorded unusual access, by his host country, permitted to travel in areas often off-limits to other Americans, spends much of his time cultivating sources in governments, academic institutions, the military establishment and the scientific communities. He has the opportunity to form long-term personal relationships with sources and -- perhaps more than any other category of American operative -- is in a position to make correct judgments about the susceptibility and availability of foreign nationals for recruitment as spies.
http://www.unknownnews.net/hh030102.html "

Oooh, big, Big, BIG news this morning! The House is going to vote to repeal health care reform next week! They'll repeal it! Wow, wow, wow! This is a big fucking deal, folks.

And not one peep about what it means: Less than a fart in a frying pan. The Toady Show correspondent grudgingly admitted that anything passed out of the House was going to die in the Senate, but there was no acknowledgment that this was just political grandstanding by a bunch of spoiled children pandering to their yammering base. No, we're to be given the full treatment of hysterical reporting, the upshot of which will be how the Republicans are keeping their promises or something. Yes indeed, we need to go back to the days of denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions, even for newborns!