The Treason of the Truth

For those keeping score, James Bamford's December 1 article "The Man Who Sold the War" has sparked a battle of its own -- between the investigative journalist who penned the piece and its subject, John Rendon, founder of the Rendon Group.

The Rolling Stone exposé, which ranks among 2005's best investigative pieces, presents an iron-clad case that the Bush administration -- working hand in glove with Rendon's propaganda machinery -- knowingly misled the American public in the run up to the War in Iraq. While this deception now seems obvious to a majority of Americans, no single article sets forth the particulars in such devastating detail.

In response the Rendon Group has unleashed a fusillade of PR aimed to tear down the credibility of the messenger. In a follow up letter to the editor of Rolling Stone, they claim Bamford relied on "false information and mischaracterization to create his story."

Rendon then attempts to dismantle Bamford’s credibility by highlighting eight problems in his Rolling Stone report. None of these problems speak to the main thrust of the story. Rather the Rendon Group reply is a well honed piece of misdirection, which goes to great lengths to cast doubt about the man who wrote the piece, without disputing the essential facts therein.

The Rendon Group even claims that Bamford got the meal ticket wrong. Describing a dinner interview between him and company founder John Rendon, they claim: "Mr. Bamford ordered the French wine and lamb chops. Mr. Rendon had seafood," and not otherwise, as reported in the story. Strange. Rendon seeks to impugn Bamford by offering up as evidence their CEO’s preference for fish.

Bamford's response cuts through Rendon's smoke. "The job of the Rendon Group was to use 'perception management' techniques -- propaganda," he writes. Their creation of the Iraqi National Congress and installation of Ahmad Chalabi as its head formed the basis of Bush's faulty case for going to war.

Bamford quotes ex-CIA official Robert Baer who said Rendon "was responsible for selling this war." To cap it off, Bamford produces the bill from their restaurant interview: "According to the receipt, Mr. Rendon ordered 'sate lamb chops' -- I never eat lamb chops. And just for the record, I also paid for Mr. Rendon's apple tart dessert and his coffee -- decaf black."

While plates are still spinning between these two, one thing seems clear. Rendon's assault on Bamford follows a pattern of obfuscation that’s become the MO of the chicken hawk set: By throwing a fit you can sow enough uncertainty about any media that challenge the administration’s version of the War. The facts of the reports in question often become lost in the dust up over the messenger.

Media 'Saboteurs'

Many leveling these charges against the press are now taking their critique one further. Not only are the media untrustworthy, they state, but they also are treasonous for not marching in lock-step with President Bush’s version of the war. The Rendon story plays a small part in this larger pattern.

During his December 21 show, radio siren Rush Limbaugh blasted the media for aligning with the left wing to create propaganda and "sabotage" the war effort. "These people are sabotaging our ability to wage war on this enemy," Limbaugh crowed:

The major concern is stopping these people from sabotaging our ability to wage war on this enemy because that's what the media and that's what the Democratic Party and the far left of this country have become -- saboteurs. You call them traitors if you want. You can use the word "treason". Go ahead.

Limbaugh's diatribe fits snuggly into the fabric of efforts to bully skeptical media back into line with the official view. Former Army intelligence officer Lt. Col. Ralph Peters writes in his book, "New Glory: Expanding America’s Global Supremacy," that in wartime the media "can no longer sustain their pretenses of being aloof, objective observers dispassionately recording events. The media are combatants."

According to Peters' critique, the media should act more as foot soldiers for the White House, and less as defenders of accuracy in the public interest. The Lt. Colonel repeated this theory on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor" earlier this month, accusing an ABC news report – which revealed that the CIA removed detainees from "secret prisons" in Europe prior to Secretary of State Rice’s visit – of "killing American soldiers."

"When ABC or any other outlet gives away our national secrets, or verifies them, and underscores them by repeating what others have said, and seems to verify for the world, look, they are putting Americans at risk," Peters said, adding, "Bill, it's killing American soldiers."

To which O'Reilly added: "I do feel that the press has a responsibility to help the government in the war on terror."

And I thought the press' responsibility was to report the truth.

Not so, according to Todd Manzi of TownHall.com, a popular right-wing site that was recently spun-off from the Heritage Foundation: "The Associated Press has caused some U.S. soldiers to lose their lives," Manzi writes. "The irresponsible, antiwar-biased reporting from the Associated Press over the last four months can only have encouraged our enemy to keep trying. Terrorists may have been given the false hope that all is not lost for them. . . [AP reporters] have allowed themselves to become a pawn of our enemy."

Cliff Kincaid, the editor of the right-wing media watchdog Accuracy in Media believes that the terrorists are using domestic forces to fight the war. Their chief American allies are the media, he writes in a December 20 editorial carried by several right-wing news sites. "That's because the [Washington] Post and other media are part of the movement to undermine our resolve at home."

The Glass White House

Ironically, the effort to tar investigative reporting as treason emanates from those under investigation for a similar crime – the leaking of information about Valerie Plame’s covert identity.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's ongoing investigation points a steady finger not at the so called "liberal media" but within the corridors of the White House itself, at Karl Rove, Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney and others -- the self same architects of the assault on journalism. Not surprisingly, Libby -- the sole member of the cabal to be indicted thus far -- has turned his case on its head, to, again, cast stones at the media as the sources revealing the name of the undercover CIA operative.

Time -- and Fitzgerald’s ongoing investigation -- will tell whether his convenient defense will help Libby and others to slip their manacles.

But if recent history is a guide, it's a tactic that has proven successful in throwing up enough sand and smoke to cover the tracks of those fully responsible for the mess that we're all in.

Gigot's Price for Gratitude

It cost taxpayers $4 million for disgraced former Corporation for Public Broadcasting chair Kenneth Tomlinson to win the gratitude of the Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot.

In his sign off from the PBS network, Gigot praises Tomlinson for "defending the importance of balance and diversity on public television."

It was Tomlinson who skimmed $4 million in public funds to help Gigot bring the Journal Editorial Report's free market hi-jinks to PBS on Friday nights. And for that Gigot is grateful.

But he fails to mention the recent Inspector General investigation that found Tomlinson's efforts on behalf of the Editorial Report to be gross violations of federal law and the agency's own ethical codes. According to the IG report, Tomlinson:

". . . admonished CPB senior executive staff not to interfere with his deal to bring a balancing program to PBS. These actions raise questions about the extent of the former Chairman's involvement in selecting and funding of The Journal Editorial Report. Specifically, the questions involve whether he breached his fiduciary responsibilities, was directly involved programming decisions, influenced the program format increasing the cost of the program, and exceeded his role as a Board member in directing the actions of CPB staff." [my emphasis]

Maybe Gigot missed that.

Or maybe he missed the CPB's own public polling, which found that 80 percent of Americans already believed PBS to be fair and objective. Public opinion be damned; instead, Gigot and Tomlinson subscribed to the maxim: "If it ain't broke, let's make up reasons to fix it."

PBS needs "balance and diversity" they crowed, as they schemed to deliver it by airing a show peopled by white, Bush-friendly conservatives. Can't you just feel the diversity?

Gigot seems also to have not read his own emails with Tomlinson, in which the two conspire to turn public broadcasting into a bullhorn for Bush. Nor did Gigot mention that these emails indicate that Tomlinson lied before Congress, when he told Senator Inouye that he had nothing to do with the agreement that landed Gigot's news program at PBS.

The emails read like archetypal Fox News Channel banter. And their back and forth about "balance" must have pricked up the ears of FNC's media czar Roger Ailes.

Soon after the Editorial Report pulled up its stakes at public broadcasting, they announced plans to move the circus to Fox News Channel -- home to a brand of “fairness and balance” that Paul Gigot might better understand.

Turning Back Bush's Assault on the Press

America's leadership is waging a war against the journalistic standards and practices that underpin not only a free press but our democracy. The Fourth Estate is withering under an unprecedented White House assault designed to intimidate, smear and discredit investigative journalism — and allow the president and his political cronies to lie with impunity.

On December 1, White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the U.S. “a leader when it comes to promoting and advocating a free and independent media around the world.” He added, “We’ve made our views very clear when it comes to freedom of the press.” Indeed, it's clear that the Bush administration doesn't believe in it, nor do they believe in our system of checks and balances that holds leaders accountable to the public.

If left unchecked this White House will continue to:

• manipulate the media "message" by producing propaganda, putting journalists on the government payroll and tightly scripting all public events;
  
  
• dismiss all dissenting views in the media as biased and politically motivated;
  
  
• undermine public trust in journalism using the right-wing “echo chamber” to sow hostility toward reporters who challenge the official line; and
  
  
• eliminate access to information making it nearly impossible for journalists to investigate vast areas of the federal government.

The Bush administration is more inhospitable to truth and an informed citizenry than any before it. In fact, the administration seeks the opposite: a public that buys a carefully constructed myth over reality. This deception has manifest in seven lines of attack:

1. Infiltrating public broadcasting with party loyalists
2. Manufacturing fake news and propaganda
3. Bribing journalists to flack for the administration
4. Gutting the Freedom of Information Act
5. Deceiving media (and the U.S. public) about Iraq
6. Stifling dissent within mainstream media
7. Consolidating media control into the hands of the elite

The damage already done is reflected in plummeting public faith in reporters and the unrelenting stream of lies flowing from the White House into mainstream news.

This crisis can be attributed in part to the failure of big media corporations and some journalists to meet the basic responsibilities of the press in a democratic society. But the Bush administration's wholesale assault on a free press is also to blame. This White House has gone well beyond the cynical maneuvers of past administrations and implemented a scheme to tear down journalism and erode civil liberties.

Free Press (my colleagues and I) has launched a campaign to defend democracy from the war on diverse and independent media. The campaign will exert grassroots and lobbying pressure to implement policies that hold our leadership accountable and ensure that abuses of press freedom are not repeated by this and future administrations.

With an unprecedented campaign to undermine and stifle independent journalism, Bush & Co. have demonstrated astonishing contempt for the Constitution. This report shows the scope and intensity of the administration's assault on press freedoms by illustrating seven areas of abuse.

1. Infiltrating Public Broadcasting with Political Operatives

White House loyalists from within the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have launched a crusade to remake PBS, NPR and other public media into official mouthpieces.

This campaign was led by Karl Rove confidant Kenneth Tomlinson, who left the CPB board in disgrace after a recent Inspector General's report found he violated federal law to monitor and influence PBS programming and used "political tests" to hire Patricia Harrison, a former co-chair of the Republican Party, as president of the agency.

The Inspector General levels a scathing indictment of Tomlinson's back-room maneuvering to manipulate content but it stops short of revealing the extent to which the White House orchestrated his efforts.

Missing from the report is email traffic between Tomlinson and Rove — provided to the IG by investigators at the State Department. Also missing is a "separate investigative report, along with specific evidence indicating possible wrongdoing," that the IG made available to the CPB board. This evidence, which may reveal the White House's hand in manipulations of public broadcasting programming, sits under lock and key at the heavily partisan CPB.

While Tomlinson is gone, he left behind a cast of GOP operatives who are reluctant to release the potentially damaging information. Newly elected CPB Chairwoman Cheryl Halpern and Vice Chairwoman Gay Hart Gaines are both major fundraisers for GOP candidates and causes. New CPB President Harrison has stacked CPB offices with former State Department officers skilled in "public diplomacy" and propaganda.

2. Manufacturing Fake News

The Bush administration has mounted a widespread effort to produce "video news releases," or VNRs, which are broadcast as real news to millions of unsuspecting Americans. At least 20 federal agencies have distributed this propaganda.

The White House has spent more than twice any other administration to create counterfeit news. In 2004 alone, the Bush administration spent $90 million on PR contracts, drawn from a $254 million taxpayer slush fund set up to manufacture White House-friendly propaganda.

Thus far, four separate Government Accountability Office investigations have found the White House violated laws that prohibit government use of taxpayer money to spread "covert propaganda" without attribution. Objectionable activities include a video news release where PR flack Karen Ryan gives the Bush tutoring program "an A-plus"; and commissioned newspaper articles that praised the Education Department's role in promoting "science literacy." Readers were never informed of the government's role in placing the article, which appeared in numerous small newspapers around the country.

The GAO's pronouncements against un-attributed propaganda have gone unheeded. Press officers for several of the federal agencies in question recently told the New York Times that disclosure requirements did not apply to government-made television news segments, which they insisted are "factual, politically neutral and useful to viewers."

On September 30, the GAO correctly shot down that sophistry, saying that pre-packaged government news is inherently not factual because "the essential fact of attribution is missing."

While some in Congress have taken up the call for more investigations, they have yet to look beyond isolated incidents. As more evidence comes to light we're able to assemble a case against this administration that goes much further, involving a systemic campaign to covertly manufacture news and manipulate public opinion in favor of presidential policies.

3. Bribing Journalists to Flack for the Administration

The administration has paid pundits to sing its praises. Earlier this year, TV commentator Armstrong Williams pocketed $240,000 in taxpayer money to laud Bush's education policies. Three other journalists have since been discovered on the White House dole; and Williams admits that he has "no doubt" that other paid Bush shills are still on the loose.

The administration has even exported these tactics. According to the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. military is now secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops.

Over the past five years, the White House has set aside more than a quarter billion dollars to hire public relations firms to infiltrate our news system with fake news.

A report by the Government Accountability Office found the White House violated federal law by buying favorable news coverage from Williams in advance of the 2004 elections. Michael Massing wrote in the New York Review of Books that the GAO report "presents chilling evidence of the campaign that officials in Washington have been waging against a free and independent press."

The GAO has issued scathing reports on the White House's illegal use of taxpayer money to produce "covert propaganda" on four separate occasions. But Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refuses to prosecute these crimes. The official silence speaks volumes. Without legal recourse, an emboldened White House continues to manipulate the news and deceive Americans.

4. Gutting the Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) enshrines the public's right to access government records. In the past five years, FOIA has been gutted by an administration that would rather cloak its operations from public scrutiny.

In 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a chilling memorandum advising federal agencies that the Justice Department would defend their decisions to deny FOIA requests.

Many have since taken action to fend off public requests for disclosure. Since President Bush entered office, there has been a more than 75 percent increase in the amount of government information classified as secret each year — from 9 million in 2001 to 16 million by 2004.

Yet an even more aggressive form of government information control has gone un-enumerated and often unrecognized in the Bush era, as government agencies have restricted access to unclassified information in libraries, archives, Web sites, and official databases, according to Steven Aftergood, director of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.

"Less of a goal-directed policy than a bureaucratic reflex, the widespread clampdown on formerly public information reflects a largely inarticulate concern about ‘security,'" Aftergood writes. "It also accords neatly with the Bush administration's preference for unchecked executive authority."

In their 2004 report, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press provide a rundown of actions taken by public officials to turn basic government information into state secrets. RCFP executive director Lucy Dalglish wrote that many Bush administration actions in fighting the war against terrorism were designed to undermine FOIA. Dalglish and her journalist members hoped that the government's post-September 11 move toward non-disclosure on all matters would be viewed as temporary or emergency measures.

"Unfortunately, that has not been the case," Dalglish reported. "Led by secrecy-loving officials in the executive branch, secrecy in the United States government is now the norm."

The restrictions have now grown so tight that the American Society of Newspaper Editors last fall issued a "call to arms" to its members, urging them to "demand answers in print and in court" to stop this "deeply disturbing" trend.

5. Lying to the Press (and the Public) about the Iraq War

The White House saw the battle for domestic popular opinion as one of the main fronts in the war in Iraq. With the help of a compliant media, truth became the first casualty in their campaign to whip up support.

Eight months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, top level British intelligence officers reported that the White House had told them that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed" to fit the administration's aim of removing Saddam Hussein.

This proved to be the pattern throughout the run-up to the war — during Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address, in Condoleeza Rice's congressional testimony, and throughout Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations about weapons of mass destruction — as officials manipulated and fabricated information to make their case.

Later, when this faulty intelligence was disputed, the administration chose to attack those reporting the truth rather than admit to their own lies and misinformation. As Frank Rich recently wrote in the New York Times, the administration's "web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a P.R. operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House."

Among other things, this P.R. campaign involved:

1. dressing up evidence provided by unreliable sources from within the Iraqi National Congress;
   
2. concealing from Congress intelligence that disputed links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime; and
   
3. exaggerating WMD claims made by a "mentally unstable" Iraqi defector.

As their deception begins to unravel before the public, Bush, Cheney and their White House colleagues have "stayed the course," choosing to repeat past untruths in the hope that mainstream media will again err on the side of authority and present the administration's lies unchallenged.

6. Stifling Dissenting Views in the Media

The Bush administration has established a hierarchy for journalists seeking interviews with top administration officials, granting access to those networks and newspapers that give the White House the most favorable coverage. At the same time, they've stonewalled those who seek to challenge administration talking points.

The White House sends advance teams of handlers to all Bush events to screen audience members and reporters for loyalty to the president and his policies. They eject possible "troublemakers" who might disrupt their contrived public forum.

The White House Press Office turned press conferences into parodies by seating a friendly faux journalist, former male escort Jeff Gannon, amid reporters and then steering questions to him when tough issues arose. They refuse to answer tough questioners such as veteran journalist Helen Thomas, effectively silencing reporters who might challenge the president or his aides.

The administration's efforts have been amplified by a disciplined and well-organized "echo chamber" of blogs, newspapers, newsletters, journals and radio and televison broadcasters under the influence of conservatives and the Christian right. Often working hand in glove with the White House, these outlets systematically discredit mainstream media that question the official line. This criticism works it way from blogs and other fringe Web sites up the media food chain into radio talk show banter — from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, and Laura Ingraham — until it's picked up by more mainstream news outlets.

As Michael Massing writes in his recent report on journalism "an unscrupulous critic can spread exaggerated or erroneous claims instantaneously to thousands of people, who may, in turn, repeat them to millions more on talk radio programs, on cable television, or on more official ‘news' Web sites." This echo chamber effect has effectively placed White House talking points once considered absurd at the center of media discourse; all the while dismissing as "biased" or "liberal" journalists who question their accuracy.

"We were biased," veteran TV journalist Bill Moyers recently explained about his PBS news show NOW, which came under frequent attack from the right. "Biased … in favor of uncovering the news that powerful people wanted to keep hidden."

"Conflicts of interest at the Department of Interior, secret meetings between Vice President Cheney and the oil industry, backdoor shenanigans by lobbyists at the FCC, corruption in Congress, neglect of wounded veterans returning from Iraq, Pentagon cost overruns, the manipulation of intelligence leading to the invasion of Iraq… We were way ahead of the news curve on these stories," Moyers said, "and the administration turned its hit men loose on us."

It's no surprise, then, that an administration that is willing to browbeat dissenting views in the media would seek also to attack so many other fundamental acheivements of our democracy.

7. Consolidating Media Control in the Hands of the Elite

The Bush administration has worked with the most powerful media corporations – like News Corp, Sinclair and Clear Channel – in an effort to rewrite media ownership laws in a manner that accelerates consolidation and monopoly control of information.

In 1983, 50 corporations owned a majority of the news media. In 1992, fewer than two dozen companies owned 90 percent of the news media. In 2003, the number fell to a total of six. The escalated consolidation of media has precipitated the collapse of journalistic values and the rise of profit-driven "infotainment" and "celebrity news." Driven by bottom-line concerns, corporate media executives have cut overseas newsrooms from their payrolls. As a result, international reporting dropped nearly 80 percent in the past two decades.

History has shown that the relaxation of media ownership rules always leads to more market consolidation and less competition and diversity in news. Greased by extensive campaign contributions and pressured by intensive lobbying, Washington policymakers have abandoned antitrust enforcement and pursued policies to encourage greater media concentration.

The Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will announce plans to rewrite the ownership rules soon – it could happen as early as February. Unless the public mobilizes to oppose efforts to make Big Media even bigger, the FCC will pass rules that would unleash a new wave of media consolidation and allow conglomerates to swallow up hundreds of independent media outlets.

Conclusion

In a famous 1945 opinion, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black said that "the First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society." In other words, a free press is the sine qua non of the entire American Constitution and republican experiment.

Our democracy demands a diverse and independent media. The Bush administration's attack on the foundations of self-government requires a response of similar caliber. Unless lawmakers, the press and the public mobilize to hold the White House accountable for all its assaults on journalism, such abuses will be repeated in the future by this and other administrations. We can reform our media to become a servant of democracy that is stronger than the lies of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. But we need to act now while the damage of the last five years can still be undone.

Bush’s War on the Press

America's leadership is waging a war against the journalistic standards and practices that underpin not only a free press but our democracy. The Fourth Estate is withering under an unprecedented White House assault designed to intimidate, smear and discredit investigative journalism — and allow the president and his political cronies to lie with impunity.

On December 1, White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the U.S. “a leader when it comes to promoting and advocating a free and independent media around the world.” He added, “We’ve made our views very clear when it comes to freedom of the press.” Indeed. It's clear that the Bush administration doesn't believe in it, nor do they believe in our system of checks and balances that holds leaders accountable to the public.

If left unchecked this White House will continue to:

• manipulate the media "message" by producing propaganda, putting journalists on the government payroll and tightly scripting all public events;
  
  
• dismiss all dissenting views in the media as biased and politically motivated;
  
  
• undermine public trust in journalism using the right-wing “echo chamber” to sow hostility toward reporters who challenge the official line; and
  
  
• eliminate access to information making it nearly impossible for journalists to investigate vast areas of the federal government.

The Bush administration is more inhospitable to truth and an informed citizenry than any before it. In fact, the administration seeks the opposite: a public that buys a carefully constructed myth over reality. This deception has manifest in seven lines of attack:

1. Infiltrating public broadcasting with party loyalists
2. Manufacturing fake news and propaganda
3. Bribing journalists to flack for the administration
4. Gutting the Freedom of Information Act
5. Deceiving media (and the U.S. public) about Iraq
6. Eliminating dissent within mainstream media
7. Consolidating media control into the hands of the elite

The damage already done is reflected in plummeting public faith in reporters and the unrelenting stream of lies flowing from the White House into mainstream news.

This crisis can be attributed in part to the failure of big media corporations and some journalists to meet the basic responsibilities of the press in a democratic society. But the Bush administration's wholesale assault on a free press is also to blame. This White House has gone well beyond the cynical maneuvers of past administrations and implemented a scheme to tear down journalism and erode civil liberties.

Free Press (my colleagues and I) has launched a campaign to defend democracy from the war on diverse and independent media. The campaign will exert grassroots and lobbying pressure to implement policies that hold our leadership accountable and ensure that abuses of press freedom are not repeated by this and future administrations.

With an unprecedented campaign to undermine and stifle independent journalism, Bush & Co. have demonstrated astonishing contempt for the Constitution. This report shows the scope and intensity of the administration's assault on press freedoms.To read the rest of the report, follow these links:

• Summary: Bush's War against the Press
• Infiltrating public broadcasting
• Manufacturing fake news
• Bribing journalists
• Gutting the FOIA
• Lying about the Iraq War
• Stifling media dissent
• Consolidating media control

Infiltrating Public Broadcasting

White House loyalists from within the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have launched a crusade to remake PBS, NPR and other public media into official mouthpieces.

This campaign was led by Karl Rove confidant Kenneth Tomlinson, who left the CPB board in disgrace after a recent Inspector General’s report found he violated federal law to monitor and influence PBS programming and used “political tests” to hire Patricia Harrison, a former co-chair of the Republican Party, as president of the agency.

The Inspector General levels a scathing indictment of Tomlinson’s back-room maneuvering to manipulate content but it stops short of revealing the extent to which the White House orchestrated his efforts.

Missing from the report is email traffic between Tomlinson and Rove — provided to the IG by investigators at the State Department. Also missing is a “separate investigative report, along with specific evidence indicating possible wrongdoing,” that the IG made available to the CPB board. This evidence, which may reveal the White House’s hand in manipulations of public broadcasting programming, sits under lock and key at the heavily partisan CPB.

While Tomlinson is gone, he left behind a cast of GOP operatives who are reluctant to release the potentially damaging information. Newly elected CPB Chairwoman Cheryl Halpern and Vice Chairwoman Gay Hart Gaines are both major fundraisers for GOP candidates and causes. New CPB President Harrison has stacked CPB offices with former State Department officers skilled in “public diplomacy” and propaganda.

To read the rest of the report on the attacks against journalism, follow these links:

• Summary: Bush's War against the Press
• Manufacturing fake news
• Bribing journalists
• Gutting the FOIA
• Lying about the Iraq War
• Stifling media dissent
• Consolidating media control

Manufacturing Fake News

The Bush administration has mounted a widespread effort to produce “video news releases,” or VNRs, which are broadcast as real news to millions of unsuspecting Americans. At least 20 federal agencies have distributed this propaganda.

The White House has spent more than twice any other administration to create counterfeit news. In 2004 alone, the Bush administration spent $90 million on PR contracts, drawn from a $254 million taxpayer slush fund set up to manufacture White House-friendly propaganda.

Thus far, four separate Government Accountability Office investigations have found the White House violated laws that prohibit government use of taxpayer money to spread “covert propaganda” without attribution. Objectionable activities include a video news release where PR flack Karen Ryan gives the Bush tutoring program “an A-plus”; and commissioned newspaper articles that praised the Education Department’s role in promoting “science literacy.” Readers were never informed of the government’s role in placing the article, which appeared in numerous small newspapers around the country.

The GAO’s pronouncements against un-attributed propaganda have gone unheeded. Press officers for several of the federal agencies in question recently told the New York Times that disclosure requirements did not apply to government-made television news segments, which they insisted are “factual, politically neutral and useful to viewers.”

On September 30, the GAO correctly shot down that sophistry, saying that pre-packaged government news is inherently not factual because “the essential fact of attribution is missing.”

While some in Congress have taken up the call for more investigations, they have yet to look beyond isolated incidents. As more evidence comes to light we’re able to assemble a case against this administration that goes much further, involving a systemic campaign to covertly manufacture news and manipulate public opinion in favor of presidential policies.

To read the rest of the report on the attacks against journalism, follow these links:

• Summary: Bush's War against the Press
• Infiltrating public broadcasting
• Bribing journalists
• Gutting the FOIA
• Lying about the Iraq War
• Stifling media dissent
• Consolidating media control

Bribing Journalists to Flack for the White House

The administration has paid pundits to sing its praises. Earlier this year, TV commentator Armstrong Williams pocketed $240,000 in taxpayer money to laud Bush’s education policies. Three other journalists have since been discovered on the White House dole; and Williams admits that he has “no doubt” that other paid Bush shills are still on the loose.

The administration has even exported these tactics. According to the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. military is now secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops.

Over the past five years, the White House has set aside more than a quarter billion dollars to hire public relations firms to infiltrate our news system with fake news.

A report by the Government Accountability Office found the White House violated federal law by buying favorable news coverage from Williams in advance of the 2004 elections. Michael Massing wrote in the New York Review of Books that the GAO report “presents chilling evidence of the campaign that officials in Washington have been waging against a free and independent press.”

The GAO has issued scathing reports on the White House’s illegal use of taxpayer money to produce “covert propaganda” on four separate occasions. But Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refuses to prosecute these crimes. The official silence speaks volumes. Without legal recourse, an emboldened White House continues to manipulate the news and deceive Americans.

To read the rest of the report on the attacks against journalism, follow these links:

• Summary: Bush's War against the Press
• Infiltrating public broadcasting
• Manufacturing fake news
• Gutting the FOIA
• Lying about the Iraq War
• Stifling media dissent
• Consolidating media control

Gutting the Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) enshrines the public’s right to access government records. In the past five years, FOIA has been gutted by an administration that would rather cloak its operations from public scrutiny.

In 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a chilling memorandum advising federal agencies that the Justice Department would defend their decisions to deny FOIA requests.

Many have since taken action to fend off public requests for disclosure. Since President Bush entered office, there has been a more than 75 percent increase in the amount of government information classified as secret each year — from 9 million in 2001 to 16 million by 2004.

Yet an even more aggressive form of government information control has gone un-enumerated and often unrecognized in the Bush era, as government agencies have restricted access to unclassified information in libraries, archives, Web sites, and official databases, according to Steven Aftergood, director of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.

“Less of a goal-directed policy than a bureaucratic reflex, the widespread clampdown on formerly public information reflects a largely inarticulate concern about ‘security,’” Aftergood writes. “It also accords neatly with the Bush administration’s preference for unchecked executive authority.”

In their 2004 report, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press provide a rundown of actions taken by public officials to turn basic government information into state secrets. RCFP executive director Lucy Dalglish wrote that many Bush administration actions in fighting the war against terrorism were designed to undermine FOIA. Dalglish and her journalist members hoped that the government’s post-September 11 move toward non-disclosure on all matters would be viewed as temporary or emergency measures.

“Unfortunately, that has not been the case,” Dalglish reported. “Led by secrecy-loving officials in the executive branch, secrecy in the United States government is now the norm.”

The restrictions have now grown so tight that the American Society of Newspaper Editors last fall issued a “call to arms” to its members, urging them to “demand answers in print and in court” to stop this “deeply disturbing” trend. The conservative columnist William Safire complained that “the fundamental right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate and criticize the workings of our government is under attack as never before.”

To read the rest of the report on the attacks against journalism, follow these links:

• Summary: Bush's War against the Press
• Infiltrating public broadcasting
• Manufacturing fake news
• Bribing journalists
• Lying about the Iraq War
• Stifling media dissent
• Consolidating media control

Lying about the War

The White House saw the battle for domestic popular opinion as one of the main fronts in the war in Iraq. With the help of a compliant media, truth became the first casualty in their campaign to whip up support.

Eight months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, top level British intelligence officers reported that the White House had told them that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed” to fit the administration’s aim of removing Saddam Hussein. This proved to be the pattern throughout the run-up to the war — during Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address, in Condoleeza Rice’s congressional testimony, and throughout Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations about weapons of mass destruction — as officials manipulated and fabricated information to make their case.

Later, when this faulty intelligence was disputed, the administration chose to attack those reporting the truth rather than admit to their own lies and misinformation. As Frank Rich recently wrote in the New York Times, the administration’s “web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a P.R. operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House.”

Among other things, this P.R. campaign involved:

1. dressing up evidence provided by unreliable sources from within the Iraqi National Congress;
   
2. concealing from Congress intelligence that disputed links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime; and
   
3. exaggerating WMD claims made by a “mentally unstable” Iraqi defector.

As their deception begins to unravel before the public, Bush, Cheney and their White House colleagues have “stayed the course,” choosing to repeat past untruths in the hope that mainstream media will again err on the side of authority and present the administration’s lies unchallenged.

To read the rest of the report on the attacks against journalism, follow these links:

• Summary: Bush's War against the Press
• Infiltrating public broadcasting
• Manufacturing fake news
• Bribing journalists
• Gutting the FOIA
• Stifling media dissent
• Consolidating media control

Eliminating Dissent in the Media

The Bush administration has established a hierarchy for journalists seeking interviews with top administration officials, granting access to those networks and newspapers that give the White House the most favorable coverage. At the same time, they’ve stonewalled those who seek to challenge administration talking points.

The White House sends advance teams of handlers to all Bush events to screen audience members and reporters for loyalty to the president and his policies. They eject possible “troublemakers” who might disrupt their contrived public forum.

The White House Press Office turned press conferences into parodies by seating a friendly faux journalist, former male escort Jeff Gannon, amid reporters and then steering questions to him when tough issues arose. They refuse to answer tough questioners such as veteran journalist Helen Thomas, effectively silencing reporters who might challenge the president or his aides.

The administration’s efforts have been amplified by a disciplined and well-organized “echo chamber” of blogs, newspapers, newsletters, journals and radio and televison broadcasters under the influence of conservatives and the Christian right. Often working hand in glove with the White House, these outlets systematically discredit mainstream media that question the official line. This criticism works it way from blogs and other fringe Web sites up the media food chain into radio talk show banter — from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, and Laura Ingraham — until it’s picked up by more mainstream news outlets.

As Michael Massing writes in his recent report on journalism “an unscrupulous critic can spread exaggerated or erroneous claims instantaneously to thousands of people, who may, in turn, repeat them to millions more on talk radio programs, on cable television, or on more official ‘news’ Web sites.” This echo chamber effect has effectively placed White House talking points once considered absurd at the center of media discourse; all the while dismissing as “biased” or “liberal” journalists who question their accuracy.

“We were biased … in favor of uncovering the news that powerful people wanted to keep hidden,” veteran TV journalist Bill Moyers, a frequent target of partisan attacks, recently explained about his PBS news show NOW.

“Conflicts of interest at the Department of Interior, secret meetings between Vice President Cheney and the oil industry, backdoor shenanigans by lobbyists at the FCC, corruption in Congress, neglect of wounded veterans returning from Iraq, Pentagon cost overruns, the manipulation of intelligence leading to the invasion of Iraq… We were way ahead of the news curve on these stories,” Moyers said, “and the administration turned its hit men loose on us.”

To read the rest of the report on the attacks against journalism, follow these links:

• Summary: Bush's War against the Press
• Infiltrating public broadcasting
• Manufacturing fake news
• Bribing journalists
• Gutting the FOIA
• Lying about the Iraq War
• Consolidating media control

Consolidating Media Control with the Elite

The Bush administration has worked with the most powerful media corporations – like News Corp, Sinclair and Clear Channel – in an effort to rewrite media ownership laws in a manner that accelerates consolidation and monopoly control of information.

In 1983, 50 corporations owned a majority of the news media. In 1992, fewer than two dozen companies owned 90 percent of the news media. In 2003, the number fell to a total of six. The escalated consolidation of media has precipitated the collapse of journalistic values and the rise of profit-driven “infotainment” and “celebrity news.” Driven by bottom-line concerns, corporate media executives have cut overseas newsrooms from their payrolls. As a result, international reporting dropped nearly 80 percent in the past two decades.

History has shown that the relaxation of media ownership rules always leads to more market consolidation and less competition and diversity in news. Greased by extensive campaign contributions and pressured by intensive lobbying, Washington policymakers have abandoned antitrust enforcement and pursued policies to encourage greater media concentration.

The Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will announce plans to rewrite the ownership rules soon – it could happen as early as February. Unless the public mobilizes to oppose efforts to make Big Media even bigger, the FCC will pass rules that would unleash a new wave of media consolidation and allow conglomerates to swallow up hundreds of independent media outlets.

To read the rest of the report on the attacks against journalism, follow these links:

• Summary: Bush's War against the Press
• Infiltrating public broadcasting
• Manufacturing fake news
• Bribing journalists
• Gutting the FOIA
• Lying about the Iraq War
• Stifling media dissent
  

The Deadline Pundit Returns

The blogosphere was just immeasurably enriched by the arrival of Ian Williams, the Deadline Pundit.

I worked with Williams during an earlier gig as editor of the Globalvision News Network, a noble attempt to do Reuters and AP one better by delivering world news as reported by those who actually lived in the countries affected -- and not through the lens of Anglo-American scribes parachuted in after the fact.

Ian had the uncanny ability to deliver by 8:30am more than 1,000 words of sage, well-crafted commentary on the world news of the day -- a feat I will forever admire.

While the New Network went the way of most dot-coms, I am heartened that Ian's work will live on. Read the Deadline Pundit.

What We Don't Know about Karl

Yesterday, public interest groups sent a letter to Corporation for Public Broadcasting calling for full public disclosure of all evidence of communications between top CPB board members and the White House.

In the letter Free Press, the Center for Digital Democracy and Common Cause demand the immediate release of all evidence uncovered during a recently completed Inspector General's investigation -- including e-mail correspondence between ex-CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson and White House adviser Karl Rove.

The CPB's Inspector General Kenneth Konz struck this correspondence and other potentially damaging evidence from the version of the report that CPB released to the public on November 15.

The CPB board and the Inspector General must not be permitted to maintain a "secret dossier" on potential illegal and unethical activities. Jeff Chester of CDD said, "They should immediately disclose all the information related to efforts to force programming changes onto PBS and NPR. The public needs to know whether high-ranking White House officials dictated or influenced public broadcasting content."

The Inspector General's report describes "e-mails between the former Chairman and staff in the Executive Office of the President that, while cryptic in nature … [give] the appearance that the former Chairman was strongly motivated by political considerations in filling the President/CEO position." The CPB board ultimately selected Patricia Harrison, a seasoned GOP operative and former co-chair of the Republican Party, as president.

Statements given to reporters by Inspector General Konz indicate that Tomlinson boasted in emails to Rove and other White House officials about his efforts to turn public broadcasting to the right. According to Bloomberg News, Tomlinson wrote to Rove that he was "finding programs to balance the Moyers report" and working "to shake up" the organization and hire Republican staff. The White House refused to cooperate with Konz's investigation.

The CPB needs to come clean about the full extent of the Bush administration's efforts to interfere with PBS and NPR. Until now they have secreted away the most damning evidence in the report behind a flimsy wall of "confidentially agreements."

The CPB board can't simply sweep this under the rug and tell us to trust them. The American people must be allowed to judge the evidence themselves.

The Inspector General's report released on Nov. 15 cites delivery of a "separate investigative report, along with specific evidence indicating possible wrongdoing, to the Board for their disposition." PBS President Patricia Harrison has refused to release the e-mails and other documents contained in this separate report, citing the confidentiality agreements as rationale.

Konz provides further detail in an interview with the Communications Daily:

Konz said that he "couldn't accede to media requests to release his 'investigative report' because his review found improprieties cited in the report didn't amount to criminal offenses, but 'rather conduct issues.' The IG's overall conclusions were in his public report, he said. He gave the board the investigative report to 'provide a full understanding of the nature and extent to action taken by various officials.' Because many of the documents contain 'proprietary information and relate to confidential business and personal matters,' he said, 'I see no reason for us to release the investigative report.'"

As a private corporation, the CPB doesn't come under the Freedom of Information Act, according to Konz.

A congressional investigation, such as the one requested by Senator Byron Dorgan (Dem-ND) -- who this week asked the Senate Commerce Committee to hold hearings on Tomlinson's actions -- could shake the emails loose from CPB and Konz's grasp.

This goes beyond the public's basic right-to-know. What's at stake is the public's confidence in public broadcasting -- an institution that, up to now, a majority of Americans regard as their most trusted source of news and information.

Tomlinson Doublespeak

Kenneth Tomlinson under oath before Senate, July 11, 2005:

The decision to add Paul Gigot and the Wall Street Journal Editorial Report was one that involved a lot of people at both PBS and CPB. It was a decision that I saw no opposition to, and I was not directly involved in negotiating any contracts involved -- involving in it.

But in a December 4, 2003 email to Paul Gigot, he wrote:

Paul – I understand PBS is going to be talking to you about assuming a role that will serve as a political balance to Moyers, I do not trust Pat Mitchell but I have a deal with others stipulating that you will have access to the same deal Moyers has. So do not accept if they try to toss you onto Moyers’ show as an after thought commentator.

Tomlinson in email to Gigot, February 8, 2004:

We have a deal that Moyers will be balanced this fall. We'll hold up her [Pat Mitchell's] money if she doesn't deliver this fall.

Tomlinson in email to Gigot, February 12, 2004:

We are close to a deal that would put Gigot/WSJ on public broadcasting. . . I realize God is in the details, but this is a real deal we can live with. But I don’t want to turn loose of CPB’s money or let authorization go forward until you have a show that gets everything Moyers gets except for time.

Did Tomlinson cross that line? You'll have to be the judge. We won't be certain until there's a new investigation, or until Inspector General Kenneth Konz releases the rest of his report.

Tomlinson's utterances in the press indicate similar inconsistencies. In a May 9 Los Angeles Times article, Tomlinson told reporter Matea Gold: "There has been absolutely no contact from anyone at the White House to me saying we need to do this or that with public broadcasting."

But this week Konz reported that Tomlinson repeatedly swapped e-mails about potential CPB hires with "staff in the Executive Office of the President," including Karl Rove. One of the candidates they discussed became the organization's president.

Go figure.

The War over History

VP DICK CHENEY, Nov 16:

Suggestion that's been made by some US Senators that the President of the United States, or any member of this administration purposely misled the American people on pre-war intelligence is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.

. . . The saddest part is that our people in uniform have been subjected to these cynical and pernicious falsehoods day in and day out. The President and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory or their backbone, but we're not going to sit by and let them re-write history.

Sen. JOHN KERRY responds, Nov 17:

He is the person who stood up and talked about how Iraqis met with the people who hijacked the airplanes. The intelligence community never shared that information. He personally, and his small group of people, according to Colin Powell, former secretary of State's own chief of staff, sort of took over and became a cabal that ran American foreign policy.

He opposed the inspections, going to the United Nations. And he, together with the president, provided America with intelligence that was not shared by the intelligence community, and they misled America.

Now Dick Cheney, a man who had five deferments in the course of the Vietnam war, if he's going to challenge me with respect to my support for the troops, that's a debate I'm prepared to have with him anywhere at any time.

MediaCitizen Star Turn

I discuss the Tomlinson scandal with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman. Listen in.

Correction: I told Amy that CPB President Patricia Harrison was a former State Department "undersecretary for public affairs and public policy." She was actually the undersecretary for public affairs and public DIPLOMACY, aka propagandist-in-chief.

CPB Report Tells Only Part of the Story

An Inspector General report released Tuesday by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting exposes a politically-motivated scheme by former chairman Kenneth Tomlinson to meddle with programming on PBS and NPR. But the report stops short of implicating the remaining leadership at the agency, and fails to reveal the extent to which the White House orchestrated Tomlinson's moves.

Missing from the report is email traffic between Tomlinson and White House political advisor Karl Rove, reportedly provided to Inspector General Kenneth Konz by investigators at the State Department. This evidence, which reveals the White House's hand in manipulations of public broadcasting programming, is still under lock and key at the heavily partisan CPB.

The 67-page report by Konz concluded that Tomlinson violated the Public Broadcasting Act on repeated occasions, leading a dysfunctional agency -- created to protect broadcast programming from politics -- in a crusade against what he saw as "liberal advocacy journalism" on PBS and NPR.

It reveals that Tomlinson and other conservative members on the board used "political tests" as a "major criteria" in hiring Patricia Harrison, a former chairwoman of the Republican Party, to be CPB president. The report also said "cryptic" e-mails between Tomlinson and the White House indicated by their timing and subject matter that Tomlinson "was strongly motivated by political considerations in filling the president/CEO position."

The IG document, however, does not reveal these emails. Nor does it share the reported emails between Tomlinson and his "close friend" Rove.

According to a Nov 5 article in the New York Times, State Department investigators seized records of this e-mail traffic from the Broadcasting Board of Governors and handed it over to Konz. But it’s gone AWOL from today’s CPB release.

Mysteriously, Konz's report mentions a “separate investigative report, along with specific evidence indicating possible wrongdoing,” that he made available to the CPB board. This separate report could contain the Rove-Tomlinson traffic but it’s still unavailable to public eyes.

According to the document that Konz did publish, Tomlinson “violated his fiduciary responsibilities and statutory prohibitions against Board member involvement in programming decisions” in creating the conservative “Journal Editorial Report.” He was deeply engaged in that process as an effort, as he sees it, to "demand political balance in public broadcasting." The rhetoric of “balance” has become a shibboleth for right-wing efforts to quash dissenting views and turn media into a mouthpiece for the Bush administration.

The published report also criticizes the secretive hiring of Republican operative Frederick Mann to monitor "Now with Bill Moyers" and other programs without authorization from the CPB Board. It concludes the many violations were primarily the result of Tomlinson's "personal actions to accomplish his various initiatives," but it also identifies "serious weaknesses" throughout the CPB's governance system.

The report that was released makes it abundantly clear that officials at the top of the organization were conspiring to subject America's public broadcasting system to a politcial litmus test.

Tomlinson stepped down from the CPB Board on Nov. 3 upon learning of the report's findings. The remaining leadership of the CPB have close ties the Bush administration. Chairwoman Cheryl Halpern and Vice Chairwoman Gay Hart Gaines are veteran GOP operatives and mega-fundraisers, who have praised Tomlinson for "his legitimate efforts to achieve balance and objectivity in public broadcasting." Tomlinson’s hand-picked choice to run the CPB, Harrison, recently oversaw "public diplomacy" efforts at the State Department.

It’s clear that Tomlinson isn't the lone culprit at CPB. Its board members and staff are continuing his work to undermine the foundation of public broadcasting.

But to learn more about the extent to which Rove was involved, Congress needs to turn up the pressure to disclose all the evidence that Konz and the CPB have on hand.

Good Cop, Good Cop at The Times

The editors of the New York Times today gave us more evidence of the conflicts that wrack their news -- and board -- rooms. In the lead paragraph of an editorial headlined "President Bush’s Walkabout," Times editors make a go for Bush's jugular. But their stridency evaporates by paragraph three, where they offer a wet blanket to help pull this president from the political abyss.

Why has the Times opted to play good cop, good cop with an administration so riddled by corruption and incompetence? A look at internal political agenda of Times management suggests that there are other motives behind this strange mix of criticism and coddling.

But first, the evidence at hand. Today's editorial starts with a bang:

After President Bush's disastrous visit to Latin America, it's unnerving to realize that his presidency still has more than three years to run. An administration with no agenda and no competence would be hard enough to live with on the domestic front. But the rest of the world simply can't afford an American government this bad for that long.

Ouch! But then editors switch to a conciliatory but bleakly hopeful tone:

Second terms may be difficult, but the chief executive still has the power to shape what happens. Ronald Reagan managed to turn his messy second term around and deliver - in great part through his own powers of leadership - a historic series of agreements with Mikhail Gorbachev that led to the peaceful dismantling of the Soviet empire. Mr. Bush has never demonstrated the capacity for such a comeback. Nevertheless, every American has a stake in hoping that he can surprise us.

And offer advice to aide a Bush recovery: downgrade Cheney's role and you stand a chance of making the world a better place:

Mr. Bush cannot fire Mr. Cheney, but he could do what other presidents have done to vice presidents: keep him too busy attending funerals and acting as the chairman of studies to do more harm. Mr. Bush would still have to turn his administration around, but it would at least send a signal to the nation and the world that he was in charge, and the next three years might not be as dreadful as they threaten to be right now.

Too often, the New York Times walks the tight rope between dissent and solicitation. Media organizations this big are too enmeshed with lobbyists and politicians to take their critique of leadership to the next level. The result: measured editorials that cloak conciliatory gestures towards the powerful with journalistic forbearance.

The New York Times Co. relies too heavily upon the generosity of government (de)regulators – whose rulings affect the bottom lines of its eight TV stations, two radio stations and 17 newspapers – to deliver the coup de grace.

The Times Co spends millions to wine and woo politicians and bureaucrats in Washington. And when its lobbying priorities are pitted against those of its newsroom, journalistic caution is often the result.

In its 2001 filing to the Federal Communications Commission, for example, Times Co. management asked decision makers to loosen prohibitions against newspaper-broadcast crossownership in a single market. "In light of today's great diversity of media voices in virtually all communities," Times management wrote in its official filing to the FCC, "no legitimate public purpose continues to be served by the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule."

The Times Co. promised that the public will benefit from "efficiencies" of cross-ownership, resulting in "greater, not less, local diversity of news and information." At the same time, the newspaper gave scant coverage to this issue, fearing the public backlash against consolidated Big Media that eventually took shape in 2003.

Shouldn't their readers and viewers be informed about the Times' efforts to lobby government to own additional media outlets, asked Jeff Chester. "Will their ability to act as a check on private and public power be further weakened as they grow larger, with increasingly diverse interests other than news and public affairs?"

More to the point: Does intensive lobbying of the powerful by management seep into the newsroom, influencing Times editors' ability to serve as watchdogs -- and, when needed, attack dogs -- against the powerful?

The answers is lurking somewhere between the lines of today's editorial.

Broadband Chief Plants a 'Garden'

SBC CEO Edward Whitacre sinks his foot further into the net neutrality debate. In this week's Newsweek he backs away from an earlier statement, when he said it would be "nuts" for SBC to share its broadband infrastructure with other services:

Skype is free in-network, and very cheap out of network. How do you fight that?
You know what I think Skype does? I think they have no infrastructure, they don't make any investment, they use our network free. I think any business probably can do pretty well when you have no cost, only revenues, and you ride somebody else's service free. And that's what they do, and that can't last. They don't have a business out there, in my judgment.

Would you feel justified in blocking services like Skype from your broadband customers?
No, I'm not gonna block anybody's service. But if there's a basic unfairness out there, that usually gets resolved in this country in pretty short order.

Are you looking for regulatory relief for this?
Either that or let the market forces work. They're using [our infrastructure], they ought to be paying for it.

You also take a dim view of municipal-run wireless Internet programs.
I don't want my tax dollars to compete with private business. Why would a city want to get into this business? Why don't they fix the holes in the street, and stuff like that, which they're supposed to do? Don't use my tax dollars to build a telephone system to compete against private enterprise.

Last week, when asked by BusinessWeek whether he was concerned about Google, MSN, Vonage, and other companies plans to get into broadband services, the CEO of the telco giant let slip his plans to create a "walled garden" where your freedom to surf is sacrificed at the altar of SBC profits:

How do you think they’re going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?

The internet can’t be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!

Americans take for granted the diversity of information and services they find at the click of a mouse. Whitacre is working to change this. His company -- along with the "duopoly" of cable and DSL providers that provide access to more than 90% of Americans -- are working overtime to horde your access to high-speed internet.

The threat to our ability to surf beyond the confines of content they approve – and profit from -- becomes very real under a broadband regime controlled by few players. They’ve waited for years for a return on their investment in laying fiber and cable infrastructure. Now they want payback, at the expense of consumer choice.

>>> Read Mediacitizen's full report

The Dog Stops Wagging

Lewis Gould offers a seering critique of this administration's 24-7 campaign strategy, which places presidential images before the real stuff of ruling. Gould pays particular attention to the media's willingenss to play along with this scheme -- feeding the nation choreographed photo-ops of the president while neglecting coverage of the White House's failure to govern.

“Under the rule of George W. Bush and his outriders -- Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Andrew Card -- the disconnect between the pleasures of campaigning and the imperatives of governing has become acute,” writes Gould. “Stage-managed events, orchestrated by masters of spin, provide the appearance of a chief executive in charge of the nation's destiny” -- even as the wheels of governance are coming off the machine.

Gould concludes:

Somehow, the political system needs to restore governing to its proper place in the conduct of American government. Whether this means more one-term presidencies, a more rigorous screening process for national candidates, a more involved citizenry and a more aggressive press — or at least a press less influenced by artifice — cannot be discerned at this moment of potential disaster for the Bush administration.

But it's important to realize that the underlying issues are systemic, not to be cured by different incumbents of either party. George W. Bush's current troubles offer perhaps a final chance to mature as a nation and to understand we must ask more of our leaders than a television screen filled with reassuring images while the hard work of actual governing lapses into disuse and decay.

It took the nation five years to see through the Bush administration’s carefully constructed media façade. But it appears that the combined weight of events has caught up to Karl Rove’s nimble strategy to move red-blooded Americans to act against their best interests.

More proof is in recent presidential performance polls, including a new Washington Post-ABC News poll that shows that a majority of Americans now question President Bush’s integrity and doubt his leadership abilities.

The survey underscores how the foundation upon which Bush and his minders built this presidency is giving way to the combined forces of history. Bush's approval ratings have been in decline for months, but on issues of personal trust, honesty and values, Bush has suffered some of his most notable declines. Moreover, Bush has always retained majority support on his handling of the U.S. campaign against terrorism -- until now, when 51 percent have registered disapproval.

There’s no photo-op that can wag that dog.

The Karl and Ken Show

Report Detailing Extent of Tomlinson-Rove
Relationship Under Seal at GOP-Friendly CPB

Kenneth Tomlinson -- the target of internal investigations within the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the State Department -- was in regular communication with White House political advisor Karl Rove according to evidence contained within a sealed Inspector General report.

On Thursday, a disgraced Tomlinson was shown the door at the CPB two days after their IG issued a report detailing Tomlinson's efforts to impose a partisan agenda on PBS and other publicly funded programming.

He’s now under a spotlight at the State Department, related to allegations that he spent federal money for personal needs, improperly used board money and board employees to further his political meddling at the CPB and hired ghost employees or improperly qualified employees. If the accusations are substantiated, they could involve criminal violations, according to an article in today's New York Times.

In recent weeks, State Department investigators seized records and e-mail from the Broadcasting Board of Governors -- the State Department’s foreign propaganda agency. Tomlinson served as chair of both the BBG and CPB. According to the Times' report, State Department investigators have shared this material with the CPB Inspector General, including e-mail traffic between Tomlinson and his “close friend” Rove.

What the Rove-Tomlinson correspondence says remains to be seen -- at least by those outside the heavily partisan corridors of the CPB. The content of their e-mails could become public when the IG sends the final report to members of Congress mid-November.

President Bush remains under pressure to fire Rove, his closest and most trusted adviser, because of his role in discussing the identity of the CIA agent Valerie Plame with reporters. Rove's apparent involvement in the Tomlinson scandal could become a further embarrassment for a White House already against the ropes.

But Tomlinson’s newest troubles raise more questions than they answer. Central to his tampering with PBS and NPR programming is the issue of authority: Were Tomlinson’s efforts to spin media in favor of the White House directed from within the Bush administration itself? Were they legal? And if not, should investigators start sniffing around the West Wing?

Crimes and Cronies
Tomlinson acquaintance with Rove dates to the 1990s, when the two served on the Board for International Broadcasting, the predecessor agency to the board of governors. Rove has played a part in Tomlinson’s career throughout the last decade. In 2003 and 2004, Tomlinson worked with Rove to help kill a legislative proposal that would have made it more difficult to politically stack the CPB board.

How much of the Rove-Tomlinson correspondence the public will see, however, remains in question. In a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, CPB board members reviewed the IG’s report. Public advocacy organizations, including Free Press, called upon them to full disclose the report at that time – but were rebuffed.

In a response to a Free Press, CDD and Common Cause letter calling for the report to be made public immediately, CPB President Patricia Harrison and Board Chair Cheryl Halpern wrote that they would not open their meeting to the public because the materials required "confidential advice of counsel." Harrison and Halpern added that "premature" release of the IG report may be "harmful to the corporation's interest."

According to internal IG procedures, the board has the right to "review and comment" on IG reports. This review is incorporated into the final document.

The report is now in the hands of Board Chairwoman Halpern, Vice Chairwoman Gay Hart Gaines -- both substantial money donors to GOP candidates -- and President Harrison -- a former GOP chairwoman. There’s little doubt that such GOP loyalists would seize any opportunity to strike damning evidence from its pages and insulate from legal jeopardy their close allies within the White House.

Some suspect that this is what they intend to do. Others say that the report will be released intact -- including the Rove-Tomlinson emails; the board may include their responses to IG questions, as happens in GAO reports, but they cannot redact existing information.

Whatever comes of this, the evidence becomes critical now that Tomlinson’s actions – and his association with Rove – are part of a criminal inquiry.

It will also prove useful to understand the extent to which Karl Rove's tentacles reached into the core of public broadcasting.

Stay tuned.