This
study by Swiss Propaganda Research was first published in 2016, it is
presented by
off-guardian.org
in English for the first time. Translated by Terje Maloy.
It
is one of the most important aspects of our media system – and yet
hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage
in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based
in New York, London and Paris.
The
key role played by these agencies means that Western media often
report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition,
governments, military and intelligence services use these global news
agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.
A
study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers
clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles were based in
whole or in part on agency reports, yet
0% on investigative research.
Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews were in favor of
the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda was attributed
exclusively to the opposite side.
Part
6 - “Adding questionable stories“
While
some topics do not appear at all in our media, other topics are very
prominent – even though they shouldn’t actually be:
“Often
the mass media do not report on reality, but on a constructed or
staged reality. () Several studies have shown that the mass media are
predominantly determined by PR activities and that passive, receptive
attitudes outweigh active-researching ones.”
In fact,
due to the rather low journalistic performance of our media and
their high dependence on a few news agencies, it is easy for
interested parties to spread propaganda and disinformation in a
supposedly respectable format to a worldwide audience. DPA editor
Steffens warned of this danger:
“The
critical sense gets more lulled the more respected the news agency or
newspaper is. Someone who wants to introduce a questionable story
into the world press only needs to try to put his story in a
reasonably reputable agency, to be sure that it then appears a little
later in the others. Sometimes it happens that a hoax passes from
agency to agency and becomes ever more credible.”
Among
the most active actors in “injecting” questionable geopolitical
news are the military and defense ministries. For example, in
2009, the head of the American news agency AP, Tom Curley, made
public that the Pentagon employs more than 27,000 PR specialists who,
with a budget of nearly $5 billion a year, are working the media and
circulating targeted manipulations. In addition, high-ranking US
generals had threatened that they would “ruin” the AP and him if
the journalists reported too critically on the US military.
Despite
– or because of? – such threats our media regularly publish
dubious stories sourced to some unnamed “informants” from “US
defense circles”.
Ulrich
Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss
television, warned in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of
deception by the military and the role played by the media:
“With
the help of the media, the military determine the public perception
and use it for their plans. They manage to stir expectations and
spread scenarios and deceptions. In this new kind of war, the PR
strategists of the US administration fulfill a similar function as
the bomber pilots. The special departments for public relations in
the Pentagon and in the secret services have become combatants in the
information war….The US military specifically uses the lack of
transparency in media coverage for their deception maneuvers. The way
they spread information, which is then picked up and distributed by
newspapers and broadcasters, makes it impossible for readers,
listeners or viewers to trace the original source. Thus, the audience
will fail to recognize the actual intention of the military.”
What is
known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence
services. In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA
officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the
systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in
reporting on geopolitical conflicts:
Former
CIA officer and whistleblower John Stockwell said of his work in the
Angolan war, “The basic theme was to make it look like an [enemy]
aggression in Angola. So any kind of story that you could write and
get into the media anywhere in the world, that pushed that line, we
did. One third of my staff in this task force were covert action,
were propagandists, whose professional career job was to make up
stories and finding ways of getting them into the press….The
editors in most Western newspapers are not too skeptical of messages
that conform to general views and prejudices….So we came up with
another story, and it was kept going for weeks…[But] it was all
fiction.”
Fred
Bridgland looked back on his work as a war correspondent for the
Reuters agency:
We
based our reports on official communications. It was not until years
later that I learned a little CIA disinformation expert had sat in
the US embassy, in Lusaka and composed that communiqué, and it bore
no relation at all to truth…Basically, and to put it very crudely,
you can publish any old crap and it will get newspaper room.”
And
former CIA analyst David MacMichael described his work in the Contra
War in Nicaragua with these words: “They said our intelligence of
Nicaragua was so good that we could even register when someone
flushed a toilet. But I had the feeling that the stories we were
giving to the press came straight out of the toilet.”
Of
course, the intelligence services also have a large number of direct
contacts in our media, which can be “leaked” information to if
necessary. But without the central role of the global news agencies,
the worldwide synchronization of propaganda and disinformation would
never be so efficient.
Through
this “propaganda multiplier”, dubious stories from PR experts
working for governments, military and intelligence services reach the
general public more or less unchecked and unfiltered. The journalists
refer to the news agencies and the news agencies refer to their
sources. Although they often attempt to point out uncertainties with
terms such as “apparent”, “alleged” and the like – by then
the rumor has long been spread to the world and its effect taken
place.
Further
info, references, sources:
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