From: "Rich Gauszka" 

Not maroons but busharoons. Never fear you still have the mindless nabobs
of FoxNews who never met a story that couldn't be slanted in favor of the
Bush administration.


"Mark"  wrote in message
news:438e960a{at}w3.nls.net...
> Wow, the LA Times uncovered a common practice (and a good one) in place
> for decades, if not centuries, that had already been reported months ago
> by their (barely) more competent competition in DC -- what a scoop! What a
> bunch of maroons! 
>
> "Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
> news:438e93f5$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>> Since the Bushies can't seem to get the Iraqi equivalent of dupes like
>> FoxNews to spread their feelgood  propaganda in Iraq they've had to
>> resort to good ol American capitalism - bribes and payola
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/politics/01propag
>>
anda.html?hp&ex=1133499600&en=3af8aaf9fa1cb0bc&ei=5094&partner=homepage
>>
>> WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 - Titled "The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic
>> Iraq," an article written this week for publication in the Iraqi press
>> was scornful of outsiders' pessimism about the country's future.
>>
>> "Western press and frequently those self-styled 'objective'
observers of
>> Iraq are often critics of how we, the people of Iraq, are proceeding down
>> the path in determining what is best for our nation," the
article began.
>> Quoting the Prophet Muhammad, it pleaded for unity and nonviolence
>>
>> But far from being the heartfelt opinion of an Iraqi writer, as its
>> language implied, the article was prepared by the United States military
>> as part of a multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda
>> in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly
>> stipends, military contractors and officials said.
>>
>> The article was one of several in a storyboard, the military's term for a
>> list of articles, that was delivered Tuesday to the Lincoln Group, a
>> Washington-based public relations firm paid by the Pentagon, documents
>> from the Pentagon show. The contractor's job is to translate the articles
>> into Arabic and submit them to Iraqi newspapers or advertising agencies
>> without revealing the Pentagon's role. Documents show that the intended
>> target of the article on a democratic Iraq was Azzaman, a leading
>> independent newspaper, but it is not known whether it was published there
>> or anywhere else.
>>
>> Even as the State Department and the United States Agency for
>> International Development pay contractors millions of dollars to help
>> train journalists and promote a professional and independent Iraqi media,
>> the Pentagon is paying millions more to the Lincoln Group for work that
>> appears to violate fundamental principles of Western journalism.
>>
>> In addition to paying newspapers to print government propaganda, Lincoln
>> has paid about a dozen Iraqi journalists each several hundred dollars a
>> month, a person who had been told of the transactions said. Those
>> journalists were chosen because their past coverage had not been
>> antagonistic to the United States, said the person, who is being granted
>> anonymity because of fears for the safety of those involved. In addition,
>> the military storyboards have in some cases copied verbatim text from
>> copyrighted publications and passed it on to be printed in the Iraqi
>> press without attribution, documents and interviews indicated.
>>
>> In many cases, the material prepared by the military was given to
>> advertising agencies for placement, and at least some of the material ran
>> with an advertising label. But the American authorship and financing were
>> not revealed.
>>
>> Military spokesmen in Washington and Baghdad said Wednesday that they had
>> no information on the contract. In an interview from Baghdad on Nov. 18,
>> Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, a military spokesman, said the Pentagon's
>> contract with the Lincoln Group was an attempt to "try to get
stories out
>> to publications that normally don't have access to those kind of
>> stories." The military's top commanders, including Gen. Peter Pace, the
>> chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, did not know about the Lincoln
>> Group contract until Wednesday, when it was first described by The Los
>> Angeles Times, said a senior military official who was not authorized to
>> speak publicly.
>>
>> Pentagon officials said General Pace and other top officials were
>> disturbed by the reported details of the propaganda campaign and demanded
>> explanations from senior officers in Iraq, the official said.
>>
>> When asked about the article Wednesday night on the ABC News program
>> "Nightline," General Pace said, "I would be
concerned about anything that
>> would be detrimental to the proper growth of democracy."
>>
>> Others seemed to share the sentiment. "I think it's
absolutely wrong for
>> the government to do this," said Patrick Butler, vice president of the
>> International Center for Journalists in Washington, which conducts ethics
>> training for journalists from countries without a history of independent
>> news media. "Ethically, it's indefensible."
>>
>> Mr. Butler, who spoke from a conference in Wisconsin with Arab
>> journalists, said the American government paid for many programs that
>> taught foreign journalists not to accept payments from interested parties
>> to write articles and not to print government propaganda disguised as
>> news.
>>
>> "You show the world you're not living by the principles you profess to
>> believe in, and you lose all credibility," he said.
>>
>>
>
>

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