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Not that that law mattered before it was repealed. Here's a nytimes articles from 2005. > To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on t

Not that that law mattered before it was repealed. Here's a nytimes articles from 2005. > To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. > This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/under-bush-a-new-age-of-prepackaged-tv-news.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/under-bush-a-new...

pessimizer 4y ago
It's bizarre that Armstrong Williams was the only person to pay a price for a massive government manipulation program, but it's typical. Judith Miller got to take responsibility for the entire Iraq war.
Spooky23 4y ago
There are lots of instances like that. During the 1991 gulf war, they rolled out the “babies thrown out of incubators by the hun^H Iraqis”, I remember a 60 minutes segment after 9/11 talking to the Afghan government in exile, which consisted of a bunch of dudes in cube farm in Virginia.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  And Gulf War II was steamrolled with a ton of astroturfing "journalism". I will never forget the cheerleader role the New York Times played in the Iraq Invasion, from the straight-up swallowing of Colin Powell's false "evidence", egregious saber rattling "articles", it was depressing. "The paper of record" officially killed the fourth estate during that time period, and journalism has never recovered. I was a dumb 20something, and even I could see the vast conflicts of interests, the military industrial complex frothing at the mouth, the Cheney-fronted petroleum bigwigs cackling, and the callous political calculus of starting a war just to have a more important administration. Or the worst of all: trillions of dollars and a million dead iraqis just so Bush Jr could "show up" Bush Sr.

pessimizer 4y ago

It's bizarre that Armstrong Williams was the only person to pay a price for a massive government manipulation program, but it's typical. Judith Miller got to take responsibility for the entire Iraq war.

Spooky23 4y ago

There are lots of instances like that. During the 1991 gulf war, they rolled out the “babies thrown out of incubators by the hun^H Iraqis”, I remember a 60 minutes segment after 9/11 talking to the Afghan government in exile, which consisted of a bunch of dudes in cube farm in Virginia.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
And Gulf War II was steamrolled with a ton of astroturfing "journalism". I will never forget the cheerleader role the New York Times played in the Iraq Invasion, from the straight-up swallowing of Colin Powell's false "evidence", egregious saber rattling "articles", it was depressing. "The paper of record" officially killed the fourth estate during that time period, and journalism has never recovered. I was a dumb 20something, and even I could see the vast conflicts of interests, the military industrial complex frothing at the mouth, the Cheney-fronted petroleum bigwigs cackling, and the callous political calculus of starting a war just to have a more important administration. Or the worst of all: trillions of dollars and a million dead iraqis just so Bush Jr could "show up" Bush Sr.