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Well, there is an interesting history here. E.g. in 2000 NPR (and CNN) allowed the US Army's Psychological Operations division to place military members in the

Well, there is an interesting history here. E.g. in 2000 NPR (and CNN) allowed the US Army's Psychological Operations division to place military members in the newsroom as interns as part of a media training program: https://fair.org/home/psyops-in-the-newsroom/ https://fair.org/home/psyops-in-the-newsroom/ > "PSYOPS is a division of the U.S. Army mandated to “develop and disseminate propaganda designed to lower the morale” of “enemy forces,” and to “build support among the civil population” in other countries for U.S. objectives (U.S. Army Field Manual No. 100-15)." I'm fairly certain that if a Russian media company had a history of hosting Russian military psyops people in its newsroom, or if hired ex-military and ex-intelligence officers as commentators, it'd get the 'state-affiliated' label on platforms like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc. without any controversy.

VulgarExigency 4y ago
Yes, but the United States are the Good Guys, so their propaganda outlets must not get the label identifying them as such.
kelipso 4y ago
The 'state-affiliated' label is a bludgeon that the US gets to use, not get used against the US haha.
carapace 4y ago
Please, in Soviet Russia interns tell you what to do. (I'm sorry, that was a terrible Yakov Smirnoff reference, I apologize to him and to anyone reading this.) Anyway, in the USA military interns at NPR are learning how to run a radio station or whatever. I mean, if the military tried to tell NPR what to say there would be howls from coast to coast. - - - - And now I have read the article you linked to, and it does sound like there may have been some influence from OPD to NPR. As I would expect, when this came to light, there was howling from coast to coast, and it got shut down right quick. In fact, the article says the whole OPD was shut down. Good. (WTF people?)
md_ 4y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/12/julianborger https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/12/julianborger "Cable Network News (CNN) and National Public Radio, (NPR) denied that the "psy-ops" officers influenced news coverage and said the internships had been stopped as soon as senior managers found out . For its part, the army said the programme was only intended to give young army media specialists some experience of how the news industry functioned." That...seems like a pretty reasonable explanation? Just to be clear, the alternative theory you have is that the US government wanted to influence NPR's coverage, and thought the best, most inconspicuous way to do so would be by using an intern placement program targeting Army media officers?
- KyeRussell 4y ago
  The point they’re making is the point they’re making. Take it exactly for what it is. If the same thing was reported to have happened In Russia, it wouldn’t be terribly controversial to label the media outlet “state-sponsored”.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  I'd perhaps distinguish between 'state-sponsored' (i.e. all the operating funds come from a government) and 'state-affiliated' (i.e. media employees and government employees are intermingled and move back and forth from media to government jobs.) If MSNBC hires a Biden spokesperson (Jen Psaki) or if CNN hires a intelligence officer (e.g. James Clapper) or if Fox hires a White House communications director (Hope Hicks), that's 'state-affiliated' in the same sense that if RT hired Putin's press secretary or some FSB/GU officer we'd say, 'oh, right, they're state-affiliated.' News reports are more reliable if the people reporting on government activities are not themselves from the government, it's called an independent press and is generally held to be a critical component of democratic systems.
  - acdha 4y ago
bfeynman 4y ago
Isn't it interesting that a few months ago a few people in twitter spaces were shouting to the world that twitter ITSELF had backchannels to govt and payments and thus was also state affiliated media? What about that?
hn2017 4y ago
Considering Musk has openly endorsed Russia's talking points, his changes don't surprise me. Such a shame to see Twitter destroyed completely. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2023/04/07/elon-musk-twitter-lifts-restrictions-putin-kremlin-russia/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2023/04/07/elon-musk-...
warner25 4y ago
For what it's worth, I'll give some perspective here as a career Army officer. I think this is one of those things that sounds like the plausible work of a highly intelligent and effective monolith, which is how conspiracy theorists often seem to view "the government." I think the reality is that "the government" and the US Army is not. It's a sprawling bureaucracy with insanely high turnover and many internal divisions, in which every sub-organization has its own goals, and people are operating independently at every level of those sub-organizations (and mostly to advance their personal career goals which are often quite limited, like making it to a 20-year active duty retirement or 30-year FERS civilian retirement, getting an education, and transitioning to a good job in the private sector as soon as possible). 2000 was before my time, but this sounds like a program which still exists called "Training With Industry." The ideas behind TWI are that: (1) The Army has people in uniform who've been working hard and doing good things, feeling burned out, and are on the fence about whether they should continue in uniform or find another career path. (2) The Army would like to retain their valuable experience and expertise. (3) Letting people do an internship in private industry for a year, trying out "civilian life," on the condition that they do three more years in uniform afterwards, might be a win-win. It gives people a break and something nice to put on their resume for later. They learn and experience some things from the internship that the Army can't teach. It's like offering a sabbatical more than anything else. The Army lets people go to civilian graduate school for a year or two for the same reasons. My main point is that it's very divorced from the operational side of the Army, even though it's placing people in companies or graduate school programs that relate to their operational career fields.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  Your arguments are cogent, but it's still 'state-affiliated media' - I mean, that also applies to the whole 'media embedding program' that got started in Desert Storm (Gulf War I, or perhaps II if we count the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s). Independent media is not necessarily adversarial to government, but it can't be dependent on government or it turns into nothing but the propaganda arm of the government. E.g. reporting on military failures is necessary, even if this upsets the brass because it damages morale.
  - 4y ago

VulgarExigency 4y ago

Yes, but the United States are the Good Guys, so their propaganda outlets must not get the label identifying them as such.

kelipso 4y ago

The 'state-affiliated' label is a bludgeon that the US gets to use, not get used against the US haha.

carapace 4y ago

Please, in Soviet Russia interns tell you what to do. (I'm sorry, that was a terrible Yakov Smirnoff reference, I apologize to him and to anyone reading this.) Anyway, in the USA military interns at NPR are learning how to run a radio station or whatever. I mean, if the military tried to tell NPR what to say there would be howls from coast to coast. - - - - And now I have read the article you linked to, and it does sound like there may have been some influence from OPD to NPR. As I would expect, when this came to light, there was howling from coast to coast, and it got shut down right quick. In fact, the article says the whole OPD was shut down. Good. (WTF people?)

md_ 4y ago

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/12/julianborger https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/12/julianborger "Cable Network News (CNN) and National Public Radio, (NPR) denied that the "psy-ops" officers influenced news coverage and said the internships had been stopped as soon as senior managers found out . For its part, the army said the programme was only intended to give young army media specialists some experience of how the news industry functioned." That...seems like a pretty reasonable explanation? Just to be clear, the alternative theory you have is that the US government wanted to influence NPR's coverage, and thought the best, most inconspicuous way to do so would be by using an intern placement program targeting Army media officers?

KyeRussell 4y ago
The point they’re making is the point they’re making. Take it exactly for what it is. If the same thing was reported to have happened In Russia, it wouldn’t be terribly controversial to label the media outlet “state-sponsored”.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
photochemsyn 4y ago
I'd perhaps distinguish between 'state-sponsored' (i.e. all the operating funds come from a government) and 'state-affiliated' (i.e. media employees and government employees are intermingled and move back and forth from media to government jobs.) If MSNBC hires a Biden spokesperson (Jen Psaki) or if CNN hires a intelligence officer (e.g. James Clapper) or if Fox hires a White House communications director (Hope Hicks), that's 'state-affiliated' in the same sense that if RT hired Putin's press secretary or some FSB/GU officer we'd say, 'oh, right, they're state-affiliated.' News reports are more reliable if the people reporting on government activities are not themselves from the government, it's called an independent press and is generally held to be a critical component of democratic systems.
- acdha 4y ago

bfeynman 4y ago

Isn't it interesting that a few months ago a few people in twitter spaces were shouting to the world that twitter ITSELF had backchannels to govt and payments and thus was also state affiliated media? What about that?

hn2017 4y ago

Considering Musk has openly endorsed Russia's talking points, his changes don't surprise me. Such a shame to see Twitter destroyed completely. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2023/04/07/elon-musk-twitter-lifts-restrictions-putin-kremlin-russia/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2023/04/07/elon-musk-...

warner25 4y ago

For what it's worth, I'll give some perspective here as a career Army officer. I think this is one of those things that sounds like the plausible work of a highly intelligent and effective monolith, which is how conspiracy theorists often seem to view "the government." I think the reality is that "the government" and the US Army is not. It's a sprawling bureaucracy with insanely high turnover and many internal divisions, in which every sub-organization has its own goals, and people are operating independently at every level of those sub-organizations (and mostly to advance their personal career goals which are often quite limited, like making it to a 20-year active duty retirement or 30-year FERS civilian retirement, getting an education, and transitioning to a good job in the private sector as soon as possible). 2000 was before my time, but this sounds like a program which still exists called "Training With Industry." The ideas behind TWI are that: (1) The Army has people in uniform who've been working hard and doing good things, feeling burned out, and are on the fence about whether they should continue in uniform or find another career path. (2) The Army would like to retain their valuable experience and expertise. (3) Letting people do an internship in private industry for a year, trying out "civilian life," on the condition that they do three more years in uniform afterwards, might be a win-win. It gives people a break and something nice to put on their resume for later. They learn and experience some things from the internship that the Army can't teach. It's like offering a sabbatical more than anything else. The Army lets people go to civilian graduate school for a year or two for the same reasons. My main point is that it's very divorced from the operational side of the Army, even though it's placing people in companies or graduate school programs that relate to their operational career fields.

photochemsyn 4y ago
Your arguments are cogent, but it's still 'state-affiliated media' - I mean, that also applies to the whole 'media embedding program' that got started in Desert Storm (Gulf War I, or perhaps II if we count the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s). Independent media is not necessarily adversarial to government, but it can't be dependent on government or it turns into nothing but the propaganda arm of the government. E.g. reporting on military failures is necessary, even if this upsets the brass because it damages morale.
- 4y ago