The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America

[Octafish]

15. ''Target Audience''

Who remembers the Army sent "Interns" to CNN and NPR without, uh, telling anybody who was sponsoring their visits? Before 9-11.

NPR news chiefs deny they knew of Army interns

Originally published in Current, April 17, 2000

By Mike Janssen

Sergeants from a specialized propaganda unit of the U.S. Army interned on NPR news shows over a nine-month period, according to a statement by network President Kevin Klose released last week. The April 10 announcement coincided with the publication of an article in TV Guide that revealed the surprising news.

Similar reports about officers from the 4th Psychological Operations Group (PSYOP) interning at CNN surfaced weeks before the TV Guide article, first in a Dutch newspaper and later in stateside media. Media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn suggested that the military was spying on CNN and highlighted the rich potential for conflicts of interest. However, CNN and NPR officials agree with a PSYOP spokesman: the interns did not influence the networks' journalism.

"No journalism was committed" by the interns, says NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin, who was v.p. of news when the interns were employed. Dvorkin says the interns answered phones, filed away scripts, and prepared program lists and schedules. Maj. Jonathan Withington, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Army Special Operations Command which includes PSYOP, adds that the interns carried equipment and did "background research," and stresses that they did not influence reporting. Regardless, Dvorkin calls the internships "a real goof."

The first intern at NPR rotated among newsmagazines from September to November 1998. The other two worked for Talk of the Nation, one from January to February 1999, the other from March to May 1999. NPR and Withington would not identify the interns or allow them to be interviewed for this article.

CONTINUED...

http://www.current.org/rad/rad007psyop.html

Later...

Target Audience

Fort Bragg's propaganda troops at work on the home front

By Jon Elliston
Indy Week (Raleigh NC), July 5, 2000

"To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill," the oft-quoted military strategist Sun Tzu wrote more than 2,000 years ago. Today's top propaganda troops, the U.S. Army's 4th Psychological Operations Group at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, still repeat that dictum as they take their trade into the information age.

They may also have taken military persuasion skills into American newsrooms, according to a recent series of reports that began in the European press and sparked a media mini-scandal here in the United States.

The latest uproar over military news management is not about journalists' access to some faraway combat zone, but rather concerns government-media collaboration on the home front. Fort Bragg's Army Special Operations Command, home to the nation's preeminent and only active-duty tactical propaganda unit, is under scrutiny for dispatching soldiers from the 4th Group to work as news interns at Cable News Network (CNN) in Atlanta and National Public Radio (NPR) in Washington, D.C.

Media analysts who have expressed alarm about the case say that while any official armed-forces presence in the news-production process is cause for concern, the psychological operations (PSYOP) personnel pose a particular threat, given the job they do. Soldiers from the 4th Group accompany U.S. troops in every major military deployment, amplifying the force of arms by barraging "target audiences" with information, persuasive appeals and intimidating threats.

In the wake of public disclosures about the unusual internships, both networks have banned the propaganda specialists from any future training programs, though the networks say the soldier interns had no influence on the content of news reports.

Echoing the media outlets that first welcomed and then abruptly decommissioned the PSYOP interns, Army spokesmen insist that the fuss is much ado about nothing. The 4th Group personnel signed up with the mainstream media to soak up skills, they say, not to spin the news about military matters.

Observers of this unprecedented episode are still sorting out the implications. A series of fragmentary press reports beginning in February 2000 revealed the basic facts about the internships, but the complete story has remained elusive.

Army documents and interviews with soldiers at Fort Bragg indicate that this was not the first time PSYOP troops were deployed domestically and suggest that, given the growing importance of persuasion operations in military planning and the increasingly advanced capabilities of units like the 4th Group, the U.S. media--as well as any citizen seeking the facts on foreign policy--should be on guard for additional military forays into the fourth estate.

Perception management

Cease Resistance: It's Good for You! is the title of the definitive history of combat psychological operations, written by an in-house historian at the Army Special Operations Command.

CONTINUED...

http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/target-audience/Content?oid=1181681

Gee. That's strange. The year 2000 is before September 11, 2001 when everything was supposed to change. Glad democracy means the same to you, Sir, as it does to me.

Thank you, bobthedrummer! Outstanding links and information!