'Bought Journalism': German bestseller reveals CIA pay Western media for spin & bias

[JohnyCanuck]

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I am shocked, shocked I tell you.

[uhnope]

1. Laughable. RT is a Kremlin-run operation in a country that has destroyed the independent media

and they point fingers? But shamelessness is pretty much the Putin way.

It's based on a new book by a crazy mixed up right winger who started out Christian, became an atheist, converted to Islam, then broke with Islam and became an anti-Muslim crusader. Oh, and he is part of the fascist political group "Pax Europa"

[another_liberal]

2. You know the story is true, I assume . . .

Yet it's impossible to pass up a chance to slam RT News, right?

After all, everyone knows the CIA does do this kind of thing, and has for decades, don't you agree?

[uhnope]

3. nice conspiracy theory

It's happened in the past, but to see secret agents everywhere is tinfoil hat area. Please give us examples from this century

[another_liberal]

5. Personal attacks only show the weakness of your position . . .

Think about it, OK?

In regard to my "examples": The evidence backing my contentions of CIA manipulation of news sources is, of course, available everywhere. Do a Google search.

[uhnope]

6. lol. No examples. Like I thought

But a google search will turn up lots of conspiracy sites that also want to talk about fake moon landings and invasions from outer space. And RT, of course.

[ReRe]

4. But George Orwell also said:

"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it."

[uhnope]

8. So RT is a victim of hate now?

Today's Russia is doing well in becoming an Orwellian nightmare (again). I doubt he would champion them for "truth;" he would probably be trying to wake up the west to what's going on there, just like he did in Animal Farm and 1984.

Orwell was one of the few progressives (socialists, even) willing to condemn left-dictatorships. Though Putin is not "left," much the same situation is going on today--progressives give a pass to Russia (and China too) for whatever reason.

[ReRe]

9. Truth comes in all different forms...

... but there is a universal truth which surpasses all ideologies. I don't swear by everything that I might hear out of RT, but sometimes a little truth comes creeping out. You need to stop hating the messenger and start listening to the message. I don't hate the Russian people. But I can't STAND Putin. I don't hate the Chinese people, but I hate what their leaders might be getting ready to do to those protesters in Hong Kong. If one doesn't keep and open mind, one might just inadvertently make truth the victim.

[uhnope]

10. so do you recommend I go to Stormfront or ISIS to get some truth?

Of course there's truth mixed in with the lies and hate on RT, just like in any propaganda. There are obvious pitfalls to getting that truth from the tainted source--and when you do, truth is indeed the victim. Unlike many progressives, I won't be silent on the fact of the Russian dictatorship and its mouthpiece RT.

[reorg]

11. actually, the video clip is not about RT

even though you seem to try very hard to make it so.

Why do you have a problem with a German journalist writing a bestseller about his experiences with the forces influencing the German media?

What do you know about the book? What do you know about the writer? Why do you just ignore what he says?

Is it because you don't know shit about all of it?

Or is it just because you cannot tolerate any criticism whatsoever from within the "Western" media over the way things work in this industry?

[uhnope]

13. lol--I suggest you look up this journalist yourself

You'll find a crazy mixed up right winger who started out Christian, became an atheist, converted to Islam, then broke with Islam and became an anti-Muslim crusader. Oh, and he is part of the fascist political group "Pax Europa"

Sorry to ruin your kumbaya moment but no, I don't take "truth" from such jerks

[reorg]

15. He worked 17 years for the FAZ

I wouldn't expect anything else than conservative or right-wing "populist" leanings.

Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the facts he is writing about.

Willy Wimmer is also a conservative and at the same time a long-standing critic of NATO. Well-informed, eloquent, passionate and rational to boot.

Here is what he recently said in an interview with RIA Novosti:

As the former Vice President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE, what is your opinion on the killing of journalists, on the refugee situation in Ukraine and then the Russian reaction to everything that is going on there?

The killing of journalists is an organized effort to continue with the control of the mainstream media in the West.

For some weeks the only chance to get a fair picture of the situation in Ukraine on TV has been Russia Today, France 24 or Al Jazeera.

http://en.ria.ru/interview/20140708/190852685/Killing-Russian-journalists-in-Ukraine-is-organized-effort-.html

Willy Wimmer (former State Secretary for Defense under Helmut Kohl) in an interview with Junge Welt (formerly communist, still leftist daily):

... I remember very well a long talk with a leading journalist at FAZ. He pointed out to me that when the US State Department makes a call late at night (requesting they print a story), FAZ will print the story the next morning no matter what. ...

... Ich kann mich sehr gut an ein langes Gespräch mit einem mir seit Jahrzehnten bekannten führenden FAZ-Mitarbeiter erinnern. Der machte deutlich, wenn das State Department noch rechtzeitig vor Drucklegung nachts anruft, dann kommt der gewünschte Artikel am nächsten Morgen in die Zeitung. ...

http://www.jungewelt.de/2014/09-13/007.php

[uhnope]

16. there you go again

Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the facts he is writing about.

You don't seem to consider that the selected facts are going to be tainted or cherrypicked from over-the-top sources. It's kind of charming that such naivete still exists, but...

[reorg]

17. you don't even know what he wrote

so why not shut up until you can finally post something substantial?

[uhnope]

18. thanks for reading my mind but no I will not "Shut Up"

You seem to think you know what I know. Wrong. I had to educate you about the loony RW source of this "news" and I know quite well about the basics of this story--it's incredibly overblown.

And thanks but I will not shut up about BS fake-news from dictator news source RT, from Islamophobes in Europe, from FOX or from anywhere.

[reorg]

19. Maybe you won't but perhaps you should

- your blathering complaints do not refer with one single word to an actual quote by the author or anything of substance at all.

[ReRe]

12. Don't be rediculous.

I wish you well...

[JDPriestly]

7. One as bad as the other. This story is no doubt true, but it is ironic that RT dares to talk about

the manipulation of the press by the US.

There are some great, trustworthy people on RT. But there is also a fair share of propaganda.

Our press is absolutely owned by conservative interests. I don't trust much of it at all.

[reorg]

20. I can see nothing ironic about that

First, you vaguely refer to "the press" being manipulated "by the US" when the allegation by the author mentioned above is rather that the (German) press manipulates the public on behalf of the US government, which is achieved in various ways. Mainly through economic "incentives" and pressures which are not necessarily illegal but certainly unethical - at least if you have certain, if perhaps unrealistic expectations about what journalists ought to do and because these dependencies rarely get out in the open. The media are considered "free" because they are privately owned, what we don't usually get to know much about is their direct contacts with and dependency from state institutions which causes a certain uniformity of approach especially when foreign policy and conflicts are in the center of attention.

Second, from the outset it was RT's stated mission to provide a counterweight to this. They claim to be "more" objective since they (also) present the other side of the story, the Russian point of view when world events tend to be seen in partisan terms which in the recent past have increasingly tended to overwhelmingly become anti-Russian.

Here is what editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, said in an interview with Der Spiegel:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your network is funded by the Russian government. What is its mission statement?

Simonyan: If you tune in to CNN or the BBC on a regular day, 80 or 90 percent of the stories are identical. We want to show that there are more stories out there than the 10-a-day that you usually encouter. I'm not saying that you should watch only our program; I'm saying that you should also watch it.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The Russian media have a slightly more dramatic take on your objectives. Many are comparing the network to the Ministry of Defense. You said it yourself, when Russia goes to war …

Simonyan: … then we will join them in battle, yes. That goes for the country's real, armed conflicts. Do you remember the August war of 2008? Back then, most Western media outlets acted as if they were Georgia's ministry of defense.

...

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is Russia Today's goal to provide objective reporting? Or is it first and foremost just about offering a perspective different from that of Western media?

Simonyan: Have you already seen many examples of objective reporting in general?

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Efforts are made to be objective. But your network only covers one side, offering Syrian dictator Bashar Assad a platform for his political message.

Simonyan: There are people who refer to Assad's political opponents as the "democratic opposition." Even the rebels, however, have raped women and murdered children. Take Saakashvili, for example. He is held up as a hero by the BBC. For others, he represents an oppressor of freedom. There is no objectivity -- only approximations of the truth by as many different voices as possible. ...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-interview-russia-today-editor-in-chief-margarita-simonyan-a-916356.html

Also a good read her reply to recent accusations by one Mr Stengel, State Dep.:

Who's really 'presenting lies as facts'?

[JDPriestly]

21. I like Thom Hartmann. We don't get two sides to stories, not really, in the US.

When I have the time, I read foreign press -- different languages, different cultures, different points of view.

Our media just does not dare cover certain topics or take certain points of view or even talk about certain points of view. RT is not the worst, not the best. It, like all the rest of the media, has a point of view, some good programs, some really stupid ones.

I like Thom Hartmann. He really tries to be honest and fair, and he is on RT as well as Pacifica.

[reorg]

22. Yes, I like Tom Hartmann, too.

RT seems also to be a great opportunity for younger female journalists, I don't watch often enough to know their names but sometimes I'm really impressed.

Their copy of crosstalk is not bad, they have sometimes very interesting guests, although it's obvious that some viewpoints, while not entirely excluded, are never meant to "win" the debate there.

[reorg]

14. this book came out only recently

Last edited Tue Sep 30, 2014, 07:23 PM - Edit history (1)

on 11 September 2014, but what he is writing about is not really news. A satirical German TV program, for instance, exposed the "transatlantic network" of journalists, their connections to political and lobby organizations, in April this year, following the shamelessly and recklessly one-sided propaganda in the German media over the crisis in Ukraine. Some of these journalists sued, the video was taken down, the case is ongoing ...

(in German, the part about the journalists starts at 36 minutes)

on edit: I just read that according to one of the satirists, they had access to the manuscript of Dr Ulfkotte and were using it for their presentation.