Operation Mockingbird

Operation Mockingbird was a program started in 1948 by the CIA to influence American Media to spread propaganda, and eventually included foreign media as well. Many well known journalists were essentially on the CIA payroll. Operation Mockingbird may also have been used by the government to ‘strike back’ at other people or organizations that they felt needed to be ‘taught a lesson’ by having a journalist on their payroll report material that may have been false.

This continued until 1972 when George bush, then director of the CIA stated "Effective immediately, the CIA will not enter into any paid or contract relationship with any full-time or part-time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station.”

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While reading an article titled Drug Maker Withheld Paxil Study Data
It appeared that the ‘uncovering’ of documents by ABC led to congressional investigations and lawsuits. It made me wonder if this might be Operation Mockingbird in action.

Operation Mockingbird continued until 1976, when it was supposedly shut down. But could it still be ongoing, using the media to strong arm others, discredit reports, and possibly even spread disinformation through trusted journalists?

Edit: Title

[edit on 8/25/2005 by DCFusion]

I am finding out that while one watches the TV news on prime time you get almost the exact same story on all the Network TV stations. As a former Broadcast Engineer for ABC we get news feeds supplied to us from News sources , those news sources come from the same source that other stations use for the prime time news. So what we are fed as news comes from the same source and so we get what we get from what we recieve from that source. If indeed the CIA was in charge of what is programed we as a news station would not know as the feeds we get run live. So how is it then that the CIA can control what we see and what is heard ? , well its the person who is at charge at the station that says what is news worthy and what will be shown to the masses. Now they could be influenced by there political outlook in life or they could as well be influenced by the owners of the station. Now if the owners of the station say we can not get TV revinue from the stories we or they want to run , because some manufactures , big buisness , etc who pays for advertising tells us to run there ads in these time slots and at these times and on these TV program shows. I think more about how buisness controls the final product in the say of payments through advertising. But who controls big buisness?