Pentagon Launches Propaganda "News" Service

Just when you thought you were getting "fair and balanced" news, the government is going into the business of delivering their news to the internet and your living room.
I tell you, this gives a whole new meining to the phrase "fair and balanced". Whata can they be thinking?????????

Pentagon Launches Propaganda "News" Service

U.S. government officials and the Pentagon have long complained that U.S. media coverage of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is biased and unbalanced.

So they've decided to fix the problem -- by launching the Pentagon's own news service, to bypass the civilian media (also known as "the free press") entirely.

The American public "currently gets a pretty slanted picture," Army Capt. Randall Baucom, a spokesman for the Kuwait-based U.S.-led Coalition Land Forces Command, told Associated Press (presumably one of those biased U.S. news services). "We want them to get an opportunity to see the facts as they exist, instead of getting information from people who aren't on the scene."

So starting in April, the Pentagon plans to send military video,
photos and text from war sites directly to the Internet and to news outlets.

At $6.3 million, the project, called Digital Video and Imagery
Distribution System (DVIDS) is one of the largest military "public affairs" (i.e., propaganda) projects of recent years.

U.S. officials charge that the non-government media focus unduly on catastrophic events like car bombs and soldiers' deaths, while not paying sufficient attention to the military's efforts to rebuild the countries it bombed and invaded. DVIDS is intended to "balance" that.

DVIDS will also let the Pentagon provide hand-picked photos, footage and stories to the media concerning events from which the military has barred the civilian media from covering -- thus giving the government virtually total control over coverage of such events.

"We have an unfair advantage," Baucom said. "We're going to be able to get closer to the incident and provide better spokespeople to give the right information. The important thing is that we provide the public with accurate information."

Critics, however, note that the Pentagon is not renowned for providing "accurate information" about controversial military events. Many view this as simply the latest move in an increasing effort by the military to censor and control civilian press coverage.

"The Army wants to get their view across and they are using a
technique as old as any public relations maneuver ever devised," Aly Colon of the Poynter Institute, a journalism research and education center, told Associated Press.

"I would view the Army's decision, in the same way that I would view OPEC creating a communications system to help the American public understand what it means when prices go up," Colon said.

"This is the kind of news that people get in countries where the government controls the media. Why would anybody here want to buy into it?" Mac McKerral, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, told Associated Press.

DVIDS will put a lot of their effort into providing locally focused stories to small and medium-sized newspapers and TV stations in the U.S. The local angle -- and the zero cost -- are intended to make the stories attractive to such media, and the result is expected to be a vast increase in positive coverage of war-related matters -- a major propaganda coup.

"There are numerous good news stories that aren't told that do provide a better balance on the overall successes we achieved in Iraq," he said. "We'll be able to provide the option for those types of stories. They're not going to lead in a major daily newspaper, but they'll play well in smaller daily papers and especially weekly papers."

(Source: Associated Press
www.wtnh.com... )

So I guess they want us to hear what THEY want us to hear. Martial Law is around the corner. This government is(has been) going to the #ter. It won't be long before some Anti-group snaps.

I do believe the media needs to take a better look at things going on , particularly the good things happening in Iraq and Afghanistan....But for the government to issue its own reports does stink of serious propaganda and will definately not relate well to anyone with common sense.
This just isnt the correct way to go about it IMO.

Hold on a second! So the government isn't controling the media? Now I really am confused. Great now we are going to have two piles of # to dig through for nuggets.

I figured they already had their own news stations through that laughing stock you call the media over there.

Originally posted by Jonna
Hold on a second! So the government isn't controling the media? Now I really am confused. Great now we are going to have two piles of # to dig through for nuggets.

Now that I think about it...yeah, this does pretty much destroy anyone who thought the government controlled the media.

And yes, while the media does report predominately bad news (since bad news gets ratings), I don't think the Pentagon needs to start up it's own news service. I'm not getting all paranoid and thinking this is leading to state-run news and martial law, I just think its a stupid idea

As Nada said, our media is a laughing stock. It amazes me that you can have a day full of newsworthy events around the world and all that will make the front pages of our newspapers and top stories on tv is the size of Jennifer Lopez's ass, what kids Michael Jackson touched today, or how much of his sister's nipple we all saw.

Our media is a joke. Important stories are put on the back burner and instead we get to see how absolutely stupid our "celebrities" are.

I think the government should be applauded for this initiative. They are not shutting down all other news services. No one is saying "Only get your news from here", they are just offering information from their end. If you choose to read your news elsewhere that's fine. But until now the government has not done this and people have criticized them for being to tightlipped with information. So hey, what the hell... I won't take their stuff as being the absolute authority on everything, but it can't hurt. If you think it's biased continue to get your news elsewhere.

I don't want the government presenting the news to us! I don't trust them! What ever happened to freedom of the press not government? Oh, this is just great! Now it's all starting to come together. The government really is trying to start a New World Order. Making us believe what they want us to believe.

A week or so ago, I heard that Dr. Bob Arnott was actually reporting some of the good that was going on in Iraq.
He was fired for it.

Maybe this is the government response to the media refusing to tell both sides.
We can still be skeptical, but we should be able to decide for ourselves what is the truth.
The news services have a stranglehold on the "news". And I am sick of the Jacksons, Scot Petersen and Kobi being the NEWS!!!!!!!!!!