An investigation by the New York Times has revealed "a Pentagon information apparatus" hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, which uses military 'analysts' in a campaign to generate favourable news coverage of the Bush administration's war on terror and Iraq. The revelations come after the paper successfully sued the Defense Department, under the Freedom of Information Act, to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.
“Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as 'message force multipliers' or 'surrogates' who could be counted on to deliver administration 'themes and messages' to millions of Americans 'in the form of their own opinions'."
The full 11-page report | Video: How the Pentagon spread its message | Excerpts from selected documents
What's ironic is that the "largest metropolitan newspaper in the US" has carried pro-war government propaganda on its pages so many times over the years. For example, during the months leading up to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the paper inaccurately reported that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction without challenging questionable sources (see here, for example).
In a surprising self-criticism about its Iraq war coverage, NY Times said about itself: "But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged." The 2004 editorial then goes on to say: "The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks."
In 2004, the newspaper's then public editor, Daniel Okrent, noted that the paper's coverage of the Iraq war was, among other things, "insufficiently critical of the George W. Bush administration."
