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Thursday, December 01, 2005
 
A brilliant idea

I have been stirred from my torpor by an amazing revelation:
Faced with suicide bombings, claims of Iraqi death squads, and kidnappings, the Pentagon has come up with an innovative solution to solving the problems in Iraq: buying good news. Using defence contractors or intermediaries posing as freelance reporters, the military has been paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by a military propaganda unit lauding the US mission.
The article later says:
At a press conference on Tuesday defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the number of "free" media organisations in Iraq was one of its great success stories, offering a "relief valve" for the Iraqi public to debate the issues of the day.
but, apparently, a senior Pentagon official criticised his boss by saying to the LA Times:
"Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it."
This revelation gives me hope that we might achieve the same sort of breakthrough for quality news here on Airstrip One. We could pay the Daily Mail to print properly researched articles and The Sun to print real news. Wouldn’t that be brilliant?

Read the complete article here.

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