What is it with the Bush administration and paying off journalists? They did it here with op/ed writers, and now the Pentagon has extended the policy even further in Iraq by paying news sources to print U.S.-friendly articles and offering individual journalists financial rewards for skewing news coverage.
Whether or not this is a breach of military policy (and apparently it isn’t) doesn’t really concern me. The bigger issue is the corruption involved here, and the message that we’re sending. We talk about “freedom,” but then pervert the First Amendment. We criticize the anti-American propaganda campaigns in the state-operated newspapers of various countries in that region, and then launch a propaganda campaign of our own, except we utilize news outlets that purport to be independent.
We do need to deal with anti-Americanism around the world, and we do need to project a more positive image of the United States if we want to regain international trust. But misleading and deceiving people probably isn’t the best way to do that.
I happened upon this today while looking for the link to Virginia Blog Carnival. You might have to scroll down to SkepticalObserver: Pull her Credentials but you’ll just love it. Then scroll on up to On Female Altar Servers in Arlington. Just gotta love punditcy (pundancy?) right?