U.S. Plans to Offer Official Coverage of Iraq Directly to Viewers

[Snellius]

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 — For months administration officials have complained that they are not penetrating the news media "filter" to inform the American public about their progress in Iraq. The arrest of Saddam Hussein was a sorely needed spike in generally dismal dispatches, they said.

But now, live from a television station near you: the good news.

Or so hopes the Pentagon, which is making briefings from the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq directly available — sometimes free, sometimes for a fee — to network affiliates, cable stations and government agencies, bypassing the likes of Tom and Dan and Peter.

"It's to provide the full news story," said Maj. Joe Yoswa, a Pentagon spokesman. "It's an unfiltered resource."

Some critics see it as a not so subtle campaign to counter skepticism among Americans about the Iraqi operation in the months before a presidential election. They note that the taxpayer-financed Voice of America, which broadcasts news about American policies around the world, is explicitly barred from broadcasting to the United States.
...
"The American people need to hear good news from Iraq to supplement the bad news they get" from the established media outlets, said one senior administration official. Good-news stories like the opening of a clinic or school "are not very sexy," he said, but they balance reports of death and destruction, which leave "a very unbalanced picture in the end."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/middleeast/17FILT.html

[preciousdove]

1. But, we have all seen "Good Morning Viet Nam" n/t

:shrug:

[Guaranteed]

2. LOL!! Unfiltered nt

[saigon68]

3. I wonder if they will show the Short Arm Inspection Line

Just imagine the lines of suffers of VD about to get their shots.

That would be fair and balanced.

[Ernesto]

8. Short arm inspection?

Saigon, I haven't heard that line for decades!........ There can be NO doubt about your veteran status!

[booksenkatz]

4. OK, let them show

the openings of clinics and schools in Iraq, as long as they show the closings of clinics and schools (and factories) in America. Look, I'm all for helping Iraq, but do we have to destroy our own country in order to do so? That's nucking futs.

[izzie]

5. Nice the DOD has so much money, Who will get the station after?

Some corp. will buy it for a song and we the tax payers will pay for it. We will need wadders to watch it I am sure.

[tlcandie]

6. If the news here gets any more PRO * we will all have to commit

mass suicide from the stench of it :puke:

[dusty64]

7. "official coverage", oh brother.

Guess they'll be subjected to an American Pravda press just like we have here at home. Lucky them.

[Ernesto]

10. Lets call it the "ministry of information"

I sure that they will show things like the US Army storm trooper's raid on that Iraqi UNION hall last week in Bagdad.

[underpants]

9. Pay-per-view quagmire(a new way to make money)

Why don't they just put it on Fox? Hell break out the party hats and confetti

ALL IS WELL!
ROSE PETALS AND AMERICAN FLAGS!
SADDAM STILL CAPTURED!

[htuttle]

11. Old Hill & Knowlton tactic going on here

As readers/viewers of 'Toxic Sludge is Good for You' should remember, PR firms find ways to bypass network news and go directly to the local stations all the time. Most often, the local networks are so 'backward' (naive? moneyless?) that they accept full-length video 'feature pieces' from the PR companies, and run them during the newscasts without a disclaimer that it's actually an advert.

Listen for intros like, "Here's a word from our Special Health Correspondent Sally Public about why you should eat more tuna", when you've never heard of the 'reporter' before. That is a canned PR piece from whatever company/industry that is featured, you can bet.

They are expanding this tactic to now include outright government propaganda, apparently.

Why are taxpayers going to be paying for these Bush/Cheney campaign commercials? This is reprehensible.

Time to send some more mail...."Hi, Russ? It's me again....."

[rustydog]

12. Yáll recall Rumsfeld's Pentagon Propaganda Group

he wanted to plant false stories with the media to throw off the enemy?
perhaps we are the enemy. This is his propaganda machine in action.
You wouldn't get the truth out of this group if it would save their lives.