Anything but the truth: Official spin, unnamed sources, and the art of man

[rumpel]

the art of managing perceptions

By Greg Guma | Vermont Guardian

posted August 12, 2005

In The Secret Man, Bob Woodward’s new book about his Watergate source Deep Throat, he notes, “Washington politics and secrets are an entire world of doubt.” Even though Woodward knew that the identity of his source was W. Mark Felt, then associate director of the FBI, what he could never be sure about was why Felt decided to gradually reveal the details of the Nixon administration’s illegal activities.

Three decades later, the Bush administration has made it immeasurably more difficult to be sure about what motivates many sources of information — both on and off the record — or trust that what we learn from the media will turn out to be true.

In July, Jeff Ruch, who directs Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, issued a relevant but discouraging assessment to the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform: “The federal government is suffering from a severe disinformation syndrome.”

Ruch was referring specifically to recent surveys by his organization and the Union of Concerned Scientists revealing that federal scientists are routinely pressured to amend their findings. One in five scientists contacted said they had been directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information, Ruch testified, and more than half reported cases where “commercial interests” forced the reversal or withdrawal of scientific conclusions.

But government isn’t alone in confusing public understanding of crucial issues. Media organizations also contribute. A recent example is Newsweek magazine’s Aug. 1 cover story on Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts, which aggressively dismissed reports that Roberts is a conservative partisan. Two primary examples cited were the nominee’s role on Bush’s legal team in the court fight after the 2000 election, described by Newsweek as “minimal,” and his membership in the conservative Federalist Society, which was pronounced an irrelevant distortion. Roberts “is not the hard-line ideologue that true believers on both sides had hoped for,” the publication concluded, and “seems destined to be confirmed.”

full article:
http://www.vermontguardian.com/national/0904/ManagingPerception.shtml