Ex-Cheney aide shares media manipulation (AP)

[Eugene]

Ex-Cheney Aide Shares Media Manipulation

By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN
The Associated Press
Saturday, January 27, 2007; 12:32 PM

WASHINGTON -- A smorgasbord of Washington insider details has emerged
during the perjury trial of the vice president's former chief of staff.

-snip-

No one served up spicier morsels than Cheney's former top press assistant.
Cathie Martin described the craft of media manipulation _ under oath and
in blunter terms than politicians like to hear in public.

The uses of leaks and exclusives. When to let one's name be used and when
to hide in anonymity. Which news medium was seen as more susceptible to
control and what timing was most propitious. All candidly described. Even the
rating of certain journalists as friends to favor and critics to shun _ a faint
echo of the enemies list drawn up in Richard Nixon's White House more
than 30 years ago.

The trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby owes its very existence to a news leak,
the public disclosure four summers ago of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/27/AR2007012700641.html

Article continues with a detailed account of how the Vice President's
office tried to manipulate the Joe Wilson-Valerie Plame story.