'You would be called a commie if you suggested it might even be possible'

From MediaMatters.org :

For those who did not make it through all 7,560 words of The New York Times' killer story about how the networks and cable news stations have allowed themselves to be manipulated by a Pentagon-based conspiracy to mislead the American people about the progress of the war with ex-military men whose own financial well-being was directly tied to their willingness to play ball, it's yet another story where you would be called a commie if you suggested it might even be possible, but of course it turns out to be far worse than the critics imagined it. I did, and here are the key details unearthed by the Pulitzer-worthy reporting of David Barstow:

• "Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks."
• "The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air."
• "[B]usiness relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. ... [M]embers of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access."
• "[N]etwork officials, meanwhile, acknowledged only a limited understanding of their analysts' interactions with the administration. They said that while they were sensitive to potential conflicts of interest, they did not hold their analysts to the same ethical standards as their news employees regarding outside financial interests. The onus is on their analysts to disclose conflicts, they said."
• "Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as 'message force multipliers' or 'surrogates' who could be counted on to deliver administration 'themes and messages' to millions of Americans 'in the form of their own opinions.' "
• "Though many analysts are paid network consultants, making $500 to $1,000 per appearance, in Pentagon meetings they sometimes spoke as if they were operating behind enemy lines, interviews and transcripts show. Some offered the Pentagon tips on how to outmaneuver the networks, or as one analyst put it to Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, 'the Chris Matthewses and the Wolf Blitzers of the world.' Some warned of planned stories or sent the Pentagon copies of their correspondence with network news executives."
• " 'You could see that they were messaging,' Brent Krueger, aide to former assistant secretary of defense for public affairs Torie Clarke, said. 'You could see they were taking verbatim what the secretary was saying or what the technical specialists were saying. And they were saying it over and over and over.' Some days, he added, 'We were able to click on every single station and every one of our folks were up there delivering our message. You'd look at them and say, "This is working." ' "

Glenn Greenwald reiterates the point of the moral, intellectual, and political irresponsibility of the mainstream media honchos who invited this abuse.