The CIA's press: How intelligence plants the news-Part 1
A former CIA officer, Frank Snepp, revealed in a 1983 interview how American intelligence controls the media not through censorship but by shaping information before it reaches journalists.
During his time in Vietnam between 1969 and 1975, Snepp and his colleagues became experts at planting stories in major publications like The New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Los Angeles Times using information that was not necessarily false but only partially true.
These half-truths were leaked to carefully selected journalists through relationships built on trust, giving reporters what appeared to be a major scoop from an official source difficult to question.
Under professional competitive pressure, journalists would publish the story, especially when the same information was reinforced through additional sources, creating an atmosphere of false confirmation.
This method succeeded roughly 70 to 80 percent of the time, making media coverage a reflection of the narrative those in power wanted to promote without any direct intervention.
The American media is not a victim of power but rather one of its instruments wielded by the ruling establishment.
Despite its polished image of independence and objectivity, it functions as the media apparatus of a political system — much like state-controlled media in Arab countries where the ruling regime draws the boundaries the press must observe.
Nowhere did this role become more visible than during America's wars against the people of the West Asia and the Global South.
What appears to be a triumph of journalistic skill is often just intelligence work disguised as reporting.
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VIDEO | The CIA's press: How intelligence plants the news-Part 1
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