There was a good bit of attention in the media when it first came out that the Bush Administration had been seeding local news programs across the country with "video news releases" that could be presented as though they were reported by independent journalists without attributing the stories (often praising the Bush White House programs) to the Bush White House. Read this exhaustive report at the Center for Media Democracy.
Then we learned that the White House had been paying journalists to take the White House position on issues, without advising readers that the opinions and information they were receiving was covert propaganda. See this story in USA Today and here.
Next the sordid details of Judith Miller's long period of being embedded with the White House in the run up to the Iraq war came out in the aftermath of her serving time to avoid naming the Vice President's chief of staff as the source of her information on Valerie Plame, the CIA agent outed by Robert Novak. It was clear that Miller's reporting was tainted by her closeness to her subject--she essentially ran with the story her handlers were feeding her. See, e.g., this article in Slate, this one in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and this one in The Nation.
Now we learn that Bob Woodward, having built a reputation as a dogged outside journalist willing to risk disfavor of the highest officials of the land, was so star struck by his access to power that he kept secret for two years the fact that a senior White House official had also informed him about Valerie Plame. Worse, he participated in talk shows denigrating Peter Fitzgerald's investigation into the affair, without mentioning his own involvement. He himself became the story, as noted in this Alternet article and this Village Voice one. The Washington Post, see here, covered that story fairly well, leading to a rebuke by the Post's ombudsperson, here.
The latest revelation in the covert propaganda/embedded journalists story came in Iraq. We learned that the Pentagon has been paying journalists in Iraq, essentially buying planted stories. See (or hear) the stories on NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post. The Times reported that one of the planted stories claimed that Iraq was moving steadfastly towards democracy. It is worrisome that the lessons from the VNRs and undercover journalists in the US did not cause the Pentagon to think twice about duplicating the strategy in Iran. Even assuming that the military is well intentioned and sees its propaganda as an effort to counter misinformation from insurgents and other sources, it should have realized that its own misinformation (using Pentagon stories without attribution) can only lead to further problems. We cannot talk about press freedoms and the values of democracy if we do not demonstrate them in everyday life in Iraq.
This last story has been just a blip on the media screen, hardly appearing at all on the regular news programs and vanishing into the netherworld of media has-beens on even the national papers and news broadcasts. Reporters should continue to dig into these stories. In what other ways is the Pentagon attempting to control the information about Iraq? How long has the covert propaganda gone on, and how many journalists in Iraq have been involved? Does the Pentagon produce stories for other markets besides Iraq and, if so, where and at what cost and concerning what types of information?
The mlitary in the United States is an extraordinarilyl powerful organization, with men, weapons and sophisticated electronic equipment. We can use the military for good or we can misuse that power and ultimately create greater instabiliaty in the country. It is important that we understand the extent of the military's covert propaganda effort.