Ouch

"Even among anti-war activists, it was more common to argue endlessly about the contrived pre-war coverage of those fearsome WMDs and the role played, by now-former Times reporter Judith Miller, than to look at how the military-industrial complex had become a military-industrial-MEDIA complex. It's easier to focus on culpable individuals than complicit institutions."
-- Danny Schechter, commenting at MediaChannel on Dec. 12 about his attempts years ago to interest mainstream news organizations and other groups  in a story about U.S. government-backed "information operations"  designed to manipulate opinion before and since the invasion of Iraq. On Sunday, Dec. 11, 2005, The New York Times published a Jeff Gerth article that reported:

The Bush administration has been conducting an information war that is extensive, costly and often hidden, according to documents and interviews with contractors, government officials and military personnel.

The campaign was begun by the White House, which set up a secret panel soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to coordinate information operations by the Pentagon, other government agencies and private contractors.