MSM, MSNBC and the CIA

This topic has 5 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 9 months ago by PA Ram.

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February 19, 2018 at 8:17 am #82885

wv
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link:https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/06/john-brennan-james-claper-michael-hayden-former-cia-media-216943

NBC/MSNBC hires ex-CIA director

The Spies Who Came in to the TV Studio

Former intelligence officials are enjoying second acts as television pundits. Here’s why that should bother us.

By JACK SHAFER

February 06, 2018
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In the old days, America’s top spies would complete their tenures at the CIA or one of the other Washington puzzle palaces and segue to more ordinary pursuits. Some wrote their memoirs. One ran for president. Another died a few months after surrendering his post. But today’s national-security establishment retiree has a different game plan. After so many years of brawling in the shadows, he yearns for a second, lucrative career in the public eye. He takes a crash course in speaking in soundbites, refreshes his wardrobe and signs a TV news contract. Then, several times a week, waits for a network limousine to shuttle him to the broadcast news studios where, after a light dusting of foundation and a spritz of hairspray, he takes a supporting role in the anchors’ nighttime shows.

Former CIA Director John Brennan (2013-17) is the latest superspook to be reborn as a TV newsie. He just cashed in at NBC News as a “senior national security and intelligence analyst” and served his first expert views on last Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press. The Brennan acquisition seeks to elevate NBC to spook parity with CNN, which employs former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director Michael Hayden in a similar capacity. Other, lesser-known national security veterans thrive under TV’s grow lights. Almost too numerous to list, they include Chuck Rosenberg, former acting DEA administrator, chief of staff for FBI Director James B. Comey, and counselor to former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III; Frank Figliuzzi, former chief of FBI counterintelligence; Juan Zarate, deputy national security adviser under Bush, at NBC; and Fran Townsend, homeland security adviser under Bush, at CBS News. CNN’s bulging roster also includes former FBI agent Asha Rangappa; former FBI agent James Gagliano; Obama’s former deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken; former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers; senior adviser to the National Security Council during the Obama administration Samantha Vinograd; retired CIA operations officer Steven L. Hall; and Philip Mudd, also retired from the CIA.

And CNN is still adding to its bench. Last Saturday, former Comey aide Josh Campbell wrote a New York Times op-ed on why he was leaving the FBI on principle. By Monday, the network was announcing his new position as a “law enforcement analyst.”

Like the armchair TV generals who served as network co-anchors during the Iraq War, the spooks occupy a slippery taxonomical journalistic position. They’re news sources who go on TV, where they’re asked questions by official journalists. But because they draw pay from the networks, they can’t really be called sources—the standard U.S. journalistic code prohibits paying sources. Instead, they’re called contributors. But that’s not a perfect title, either. Standard journalistic contributors—reporters, anchors, editors, producers—pursue the news wherever it goes without fear or favor, as the famous motto puts it. But almost to a one, the TV spooks still identify with their former employers at the CIA, FBI, DEA, DHS, or other security agencies and remain protective of their institutions. This makes nearly every word that comes out of their mouths suspect. Are they telling God’s truth or are they shilling for their former bosses? Or worse yet, do they have other employers (some of the TV generals were also working for defense contractors), causing them to pull punches in yet another direction?

Generals and spooks aren’t the only expert talkers on TV news. Roving gangs of retired politicians drawing stipends crowd the green rooms at every network from Fox to MSNBC. Law professors and former prosecutors enjoy these gigs, too, as do campaign consultants and political activists. The reason TV front-loads so many of its broadcasts with “expert-talk” is because it’s cheaper to fill 24 hours of airtime with talk than with reporting, and it’s easier to book talking heads already on the team than dialing up new sources every day. (Also, there’s probably not enough news to fill a 24-hour schedule, but that’s another column.) TV spies have always been the soy-extender that cable producers can stir-fry talk into any national security news breaking during the day. The Trump scandals, touching as they do all of the national security bases—CIA, FBI, FISA applications, Russian affairs and counterinsurgency—make the hiring of TV spies cost effective.

It would be disingenuous to claim that the TV spooks add no value to broadcasts. They inform us on how FISA warrants work; they explain the methods by which the Russians recruit spies; they entertain us with their disdain for the current president, and more. Maintaining, as they do, relationships with people at their old agencies, they’re close to newsworthy material that they sometimes share. They excel at context, continuity and history.

But the downside of outsourcing national security coverage to the TV spies is obvious. They aren’t in the business of breaking news or uncovering secrets. Their first loyalty—and this is no slam—is to the agency from which they hail. Imagine a TV network covering the auto industry through the eyes of dozens of paid former auto executives and you begin to appreciate the current peculiarities.

February 19, 2018 at 8:42 am #82886

wv
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See, to ‘me’ this is a gazillion-trillion-million times more important than the russia-gate story.

And its really not even a story, in 95 percent of Americans’ minds.

We should just call the MSM ‘CIA-news’ from now on.

People dont want the Russian-news…interfering with…the CIA-News.

Sigh.

w
v

February 19, 2018 at 9:51 am #82895
Billy_T
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wv wrote:

See, to ‘me’ this is a gazillion-trillion-million times more important than the russia-gate story.

And its really not even a story, in 95 percent of Americans’ minds.

We should just call the MSM ‘CIA-news’ from now on.

People dont want the Russian-news…interfering with…the CIA-News.

Sigh.

w
v

You can’t make this stuff up. An ex-CIA agent has been appearing on MSNBC recently. His name is John Sipher.

;>)

An interesting transition of sorts . . . It was discovered during the Bush regime, remember, that he had ex-generals, posing as “experts,” go on the Teebee to push for the Iraq war. There was also a nexus of ex-generals who had become lobbyists for the MIC, who probably did this without being asked. So it was both/and.

Now, as you mention, it seems it’s more FBI and CIA folks.

I don’t really know what to make of that shift.

But I also think this needs to be restated: The vast majority of these guys — both the generals and the secret squirrels — are Republicans. Overwhelmingly so. When Trump and his loyalists in the House try to make this into a Democratic Party only thing . . . they’re lying. Yeah, the Dems are complicit. But if there’s a deep state, it’s long been decidedly “conservative” and Republican.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Billy_T.
February 19, 2018 at 10:59 am #82898
wv
Participant
Well i dont think it matters if they are Replicants or Duplicats, they are both Pro-Corporate-Capitalist-Empire-ists.

I think of them as ‘deep staters’ but the label doesnt really matter to me. Call it simple Neoliberal-Empire-sustainers.

I tend to like the term deep state, because to me, it suggests the ‘secrecy’ part of it. And since so much of this is carried out by the CIA/NSA there is a shitload of undemocratic, unaccountable, Secrecy involved.

w
v

==========================
US interference in Bolivian Elections:https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Why-Bolivia-Fights-US-Imperialism-But-Chile-Does-Not-20180216-0014.html?utm_source=planisys&utm_medium=NewsletterIngles&utm_campaign=NewsletterIngles&utm_content=32

“..Declassified documents acquired by investigators Jeremy Bigwood and Eva Golinger under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has allotted over US$97 million since 2002 in decentralizationof regional autonomy projects and opposition political parties in Bolivia that are typically upheld by Eastern Bolivian regional governments.
The USAID program in Bolivia began following the USAID founding of an Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI) in Bolivia in 2004.

The OTIs are a subsection of USAID dedicated to providing immediate response teams to political crises within nations of strategic significance to the U.S. and only provides political issues despite the USAID being dedicated to what they define as humanitarian aid and development assistance. OTIs also function as intelligence agencies due to their discretion and issuing of large contracts with U.S. companies, to run temporary offices in nations where OTI have to allocate millions of dollars to their political parties and NGOs that are allied with the U.S.

According to the leaked documents, the main goal of the USAID was to split Bolivia into two republics—one that would be Indigenous-governed and the other run by white and mixed Bolivians who mostly reside in areas abundant in natural resources such as gas and water. In addition….”
- This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by wv.
February 19, 2018 at 11:39 am #82901

Billy_T
Participant

wv wrote:

Well i dont think it matters if they are Replicants or Duplicats, they are both Pro-Corporate-Capitalist-Empire-ists.

I think of them as ‘deep staters’ but the label doesnt really matter to me. Call it simple Neoliberal-Empire-sustainers.

I tend to like the term deep state, because to me, it suggests the ‘secrecy’ part of it. And since so much of this is carried out by the CIA/NSA there is a shitload of undemocratic, unaccountable, Secrecy involved.

w
v

You’re right. It doesn’t really matter, especially in the long run. Both parties are guilty.

But I think in the short run it’s important to note who’s actually in charge, and the history. Trump and the GOP, plus Fox, etc. etc. . . are really pushing the narrative of the Democrats-only deep state . . . and the more hyperbolic among the Republicans call it a Democrat-only coup against Trump.

I see that as highly dangerous, and a backdoor way to gain political cover for a purge, one that would make the “deep state” Trump’s and Trump’s alone. He’s made attempts at this already, and sent up numerous trial balloons going back to the transition about this, asking for info on voting records among federal workers, etc. We don’t know how successful he’s been to date.

February 20, 2018 at 9:40 am #82920

PA Ram
Participant

Well, I think we can all agree that television news in general just sucks. It’s next to worthless.

I’d rather listen to “The Majority Report” or read alternative sources. Cable news is a joke. It’s almost like reality television where little battles are set up between screaming guests. How much are they covering the consequences of everything Trump is doing–from tearing apart the CFPB to his desire for more dangerous nukes? To his dismantling of regulations that give us clean air and water?

I am sick of Russia, Russia, Russia 24 hours a day. Look-it’s a very important story. How corrupt is Trump and his Russian ties? What about Kushner? Yes–we need to know that. But how about you cover a bit of that unless something huge breaks and maybe cover the other important issues along the way?

And as bad as MSNBC and CNN are–Fox News has gone totally off the rails in defense of Trump to become the Alex Jones Network. And between that and Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, they have separated their listeners from all reality. Forget debate. We can never agree on facts again.

So it’s a swamp. A mess.

But hey–you want to talk about influence on our elections and corruption of the process? How about dark money influence? How about outright buying of our elected officials by corporations AND foreign governments?

What’s that? Crickets?

I thought so.

They are dumbing everything down. And our obsession now with tweets and memes and quick soundbites is transforming our society from an informed one to an ignorant one. How can we solve the issues when we don’t even understand them?

I give up.

I won’t spend hours arguing anymore with someone who can’t agree on facts. I just won’t.

I care about my kids and their future and that’s the only reason I argue or comment at all. My hope is that their generation will do better. This baby boomer generation sucks. We blew it. We are leaving them garbage. I look to them to try to fix this mess when we’re gone.

I wish them luck.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick
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