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January 20, 2004 7:42 AM

"You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month" (PDF, 112k) "The Covert News Network", on Project MOCKINGBIRD - "Watergate muckraker Carl Bernstein uncovered a list of over 400 reporters and a coterie of publishers and media moguls who had basically been rubber-stamping CIA propaganda since the 1950s." Alex Constantine on Mockingbird. "Investigators digging into MOCKINGBIRD have been flabbergasted to discover FOIA documents in which agents boast (in CIA office memos) of  pride in having placed "important assets" inside every major news publication in the country. " ( from Geoff Metcalf on Mockingbird). Cheryl Seal on Mockingbird, with additional links. Enjoy the election!
posted by troutfishing (21 comments total)

Bear in mind, that's a couple of hundred 1950's dollars : translated into 2004 dollars that would be five to ten times as much, easily. I told them I'd need at least enough to cover the mortgage. They told me - "Sorry. You only qualify for our Blogger rates". Oh well. So much for being an "asset" (sniff .
posted by troutfishing at 7:59 AM on January 20, 2004

)
posted by Blue Stone at 8:05 AM on January 20, 2004

Fox News: Fair, Balanced, and Cheaper Than a Good Call Girl.

It has a nice ring to it.
posted by FormlessOne at 8:19 AM on January 20, 2004

]
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 8:20 AM on January 20, 2004

FormlessOne - But does Fox swallow? For how much?

Hmmm. Foxswallow. Foxwallow. Fox Wallow.

If ever I write a novel......

Meanwhile, I think Fox reporters and editors are just fellow travellers. It's NPR that is really infested with assets.
posted by troutfishing at 8:37 AM on January 20, 2004

That is the best post title I've seen troutfishing.

Now is it OK if we call them media whores?

That damn SCLM is responsible for all our troubles! Ha!

Great resource. For more on our dear fourth column and its complicity with the shadow government be sure to read the Church report. Dave Neiwert covers it partially this week at Orcinus.
posted by nofundy at 10:28 AM on January 20, 2004

]
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood

Another well thought-out post Steve?
posted by rough ashlar at 10:28 AM on January 20, 2004

HIGGINS

Turner! How do you know they'll print it?
You can take a walk. But how far if they
don't print it?


TURNER

They'll print it.


HIGGINS

How do you know?
posted by matteo at 10:40 AM on January 20, 2004

What if there's another New York Times?
Inside the New York Times.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 11:24 AM on January 20, 2004

Swallow? They gargle.
posted by FormlessOne at 11:25 AM on January 20, 2004

it will happen like this, someday a chat window will open up....and Someone you know...possibly even a fellow blogger or Mefite will type your name....

*hands you a special warez disc* ...for that day.
posted by th3ph17 at 12:30 PM on January 20, 2004

So wait, for a little more money I could get a good call girl instead of a journalist? Sign me up!
posted by Outlawyr at 12:43 PM on January 20, 2004

nofundy - Thanks.

Now, let me repeat - I did NOT say that NPR was infested with asshats.....I said assets!

Outlawyr - But don't forget.....that's a couple of hundred bucks in 50's dollars! It could be cheaper to buy a journalist and then demand sex as a part of the deal. Then, you could still subcontract to the CIA !......you could almost get the sex for free. Of course, it would be sex with a journalist.....

But FormlessOne informs me that they do swallow, at least (and probably more).
posted by troutfishing at 1:43 PM on January 20, 2004

you boys is nasty
posted by Satapher at 2:19 PM on January 20, 2004

Makes me think of when I worked at nytimes.com

Bernanrd Gwertzman, the Editor of NYT's foreign desk for decades was the boss and it was well known that he was best buddies with Henry Kissinger and had been for a long, long, long time. Like, since Nixon was in the White House. He had a huge picture of Kissinger on the wall in his office, for crying out loud.

Sigh.
posted by n9 at 3:48 PM on January 20, 2004

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." --Mark Twain
posted by Pressed Rat at 8:34 PM on January 20, 2004

Plus ca change.........and I'll never learn to do those little french squigglies either.

n9 - That's a nicely telling anecdote. Thanks. Henry K. iconography at the NYT.

Oh boy.

Satapher - As much so as we need to be but, for the record, I don't personally enjoy that sort of thing.
posted by troutfishing at 9:12 PM on January 20, 2004

So where can I buy me one of them reporters? Are they on sale at WalMart?
posted by languagehat at 8:42 AM on January 21, 2004

Nice, matteo. Three Days of the Condor was on cable one Saturday afternoon not long ago. It should be re-released in theaters; it'll really raise viewers' paranoid quotient.
posted by Holden at 8:45 AM on January 21, 2004

A lot of the articles' suppositions are a little off. Calling William Paley a reactionary is like calling George W. Bush a liberal.
posted by darren at 10:35 AM on January 21, 2004

darren - I don't know how to interpret that comment.
posted by troutfishing at 8:26 PM on January 22, 2004