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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 8/7/09

Olbermann-O'Reilly 'Truce' Frays

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The agreement between top brass at General Electric and Rupert Murdoch s News Corporation to tamp down the war of words between MSNBC host Keith Olbermann and Fox News star Bill O Reilly has broken down after the truce was revealed by the New York Times last weekend.

Stung by criticism of caving in to corporate pressure, Olbermann gave a runner-up "Worst Persons in the World award to "Bill-O the Clown and the top prize to Murdoch for having "muzzled Bill-O, kept him from speaking his mind.

That prompted O Reilly to go after GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt about a $50 million fine that GE paid to settle a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint.

Olbermann also attacked the New York Times story for not reflecting his denial of any deal. Olbermann added in a comment to Salon.com s Glenn Greenwald that "there's no 'deal.' I would never consent, and, fortunately, MSNBC and NBC News would never ask me to."

But it s been apparent to some watchers of Olbermann s "Countdown and other liberal-oriented shows on MSNBC that there had been a toning down of the taunts toward right-wing Fox News following the reported truce that was initiated by Immelt and Murdoch in the spring.

As Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz noted on Friday, "a GE spokesman [was] quoted as saying the corporation was ˜happy about the new ˜level of civility.

Also, it fell to Comedy Central s Jon Stewart to highlight the Fox News role in promoting and praising the disruptive protests at "town hall meetings of Democratic lawmakers trying to discuss health care reform with their constituents. MSNBC s attention to the hooliganism focused on the medical industry ties of protest backers.

Despite Olbermann s umbrage over suggestions that he had been muzzled, the process as described in the New York Times story is not unusual in the mainstream news media. I ve personally witnessed similar behavior at major media companies where I ve worked.

For instance, in the 1980s at the Associated Press, we would occasionally cite stories that had appeared in the right-wing Washington Times and often we would note as a warning to readers that the newspaper was founded by South Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon.

After all, not only was Moon a controversial cult leader who was accused of "brainwashing young Americans but he had been cited in a congressional investigation as an agent of South Korean intelligence, had access to vast reservoirs of mysterious cash that led to a tax fraud conviction, and had bankrolled the Times explicitly to bolster his political influence in Washington.

The AP also wasn t picking on Moon and his newspaper. We would often note relevant connections of publications, such as "semi-official news outlets of foreign governments or sponsorship by special interests.

However, when the Washington Times signed up for the AP wire service (in AP parlance becoming "a member of the news cooperative), Moon s executives demanded that AP reporters and editors forgo any references to Moon s connection when citing Times news articles.

The demand led the AP s assistant bureau chief to post a letter on the office bulletin board prohibiting references to Moon except in business stories about the Washington Times. The prohibition quickly stopped any warning to readers about the curious ownership of the newspaper or the possibility that its stories had a propaganda purpose.

By the nature of such edicts, some editors soon expanded the restriction and deleted Moon references even from business stories about the Times. Better to be safe, the thinking went, than sorry.

The AP s decision to treat the Washington Times as a legitimate American newspaper, rather than a propaganda sheet that was tied to a foreign cult leader with an overt political agenda, enhanced the Times influence in Washington. Its stories and reporters came to be treated respectfully on C-SPAN and other news programs.

That meant that Americans tuning in and hearing the Washington Times harsh attacks on critics of Republican policies weren t alerted to the propaganda distortions that often pervaded Times articles. [For details on Moon and his propaganda, see Robert Parry s Secrecy & Privilege.]

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Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at
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