The so-called "controversializing" of troublesome mainstream journalists was aided and abetted by the fact that many senior news executives and publishers were either openly or quietly sympathetic to the neocons' hard-line foreign policy agenda.
That was even the case in news companies regarded as "liberal" - such as the New York Times, where executive editor Abe Rosenthal shared many neocon positions, or at Newsweek, where top editor Maynard Parker also aligned himself with the neocons.
In the 1980s, reporters who dug up hard stories that challenged the Reagan administration's propaganda found themselves under intense pressure, both externally from well-funded conservative attack groups and behind their backs from senior editors.
The New York Times' Central America correspondent Raymond Bonner was perhaps the highest profile journalist pushed out of a job because his reporting angered the neocons, but he was far from alone.
The Reagan administration even organized special "public diplomacy" teams to lobby bureau chiefs about ousting reporters who were deemed insufficiently supportive of government policies. [See Robert Parry's Lost History.]
To protect their careers, journalists learned that it helped to write stories that would please the Reagan administration and to avoid stories that wouldn't.
The same bend-to-the-right dynamic prevailed in the 1990s as mainstream journalists wrote more harshly about President Bill Clinton than they normally would because they wanted to show that they could be tougher on a Democrat than a Republican.
This approach was not journalistically sound - reporters are supposed to be evenhanded - but it made sense for journalists who knew how vulnerable they were, having seen how easily the careers of other capable journalists had been destroyed. [For an extreme example, see Consortiumnews.com's "America's Debt to Journalist Gary Webb."]
The consequences of these changes in journalism and intelligence became apparent when the neocons - the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Elliott Abrams - returned to power under George W. Bush in 2001 and especially after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
As happened with the hyping of the Soviet threat in the 1980s, a pliant intelligence community largely served up whatever alarmist information the White House wanted about Iraq and other foreign enemies.
When an individual analyst did challenge the "group think," he or she would be called unfit or accused of leftist sympathies, as occurred when State Department analysts protested Undersecretary of State John Bolton's exaggerated claims about Cuba's WMD. [See Consortiumnews.com's "John Bolton & the Battle for Reality."]
Propaganda Game
Meanwhile, in the mainstream media, news executives and journalists were petrified of accusations that they were "blaming America first" or were "soft on terror" or didn't sufficiently "support the troops."
News executives transformed their networks and newspapers into little more than conveyor belts for the Bush administration's propaganda.
Poorly sourced allegations about Iraq's supposed nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs were trumpeted on Page One of the New York Times and the Washington Post. Skeptical stories were buried deep inside.
This fear of retaliation has continued to spread. Academia is now feeling the heat from right-wingers who want to eliminate what they see as the last bastion of liberal thought. Corporate leaders also appear to be suffering from the paralysis of fear.
That was even the case in news companies regarded as "liberal" - such as the New York Times, where executive editor Abe Rosenthal shared many neocon positions, or at Newsweek, where top editor Maynard Parker also aligned himself with the neocons.
In the 1980s, reporters who dug up hard stories that challenged the Reagan administration's propaganda found themselves under intense pressure, both externally from well-funded conservative attack groups and behind their backs from senior editors.
The New York Times' Central America correspondent Raymond Bonner was perhaps the highest profile journalist pushed out of a job because his reporting angered the neocons, but he was far from alone.
To protect their careers, journalists learned that it helped to write stories that would please the Reagan administration and to avoid stories that wouldn't.
The same bend-to-the-right dynamic prevailed in the 1990s as mainstream journalists wrote more harshly about President Bill Clinton than they normally would because they wanted to show that they could be tougher on a Democrat than a Republican.
This approach was not journalistically sound - reporters are supposed to be evenhanded - but it made sense for journalists who knew how vulnerable they were, having seen how easily the careers of other capable journalists had been destroyed. [For an extreme example, see Consortiumnews.com's "America's Debt to Journalist Gary Webb."]
The consequences of these changes in journalism and intelligence became apparent when the neocons - the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Elliott Abrams - returned to power under George W. Bush in 2001 and especially after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
As happened with the hyping of the Soviet threat in the 1980s, a pliant intelligence community largely served up whatever alarmist information the White House wanted about Iraq and other foreign enemies.
When an individual analyst did challenge the "group think," he or she would be called unfit or accused of leftist sympathies, as occurred when State Department analysts protested Undersecretary of State John Bolton's exaggerated claims about Cuba's WMD. [See Consortiumnews.com's "John Bolton & the Battle for Reality."]
Propaganda Game
Meanwhile, in the mainstream media, news executives and journalists were petrified of accusations that they were "blaming America first" or were "soft on terror" or didn't sufficiently "support the troops."
News executives transformed their networks and newspapers into little more than conveyor belts for the Bush administration's propaganda.
Poorly sourced allegations about Iraq's supposed nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs were trumpeted on Page One of the New York Times and the Washington Post. Skeptical stories were buried deep inside.
This fear of retaliation has continued to spread. Academia is now feeling the heat from right-wingers who want to eliminate what they see as the last bastion of liberal thought. Corporate leaders also appear to be suffering from the paralysis of fear.
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