The federal agency responsible for administering civilian foreign aid is now hiring workers to combat negative news media and promote positive spin about its Afghanistan operations.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is enlisting private-sector assistance to “lead rapid response efforts to correct erroneous or misleading news accounts.”

Just last year, U.S. foreign aid to Afghanistan was the subject of a damning comprehensive congressional report that found billions of dollars of American aid may have been used to fuel corruption and create programs that would collapse as soon as the U.S. exited the region, causing dependency and future economic troubles for the poverty-stricken country.

In 2010, a media report exposed a $60 million “mismanaged” USAID project that left Afghans “angered over project failures, secrecy and wasted funds.”

This latest contracting action is only one of many media-monitoring and news-manipulation endeavors that USAID and the U.S. Department of State recently have launched.

Among the numerous government media initiatives that WND has exposed is the Obama administration’s comprehensive plan to influence African and global media on how they portray U.S. involvement in Kenya.

Obama, likewise, is creating the equivalent of propaganda ministry that will leverage the assistance of “global news coverage service providers” who will create and disseminate department “news.”

USAID, in this most recent project, is aiming to hire a press liaison with an extensive background as a working journalist – someone possessing not just deep knowledge of what news organizations need, but, most importantly, an exhaustive understanding of how the U.S. government might enable those media to meet their editorial needs.

The liaison therefore must be “persistent, tactful and thorough in gathering and placing stories,” the PSC emphasized. (notice the word ‘honest’ is nowhere to be found).

“The Embassy Public Affairs Office performs this function for the embassy, and the USAID senior press liaison would work closely with the embassy, coordinating efforts,” the document said.

The ability to perform under “changing and often-difficult conditions” – while simultaneously displaying “cultural awareness and sensitivity” – are among other contract requirements. Consequently, the agency prefers applicants with demonstrated leadership skills and Afghanistan-specific experience.

Daily communication with the Afghan and global media is another demand of this position, according to the PSC. Inviting journalists to the USAID Mission-Kabul for tours, providing informal interviews and holding “on-background” conversations with journalists likewise is expected.

Liaison visits to news operation facilities – where he or she will attempt to become “a familiar presence” while “working to earn trust” among journalists – is yet another critical element of the position. The selected candidate, serving as a member of the Mission Development Outreach and Communications Office, conversely will be tasked with arranging reporter tours of USAID-Afghanistan projects.

Getting agency-approved stories published in media, however, represents only part of this job, as the liaison also must “write senior-level speeches that tell the USAID story eloquently and catch the attention of reporters, editors and producers.”

Similarly, training USAID Mission-Kabul leaders and officers how to deal with difficult reporters is another key element of this outsourced post. The liaison not only will deliver lectures to mission staff, but also will conduct what are known as “murder boards” – which USAID described as “rigorous mock interviews designed to prepare subjects to deal with aggressive reporters.”

The liaison additionally will work with locally employed USAID personnel in scanning Afghan and international reporting on the agency.

To counteract what USAID deems to be “inaccurate or incomplete stories and editorials,” the liaison ultimately is responsible for producing “effective stories and hard-hitting commentary to fill gaps in news coverage.”

The Kabul-based position pays in the $84,697-$110,104 range, not including a 35 percent post differential allowance and 35 percent danger pay. Perks under the one-year contract include two rest-and-recuperation, or R&R, trips, three “regional rest breaks” and 20 days of administrative leave, in addition to 48 hours of travel time for each reprieve.

{Written by Steve Peacock who is a freelance writer and photographer whose work has appeared in the Tampa Tribune, WND, Drug Enforcement Report, Corrections Journal and the Revered Review.}

The account above should scare the hell out of you. There is no greater power in the world today than that wielded by the manipulators of public opinion in America.  No king or pope of old, no conquering general or high priest ever disposed of a power even remotely approaching that of the few dozen men who control America’s mass news and entertainment media and who controls them.

Their power is not distant and impersonal; it reaches into every home in America, and it works its will during nearly every waking hour.  It is the power that shapes and molds the mind of virtually every citizen, young or old, rich or poor, simple or sophisticated. Our government knows this.

The mass media form for us our image of the world and then tell us what to think about that image.  Essentially everything we know — or think we know — about events outside of our own neighborhood or circle of acquaintances comes to us via our daily newspaper, our weekly news magazine, our radio, or our television.  It is not just the heavy-handed suppression of certain news stories from our newspapers or the blatant propagandizing of history-distorting TV ‘docudramas’ that characterizes the opinion-manipulating techniques of the media masters.  They exercise both subtlety and thoroughness in their management of the news and the entertainment that they present to us.

For example, the way in which the news is covered: which items are emphasized and which are played down, the reporter’s choice of words, tone of voice, and facial expressions; the wording of headlines; the choice of illustrations — all of these things subliminally and yet profoundly affect the way in which we interpret what we see or hear.

On top of this, of course, the columnists and editors remove any remaining doubt from our minds as to just what we are to think about it all.  Employing carefully developed psychological techniques, they guide our thought and opinion so that we can be in tune with the “in” crowd, the “beautiful people”, the “smart money”.  They let us know exactly what our attitudes should be toward various types of people and behavior by placing those people or that behavior in the context of a TV drama or situation comedy and having the other TV characters react to them in the Politically Correct way.

The average American, of whose daily life TV-watching takes such an unhealthy portion, distinguishes between these fictional situations and reality only with difficulty, if at all.  He responds to the televised actions, statements, and attitudes of  TV actors much as he does to his own peers in real life.  For all too many Americans, the real world has been replaced by the false reality of the TV environment, and it is to this false reality that his urge to conform responds.

Thus, when a TV scriptwriter expresses approval of some ideas and actions through the TV characters for whom he is writing, and disapproval of others, he exerts a powerful pressure on millions of viewers toward conformity with his own views.

And as it is with TV entertainment, so it is also with the news, whether televised or printed.  The insidious thing about this form of thought control is that even when we realize that entertainment or news is biased, the media masters still are able to manipulate most of us.  This is because they not only slant what they present but they establish tacit boundaries and ground rules for the permissible spectrum of opinion.

Another example is the media treatment of racial issues in the United States.  Some commentators seem almost dispassionate in reporting news of racial strife, while others are emotionally partisan — with the partisanship always on the non-white side.

Because there are differences in degree, however, most Americans fail to realize that they are being manipulated.  Even the citizen who complains about ‘managed news’ falls into the trap of thinking that because he is presented with an apparent spectrum of opinion he can escape the thought controllers’ influence by believing the editor or commentator of his choice.  It’s a “heads I win, tails you lose” situation.  Every point on the permissible spectrum of public opinion is acceptable to the media masters — and no impermissible fact or viewpoint is allowed any exposure at all, if they can prevent it.

The control of the opinion-molding media is nearly monolithic.  All of the controlled media — television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, motion pictures speak with a single voice, each reinforcing the other.  Despite the appearance of variety, there is no real dissent, no alternative source of facts or ideas accessible to the great mass of people which might allow them to form opinions at odds with those of the media masters.

They are presented with a single view of the world — a world in which every voice proclaims the equality of the races, the wickedness of attempting to halt a flood of non-white aliens from pouring across our borders, the danger of permitting citizens to keep and bear arms, the moral equivalence of all sexual orientations, and the desirability of a “pluralistic,” cosmopolitan society rather than a homogeneous one.

  It is a view of the world designed by the masters to suit their own ends — and the pressure to conform to that view is overwhelming.  People adapt their opinions to it, vote in accord with it, and shape their lives to fit it.

Once we have absorbed and understood the fact that we are being controlled, it is our inescapable responsibility to do whatever is necessary to break that control.  We must shrink from nothing in combating this evil power which has fastened its deadly grip on us and is injecting its lethal poison into our collective minds and souls.

National Vanguard Books concludes: If we fail to destroy it, it certainly will destroy US.

Government controlled media can be seen simply to be media that operates in a government controlled environment. There are three main concepts behind media that have emerged from such an environments. Authoritarianism is seen to be the oldest and most pervasive concept, with two modifications in the twentieth century – the Communist and Developmental Concepts.

1. Authoritarian Concept

The government historically has always had some sort of relationship with the press. The Authoritarian concept is viewed as the oldest of media concepts, tracing its roots from the as far back as Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century. With this invention came government limitations and restrictions on something they saw could challenge their authority, as it ended church and state monopoly on knowledge.

The basic principle of authoritarianism is the press is always subject to the direct or implied control of the state or sovereign. Diversity of views is seen as wasteful and irresponsible, harmful to the country’s development. Under this system, the press are allowed to gather and publish news, but the news must be for ‘the good of the state’, and should not criticize authority or challenge the leadership in any way.

Eighteenth -century Englishman, Dr. Samuel Johnson gives a valid reason for this: “Every society has a right to preserve public peace and order, and therefore a good right to prohibit the propagation of opinions which have a dangerous tendency.”

2. Communist Concept

The Communist concept is seen by some as a variation of the authoritarian one. This was a theory advocated mainly by Lenin. According to Lenin, mass media controlled and directed by the Communist Party could concentrate on the task of nation building by publishing news relating to the entire society’s policies and goals as determined by the top party leadership. There were three main aspects of this press:

a. The press was to be one-party,

b. It was to control both incoming and outgoing news,

c. The news was to be ‘positive’ information that furthered party goals, rather than reflecting the interests of the people,

d. It was to be used as a means of exercising control over the people, along with the secret police.

3. Developmental Concept

a) All instruments of mass communication should be mobilized to assist the government in nation building, fighting illiteracy and poverty, building a political consciousness and helping in economic development,

b) Media should support government, rather than challenge it,

c) Information, like in authoritarianism concept, flows from the top down,

d) Individual rights and other civil liberties are ranked low importance compared to larger problems of poverty, illiteracy, disease and ethnicity

Which one do you think we have?

Which one is our government working to have?

Cliff Kincaid waay back in October 2009 wrote:

You may not have noticed that the Obama Administration, in addition to trying to seize control of the health care and energy sectors, is implementing a national “broadband plan” to redefine the media and transform America’s system of government. It’s designed, they say, to provide “open government and civic engagement.” But it looks increasingly like an excuse for the federal government to control the Internet and access to information and even tell us what is truth.

Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute recently explained at a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “National Broadband Plan Workshop” that it is necessary to have “a common space with shared facts.” Armed with $7.2 billion of “stimulus” money, the federal government is going to provide this. It looks like various progressive groups are lining up at the public trough for their share of the loot. They have in mind what the George Soros-funded Free Press calls “an alternative media infrastructure.”

If you think we already have that, with public TV and radio, think again. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has received $8 billion in federal tax dollars since it was created in 1967, is not considered radical enough by these folks. The Free Press favors an additional $50 billion “Public Media Trust fund” financed by a tax on home electronic devices. It also wants the federally-funded AmeriCorps to finance jobs for journalists.

A new national broadband plan, combined with the just-announced FCC plan for “net neutrality,” or regulating access to the Internet, provides the opportunity for the federal government to  define a  “new public square” with a “common space with shared facts,” as Ornstein put it at the August 6 FCC event. He explained, “It’s something that was easier when we had three broadcast channels and virtually everybody in the society tuned into them.”

Those were the days, you may remember, when Walter Cronkite claimed “That’s the way it is,” and many people believed him. We know better now. But Ornstein seems to be pining for the “good old days” when Cronkite and other liberals dominated the dissemination of news and information.

These days we have conservative talk radio, Fox News, and alternatives to the “mainstream” media on the Internet. It is obvious that the Obama Administration and its progressive backers don’t appreciate this new state of affairs.

Ornstein contrasted what can be, under federal direction, to what we are witnessing “now on health reform,” when so many dissenting voices are being heard. He added, “It becomes much more difficult when you have a cacophonous system with fragmented areas of communication.” And that “cacophony and fragmentation” is most apparent on the Internet, he said.

In other words, those naughty conservatives are standing in the way of Obama’s health care reform plan.

While the Internet is apparently confusing people with too much information, Ornstein said that the Internet also offers “multiple opportunities” to “develop a public square.” He made these remarks at an event presided over by Obama’s FCC chairman Julius Genachowski. The assumption of the exercise was that the federal government, under the cover of a national broadband plan, should not only regulate the Internet but provide new media for the public.

Assisting Genachowski is Mark Lloyd, Associate General Counsel and chief diversity officer at the agency. Lloyd used to work at the Benton Foundation, which is assisting this effort and previously issued a report recommending that the Obama Administration “should adopt policies to ensure that all Americans” have the ability to:

• “Know when you need information to help resolve a problem;
• “Know from whom, when, where, and how to seek that needed information;
• “Know how to differentiate between authentic and unauthentic information;
• “Know how to organize information and interpret it correctly once retrieved; and
• “Know how to use the information to solve the problem or make the decision.”

The idea of the federal government telling people how to “differentiate between authentic and inauthentic information” is frightening. But this is part of Benton’s “Action Plan for America.”

Not surprisingly, the Benton home page features a tribute to the late Walter Cronkite from President Obama. Like Ornstein, it longs for the days when the liberal media dominated the news business.

Once Mark Lloyd left the Benton Foundation for the Center for American Progress, the two organizations collaborated on a letter demanding that the FCC require that broadcasters meet “public interest” obligations, provide access to the media by various groups, and “enhance political discourse.” All of these measures are designed to give left-wing “progressives” more access to the media.

Now Lloyd is in a position to bring this about through federal regulation.

“What we really need in this country,” Lloyd says, “is… a competitive alternative to commercial broadcasting” that would be supported by the public and “fully financed.”

It sounds suspiciously like the “new public square” is the “public option” for the media. But so far there seems to be little debate or even discussion over what they have in store for us, and how they have already obtained $7.2 billion for this extreme makeover not only of our media but our system of government.

That was 2009.

In December 2010 it was reported that Hungary’s parliament passed legislation to tighten government control over news outlets as the state wanted control over public opinion.

In August of 2011, it was reported that England’s government was exploring whether to turn off social networks or stop people texting during times of social unrest.

In October of last year it was reported that China’s propaganda authorities were trying to tighten controls over the Internet as they feared social unrest in the face of a cooling economy and mounting public anger at official corruption. With more than half a billion Chinese online, authorities in Beijing were concerned about the power of the Internet to influence public opinion in a country that maintains tight controls on its traditional media outlets. They wanted to control public opinion.

Now, Obama wants to control public opinion.

Controlling the media equates to saying goodbye to our Republic.

This is an Orwellian principle that has reached a monumental level of importance in our modern-day media. George Orwell would definitely say “I told you so”.