November 1^st, 2015

I turned on my car radio early this morning in a small town I happen to be in only to find an NPR affiliate, public broadcasting station delivering the morning news. It started with a fluff piece about an actress who is making a name for herself for being a rather eccentric, bad girl. Then it turned to the more serious news. The other stories seemed to have some credibility until a news piece started about what is going on with the war in Syria. News about Syria was one of the most important things I wanted to hear. The level of misleading the public with political propaganda journalism was so bad that I wondered how credible any of their news reporting is although I suppose NPR might report honestly about something if there is no hidden agenda reason for them to do otherwise.

What really struck me as being the most obvious example of manipulating information toward a particular political agenda was that NPR claimed to be delivering “the news” but I realized they were reporting old information. Instead of reporting on the success of Russian air strikes, cruise missiles from Russian navy ships, Hezballah fighters from Lebanon and Iranian ground troops NPR was reporting about ISIS having victories with attacks that included one initiated with car bombs. NPR reported about ISIS gains in Syrian towns and territories but an observant listener would have noticed that NPR mentioned that these things were events from: “a month ago” and “two months ago”. It was blatantly obvious that NPR was trying to downplay the success of Russia, its allies and the Syrian military in destroying ISIS which is now on its way to non-existence in Syria. Further NPR repeated the official Barack Obama administration and American government line that Russia was not really attacking ISIS targets at all. This part in fact was a one hundred percent, total lie.

The fact that NPR which is considered by many to be an “alternative” news source would engage in supporting a fictional account of events to make the American people believe that Syria, Russia and their other allies which now include Iraq, Iran, Hezballah and China are losing the war against terrorism when in fact they are being victorious is as bad as any war propaganda that the American people have ever been exposed to. When one considers the level of propaganda during war time that Americans have been subjected to in the past including the undeniably obvious example of the Vietnam War in more recent history why should we be surprised? It is a little more sensitive and controversial to speak of the war propaganda from previous war time histories in America that often included racism and xenophobia as tools especially since so much of this history is clouded with feelings of patriotism. However at this point our greatest protection from potentially rogue government in our own country is to question what we hear as the “official government story” and the media that reports along the same lines.