Suspended Nightly News anchor Brian Williams shouldn’t be held to a high journalistic standard because he’s just “a performer,” according to veteran journalist and columnist Michael Wolff.
Wolff believes Williams’ punishment over the Iraq War helicopter incident “vastly outweighed his crimes” because he’s not a journalist.
“Williams is not a journalist; he’s a performer,” Wolff told the New York Times Magazine. “Nobody does any reporting — it’s the evening news, for goodness’ sake.”
He also said he’d laugh if asked if NBC has a “obligation” to uphold the highest of journalistic standards.
Wolff’s statements aren’t really that shocking, however, because the mainstream media has practically been performing as the government’s mouthpiece since at least the early 1950s when the CIA began to recruit American news organizations and journalists to promote the government’s agenda.
“Many Americans still insist or persist in believing that we have a free press, while getting most of their news from state-controlled television, under the misconception that reporters are meant to serve the public,” journalist Mary Louise wrote on the subject. “Reporters are paid employees and serve the media owners, who usually cower when challenged by advertisers or major government figures.
“[Journalist] Robert Parry reported the first breaking stories about Iran-Contra for Associated Press that were largely ignored by the press and Congress, and then moving on to Newsweek, he witnessed a retraction of a true story for political reasons.”
And Jim Marrs, a New York Times best-selling author who used to work for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, also revealed that former CIA director William Casey owned the Star-Telegram and several other newspapers.
“They [the newspaper’s management] were so proud that Reagan had appointed William Casey as the head of the CIA,” Marrs stated. “William Casey was the majority stockholder and the guy that controlled the company that owned the Star-Telegram… So my newspaper was controlled and owned by the head of the CIA, and that was in the employee newsletter, but never made the newspaper.”
Simply stated, well-financed political forces are covertly manipulating the mainstream media to sway public opinion in the government’s favor, so is it really that surprising, then, that Brian Williams got caught spreading lies and disinformation?
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