Possibility of Media Manipulation

Possibility of Media Manipulation By Zerai Solomon

London UK In the current climate of consolidation of the global media industry, independent broadcasters simply don't survive for long. The U.S. government has changed the rules of the game. Today media companies are more concentrated than at any time over the past 40 years. The Federal Communications Commission defends its decision by saying that people these days have more media choices than ever before. But the stark reality is that only a few corporations decide what choices are available to the general public at large. Across the English - speaking world for instance, institutions like the Associated Press, Reuters, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, and Al-Jazeera - international dominate international news. These well established media corporations at times unite to resist fierce external pressure from governmental and non-governmental organizations as well as various lobby groups. News is neither collected nor disseminated in neutral manner. News nowadays is filtered and selected to fit a fixed agenda laid down by senior editors and managers who answer to the owners, advertisers and regulators. The government supplies much of the information the media needs for its political coverage including reports on new spending plans, legislation and diplomacy gossip. The shift in public trust from newspapers to broadcasters has returned society to the era when all newspapers were licensed. The media acts as the eyes and ears of society, the other vested interests have taken advantage of the key structural weaknesses and devised potent stratagems for media manipulation. Detlef Zimmerman, journalist who was based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (1999-2008) explained how baseless information is built up. One recent example; When Bush claimed Iraq had obtained materials to make WMD, he cited Blair, Blair made the claim citing intelligence reports. The intelligence reports turned out to be fake documents originated in Italy. According to an investigation by the Italian parliament, the originators of the fake documents were Washington neoconservative. The limited hangout, introduce damaging information a little at a time, like vaccination, hedged with mitigating factors, suggesting to the reader that the information is not surprising at all. Later it can be described as "nothing new". It emerged during the CIA scandals in the 1970's that hundreds of journalists and editors across the world, including in Washington, were on the CIA payroll. It was famously said that a journalist in Washington was cheaper than a good call girl. I am informed that the situation is similar in London; in every major newsroom there are one or two people reporting to Intelligent Services. In the past 12 months MI6 & MI5 officers have been allowed to discuss their work on radio, television and in other mediums, with the latter even having a schools programme for interested parties. Indeed, the BBC children channel was even given permission to film inside the headquarter of MI6 dubbed "Lego land" and MI5 headquarters. However, last year saw one of the most unusual recruiting programmes ever conducted by a major Intelligence service. Even Israel's intelligence agency - Shin Bet, also known as the General Security Services or Shabak, has gone one step further. In March it launched a Hebrew - language "web blog" written by four of its officers. It's the first time any intelligence services allowed its staff to “blog” and interact with a global audience of potentially millions. The unidentified spooks, who are silhouetted to hide their identities, explain how they were recruited, their work regimes, and they even take questions sent in by inquisitive members of public. It's not clear if the questions are vetted before they reach the officers, or if answers are monitored. A substantial volume of literature from one pro-establishment school of America sociology holds that "conspiracy" is a deviant way of thinking. The conspiracy school correctly sites ways in which false ideas can arise, using terms like "urban legend" and "canard" but fails to understand that the corporate medias particularly vulnerable to spread of false information. The greatest tactic of political controls divide and rule, famously practiced by the British Empire. Now, the global oligarchy uses the same technique by co-opting leftist and conservative journalists as "gatekeepers" building up their credibility as speakers for their respective constituencies so long as they tow the line on the big issues. D. Zimmerman went on to explain; the media is forever entangled in cultural warfare. Modern day media coverage is a key weapon in cultural warfare. Biases exist, spin is the norm and many notable social actions go under reported. It's not that long ago that the global intelligence community got involved and started to put in place a cultural warfare intelligence infrastructure. The approach to cultural warfare intelligence is a cadre of international scouts that are well educated on international politics, culture as well as languages and dialects. These assets are embedded for a significant amount of time so that they develop a level of comfort with strange and distant places. These intelligence assets are given time to absorb a single culture and to establish trust with those willing to trust them. The primary objectives of cultural warfare; 1. To change or influence the opinion of a target group of people so as to align it with those of the attacker. 2. To accelerate the evolution of specific aspects of a target group's values, beliefs, norms and law. 3. To create disruptive activities that impacts the people's view of a targeted government. The mass media and rich capabilities of the internet and modern day communications have created an asymmetric warfare weapon that can be launched from anywhere and target anywhere in the world. Ethiopian Government uses the news media to launder lies and recruit journalists like Martin Plaut ( Africa editor, BBC World Service News, a former Associate Fellow of Chatham House and the co-editor of Unfinished Business: Ethiopia and Eritrea at War (Red Sea Press, 2005 - born in South Africa ) Patrick Gilkes ( is a consultant with the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is a former Senior Research Office, FCO, and one-time head of the BBC ) here in London to serve as lobbyist and agents inside & outside the country. Ethiopia wastes in excess of $ 4.6 Million annually in lobbying. Mainstream political reporting depends on long-established personalities and standard left-v-right debates which evolve gradually but a major event can produce overnight change in political landscape. Those people who write on the media often change allegations, little by little over a long period of time into what seem facts. However, this strategy of feeding fake information in a chain is not always successful. Zimmerman underlined also that the Ethiopian Government & CIA changed its strategy co-ordinated by a person called Hebur Ghebrekidan and begin to invest on Eritreans who are ready to betray their country and principles and in some cases, on those who were rewarded Eritrean citizenship by virtue of their birth. For example last weekend 10/11 January 2009 London Conference is just a continuation of CIA & EPRDF failed effort to destabilize Eritrean Government through their puppets the so-called ' Citizens for Democratic Rights in Eritrea ' - Civic organization? These individuals include but are not limited to the following:- Suleman Adem, Tzedal Yohannes, Berhane China (ex. EDU member), Abdurahman Said, Petros Be'Atay, Mohammed Tahir Debesai, Ghebru Tesfamariam, Habtom Yohannes, Kidane Mengesteab, Berhane Woldegebriel, Tsegai Yohannes, Gaim Kebreab and Aburay . Take a moment to reflect and think about cultural warfare, the implications of change as well as the possibility of media manipulations as a weapon in the arsenal of asymmetric conflict. Zerai Solomon, London UK