State Department 'Planted' Anti-Wikileaks Questions For 60 Minutes Interview With Julian Assange
from the nice-of-them dept
The latest batch of Hillary Clinton emails have been revealed, and Trevor Timm, the Executive Director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, points us to a particularly interesting one, in which then State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley tells Clinton that the State Department has successfully "planted" questions for the show, 60 Minutes, to ask Assange.Of course, this is not the first time 60 Minutes has been seen to be extra deferential to the government. You may recall the program's infomercial for the NSA, done by a guy who immediately went to work for law enforcement week's later.
And, while Kroft seems to want to present the supposed legal case against Assange to Assange, it's worth remembering that five years later and the DOJ still has not charged Assange with any crime, though apparently the grand jury investigation is still ongoing.
It also seems noteworthy that Crowley resigned from the State Department just a few weeks after this email, right after he publicly criticized the treatment of Chelsea Manning, who was being held in solitary confinement for leaking the State Department's documents to Wikileaks. Crowley publicly said that such treatment was "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid" -- and within days, he no longer had a job.
None of this is to say that 60 Minutes or any other journalism program shouldn't be asking tough questions of Julian Assange or anyone else they interview. Of course they should. But the very idea that the government is "planting" one-sided or misleading and biased questions with journalists, to pin on a guy they're trying (and failing) to charge with criminal activity for embarrassing those in power, certainly seems pretty sketchy. The media is supposed to be questioning those in power, not to be used as a tool by those in power to question those who are actually exposing corruption.
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Filed Under: 60 minutes, hillary clinton, journalism, julian assange, pj crowley, planted questions, state department
Companies: cbs, wikileaks
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Was it always so slimy?
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Re: Was it always so slimy?
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It is nice to have a little documentation of this sort of thing
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Land of the free-ish
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Re: Was it always so slimy?
Beyond the obvious softball vs. hardball interviews, 60 Minutes has always been a propaganda outlet that sucks up to powerful special interests.
There was the 60 Minutes show in the 1990s that never aired because the tobacco industry got to it first, didn't like it, and intervened to kill it.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/09/us/60-minutes-ordered-to-pull-interview-in-tobacco-report.html
Then there was Mike Wallace's hatchet-job interview in which the person's answers were severely clipped (including mid-sentence) to try to paint a completely different picture from the content and context of what was actually said -- along with a post-interview voiceover that mischaracterized the person's answer and then when on to 'refute' the clipped response. All the way through the interview.
That was the particular case of the famous "interview" a few years ago with Iranian President Ahmadinejad (the person previously famous in the US for a completely mistranslated [cherrypicked] quote, "wipe Isreal off the map"), an interview which 60 Minutes actually won an Emmy for. Of course, when the full uncut interview was later shown on C-Span, it showed a high degree of post-editing manipulation, from what was actually said in the interview to what 60 minutes wanted its audience to hear. Propaganda at its most audacious.
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/04/wallace-interview-with-ahmadinejad-was-little-more-than-deli berate-demonization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onNzrNEFs1E
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Tough questions? Or 'sensational' questions?
The closest program asking tough questions that wasn't sensationalized in my lifetime was a syndicated program called The Reporters. Unfortunately it only lasted one year.
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It's not that it has not been known to be a propaganda outlet but rather it is now in writing for the public to see. What you suspect but haven't proven doesn't rank on the same level as documented proof such is going on.
The American people already get they are being lied to by the major media and the government but proof of it is often hard to come by even when you recognize it is going on. This just lowered the trust factor on down towards the negative numbers. It cements that propaganda is being constantly used where the government feels embarrassed or needs to flex it's muscles in an attempt to change public opinion. It's occurring often enough now that not many believe the media news and fewer are staying to hear it.
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What if, what if, public opposition against them is unanimous.......and support for them is imaginary or created by the accused
Its not a representaion in that case, its surpression of representation.......what if their support is in fact the minority, but the impression of a majority.........what if
Im not saying thats infact the case, but i sure as hell dont WANT, it being the case.......too many radical politicians, for THEM to be the ONLY represented
Make sense? I dont know......feels like something in their does though
Excuse my spelling
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Im starting to think the bad guys dont understand air quotes, or that it shows exactly what their thinking, unintentionally, or their just plain dumb
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"Good" "honest" folk
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Mass ignorance is VERY REAL!
Do you know what happens when insanity becomes normal... that's right being sane will identify you as insane.
Every Living thing in the human mind can be subjective. And it is likely your definition of what is fringe has been told to you rather than being developed on your own.
Everyone and Everything has an extremity of some form. Everyone that you see that does not hold an extreme values are the ones you can be sure are lying to you the most!
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Some elements of the old corrupt dinosaur US propaganda machine are showing some signs of adapting to the new realities. I was surprised, for example, that "Mr. Robot" was distributed by NBCUniversal. The show is basically pro-Anonymous, pro-Occupy, pro-Assange, pro-Snowden etc.
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Were we watching the same show? The one where the mentally ill sociopathic heroin addict terrorist causes a global financial meltdown?
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That to me is the worst part , giving them questions to ask is one thing , but setting it up so you look stellar and attempt to discredit the interviewee is another thing.
and on a side note CBS, you should be even more ashamed than our government , they are built to spread disinformation , but as an independent (so called ) news agency ...fuck you , you belly crawling assholes.
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Entertainment
Everything on TV is entertainment. Therefore, nothing consumed from that form of communication is to be trusted -- EVER!
Now let me see if I can find some rocket motors to make a gas tank explode ....
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Conspiracy Theory
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Re: Conspiracy Theory
The corps manipulate the government that manipulates the media.
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Re: Conspiracy Theory
And as for Infowars, RT seems to be that entity's media of choice, being perhaps the only "mainstream" media operating in the US that's definitely not a Washington suckup (only a Moscow suckup) since even Al Jazeera seems to have been bought off in recent years.
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Re: Conspiracy Theory
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The biggest difference is that pre-internet, you had few people to discuss it with, since your neighbors and co-workers would likely brand you a conspiracy kook (just as today).
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Presumably these planted questions are FOIA-able?
60 minutes went schillmedia more than a decade ago.
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Re: Presumably these planted questions are FOIA-able?
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Re: Conspiracy Theory
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Re: Was it always so slimy?
Not a new thing at all. 60 Minutes has always been sleazy.
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