A question about the Propaganda Model (new data)

[SpearthrowerOwl]

I noticed something singularly interesting recently as a student of the "Propaganda Model" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model) presented by Noam Chomsky in his famous 1988 work, "Manufacturing Consent". On April 29th, the New York Times presented this piece on the US backed corruption in Afghanistan:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/world/asia/karzai-acknowledges-cash-deliveries-by-cia.html?_r=0

It strikes me as very odd that the New York Times, as a pivotal member of the mainstream (corporate) media, would have reported on such a topic. The propaganda model shouldn't allow for this, but there are two big reasons why it may and I'm not sure to make of the ordeal. It could be that:

a.) The propaganda model is never quite perfect and never claims to be and this item merely slipped through the filters (though it's a pretty big item and undermines most of what America has done in Afghanistan since the "nation building" phase..)
or
b.) There is a struggle amongst power elites about some issue surrounding American backed corruption in Afghanistan and as a result this story was spawned.

I'm still doing my own research on this story, so I may come to my own conclusions presently, but I must say I feel sort of confused about the piece at the moment :/ If anybody has any sentiments to share I would greatly appreciate it.

[SpearthrowerOwl]

1. I would also like to point out some interesting quotes in the article

"The payments are not universally supported in the United States government. American diplomats and soldiers expressed dismay on Monday about the C.I.A.’s cash deliveries, which some said fueled corruption."

This hints at my possible root cause 'b', though the cause for concern about "fueled corruption" doesn't seem like something the New York Times should even suggest under the propaganda model. It's also likely that if there really is a difference in views amongst power elites that sparked this article, that is not the real reason for the dispute (I have to research this point the most..)

"The C.I.A. payments open a window to an element of the war that has often gone unnoticed: the agency’s use of cash to clandestinely buy the loyalty of Afghans. The agency paid powerful warlords to fight against the Taliban during the 2001 invasion. It then continued paying Afghans to keep battling the Taliban and help track down the remnants of Al Qaeda."

This part does seem very in line with the propaganda model, however, as it couldn't simply be that we pay off leaders to decrease susceptibility to public opinion (in the same way our companies buy off politicians), it has to be worded in some way like "buying the loyalty of Afghans".. It further suggests that these payoffs had a necessary wartime basis.

"But the cash deliveries to Mr. Karzai’s office are of a different magnitude with a far wider impact, helping the palace finance the vast patronage networks that Mr. Karzai has used to build his power base. The payments appear to run directly counter to American efforts to clean up endemic corruption and encourage the Afghan government to be more responsive to the needs of its constituents."

But then the article is right back to profound moments of clarity. This is a very rare event indeed (not the corruption, that's common, the reporting of the story by our mainstream media is the rare event..)

"“I thought we were trying to clean up waste, fraud and abuse in Afghanistan,” said Mr. Chaffetz, whose House subcommittee has investigated corruption in the country. “We have no credibility on this issue when we’re complicit ourselves. I’m sure it was more than a few hundred dollars.”"

More frank reporting, perhaps the investigation by a House subcommittee in part prompted the inability to simply ignore the US backed corruption in Afghanistan.

"A former adviser to Mr. Karzai said the palace was rife with speculation that the details of the payments had been leaked to settle a bureaucratic or diplomatic score, either by Afghans or by American officials."

Another possible hint at my point 'b'.

"Outside official circles, some Afghans offered a lighter take. “They make it sound as if it was a charity money dashed by a spy agency,” wrote Sayed Salahuddin, an Afghan journalist, on Twitter, referring to the palace statement that money had been used to help wounded soldiers. “They must have ‘treated’ many people.”"

A final demonstration of rare reporting.


Best New York Times article I've seen in a very long time, however, maybe this is what HAD to be said, and there are real disconcerting facts that are hidden from the public and would make this story seem egregiously submissive to US power interests abroad.

[leveymg]

2. NYT story spins the payoffs as a CIA response to Iranian influence buying in Afghanistan.

There's your answer. Also, these payoffs have been known about for years, including little details like the identity of the CIA chief of station in Kabul -- Rich Blee -- who was former Chief of the UBL Issues Unit ("Alec Station&quot . He was already burned as having been the bag man for Karzhai, as the CIA manager who let the Flt. 77 hijackers into the US, was identified as the manager on the scene most responsible for letting bin Laden escape Tora Bora, and as the guy who set up the renditions program.

One might almost think he was also the designated flack-catcher for most things that went sour for the Agency during those years, along with his boss, Cofer Black, who later became a Director at Blackwater, which was the proprietary mother of all flackcatchers whose owners were amply rewarded for same double-duty.

So, see, it's just the good old Grey Lady being herself, not reason to cast Chomsky into the trash.

P.S. - Almost forgot. Welcome to DU.

[MisterP]

3. 1) once the war's been started, it doesn't matter what's reported afterwards

2) it reduces the appearance of a uniform Iron Voice (while also reinforcing the idea that the writer's just being objective): pharma shills can turn on the industry, and Kurzweil cultists always rag on Ayn Rand cultists
2b) or plausible deniability-building exercises like Monbiot backing nuclear power or the Euston Manifesto assclowns: Hari and Yglesias and the New Islamophobes made the Iraq War supported by more than the nuts who thought Bush was the Second Coming and that God told Pat Robertson to end Islam; it was now a banner that liberals (especially posers) could pick up: we're saving Iraqis from those dastardly 9th-century males

[struggle4progress]

4. The Chomsky-Herman model isn't a collection of hard rules, predicting exactly what will or will not

be reported; rather, it is a description of what is likely or unlikely to be reported

Several points should be made. All of us rationalize our own behavior: we are all naturally more likely to explain what we do and what we think in self-serving ways, though we can sometimes overcome this tendency by trying to inform ourselves and then trying to think critically about our new knowledge. But in the effort to inform ourselves, we may constantly suppress information that conflicts with our beliefs; and in our efforts to interpret new knowledge, we may constantly suppress interpretations that conflict with our beliefs. Therefore self-serving psychological filters are always present at the level of the individual

But in social settings, effects of these individual psychological filters can be amplified. We often interact primarily with other individuals with somewhat similar backgrounds and circumstances, and so we are more likely in our social interactions to learn facts that do not challenge our beliefs and to hear interpretations of the world that do not challenge our beliefs. Our peers (like us) may be inclined to suppress information that conflicts with their beliefs, or interpretations that conflict with their beliefs; and because our peers are usually much like us, the information and interpretations they provide will often reinforce our own self-serving beliefs, just as we reinforce theirs

The effect may be heightened when additional factors limit the peer group. For example, media corporations make money selling advertising, and may be owned by other corporations with definite interests. Persons with too much interest in stories adversely affecting the corporate owner are unlikely to be hired as top management, and they in turn will hired subordinates who share their own views. Stories which make advertisers look bad, or which sully the reputation of the corporate owner, are much less likely to be covered, and any reporter who concentrates too much on such stories will eventually be regarded as unproductive, because the stories are very often deemed uninteresting and unpublishable. But similar rules will affect stories which contradict simply general beliefs of persons working in that media corporation: each person who has to OK a story has a certain chance of rejecting it, and if the story contradicts widely held beliefs, then it will almost certainly be rejected by someone in the chain of command

This filtering is often (though not always) entirely free from deliberate intent to deceive. Almost nobody says "I don't want this to become widely known." Rather people say "This story doesn't pass my smell test, and I'll need a lot more information before I believe it." All sorts of stories can pass through the filters, but they only pass through in low numbers

[SpearthrowerOwl]

5. A new NYT article on the subject appeared today

Thank you for the posts, these are all interesting, I'll start with the first reply:

That is pretty true, in fact, there was an article posted on the NY Times a day before the one I linked that is very similar to the original article, however, in this previous article they are more blunt about the suggestion that these payments were supposedly merely a reflection to supposed "similar" iranian payments: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/world/asia/cia-delivers-cash-to-afghan-leaders-office.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Also in this article are more tantalizing suggestions of policy debate amongst US power elites. Quoting a section: "It is not clear that the United States is getting what it pays for. Mr. Karzai’s willingness to defy the United States — and the Iranians, for that matter — on an array of issues seems to have only grown as the cash has piled up. Instead of securing his good graces, the payments may well illustrate the opposite: Mr. Karzai is seemingly unable to be bought."

This is either the tip of the iceberg on a major policy debate between power elites, or a simple deflection that bad things in Afghanistan were not a result of underground cash payments to Afghan power elites, rather, as America's intentions are always great, the money failed to properly buy influence. That's a pretty good deflection…

As far as this long being known before the NY Times reported on the story, that's assuredly true (I've seen Wikileaks documents on payments to Venezuela, I'm sure there's some that detail US-Afghan power relations as well..) I have no doubts that the US has to massively pay off the government of Afghanistan to prevent public opinion in the region from going its own course. That does weaken the NY Times supposed moment of clarity, it seems like this issue simply got too much world-wide publicity and the NY Times simply had to comment on it, but now I have discovered a whopping 3 articles on the topic (look down in this post to see the third), which too me is overkill from the standpoint of the propaganda model. I'm still pretty amazed something like this has been reported and is continuing to be reported in the NY Times..

And thanks for welcoming me to DU Indeed I'm pretty new here, it's an interesting forum, though it's kind of confusing because there is really quite a range of people here. Basically as long as you're not republican… But that's really quite a range of people from simple party platformed democrats to more advanced users (pretty much anybody who's heard of Chomsky)

In response to the second post:

It's true, as the previous poster implied, that the reporting about CIA money so late after other sources reported on the same topic weakens the authenticity of the NY Times pieces. It could be simply the filter that is relying on the "official word" as "news" rather than spending the time and money to authenticate other sources of news that have previously reported on Afghanistan (btw does anybody have any links where I can find details of America's CIA payment involvements in Afghanistan prior to this?)

It does prevent excessive criticism of the media as being simply one giant monolithic iron voice. I think this story might have just gotten so big they simply could no longer ignore it without arousing suspicion.

In response to the third post:

That's all very true, at the end of the day I guess it is simply a statement of the relative likelihood of events to appear in the major news outlets. Quoting from Manufacturing Consent: "It requires a macro, alongside a micro- (story-by-story), view of media operations, to see the pattern of manipulation and systemic bias." It's interesting though, that they keep on with the topic, another article was posted on the NY Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/world/asia/karzai-said-he-was-assured-of-cash-deliveries-by-cia.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp

Of course, this story really should be on the front page of all newspapers in the country…




I'm still thinking about how to address the issue of the article's appearance in the NYT, though I'm quite sure there are many possibilities as I have stated. I'm going to keep looking into it and make make my own definitive post in the near future. Again, thanks for the replies everyone It's good to know that at least some of the people on this forum would be interested in a topic like this. Rarely do I find similar company, it's great.

[SpearthrowerOwl]

6. Awesome, looks like FAIR is also interested in this

In a lucky turn of events, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting talks about the media coverage of the US-backed Afghan corruption: http://fair.org/counterspin-radio/peter-hart-on-syria-and-sarin-dilip-hiro-on-afghan-corruption/

Their guest, Dilip Hiro, had apparently previously written this article on a much more full extent of the US-backed corruption in Afghanistan than anything portrayed by the New York Times: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175677/

Looks like a pretty open and shut case of typical media behavior. According to Hiro in the FAIR interview, it was merely a case of the NYTs providing a positive framework, spin, and red herring from the real debate. I guess that is a very important thing for the NYTs, the ability to present stories that are really quite dangerous, but to do so in a way that cloaks true understanding and true relevance.

Final Conclusion: Although the story garnered at least some media attention, having fully read Manufacturing Consent now I see completely that even though there were a couple of NYTs articles presented on the story, it's still quite within the framework of the propaganda model as compared to the case studies Chomsky & Herman present in the book (even the unbecoming to US power items still got some misleading media coverage in the book), with about the same media coverage as "unworthy victims" and "illegitimate third-world elections" as well as about the same clarity, honesty, and intent.