WaPos Love Letter to Corporate Conflicts of Interest

Horhey · Feb 17, 2017

"Presstitute: a journalist or media source whose news coverage is considered to be inappropriately influenced by business interests, political motives, etc."

The host of this presstitute event is Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who once described the invasion of Iraq as "the most idealistic war in modern times" - fought solely to bring democracy to Iraq and the region. Moreover, as Noam Chomsky noted:

Ignatius was particularly impressed with Paul Wolfowitz, “the Bush administration’s idealist in chief,” whom he described as a genuine intellectual who “bleeds for (the Arab world’s) oppression and dreams of liberating it.” Maybe that helps explain Wolfowitz’s career – like his strong support for Suharto in Indonesia, one of the last century’s worst mass murderers and aggressors, when Wolfowitz was ambassador to that country under Ronald Reagan. As the State Department official responsible for Asian affairs under Reagan, Wolfowitz oversaw support for the murderous dictators Chun of South Korea and Marcos of the Philippines.
Click to expand...

Ignatius is a corporate tool and a mouthpiece for the CIA and the Pentagon. There are many others like him. They're on TV all the time:

ACTION ALERT: WaPo’s Post Live Series Is a Love Letter to Corporate Conflicts of Interest, FAIR, Feb 16, 2017[/B]

Since 2010, the Washington Post has been banking on its pedigree and prestige by putting on Q & A sessions with influential Beltway personalities—sponsored by corporations directly involved in the topics of discussion. Event sponsors include Bank of America, Eli Lilly, Qualcomm, WGL Energy, AFLAC, GlaxoSmithKline and UnitedHealth, among others.

These events, billed as “Post Live,” are generally fluffy, non-combative industry hype sessions sponsored by a relevant corporation and quarterbacked by a Washington Post columnist or reporter to lend it gravitas. The ideological scope, as one would expect based on who funds them, ranges from “how capitalism and the US military can be more awesome” to “capitalism and the US military are already awesome.” This ideological capture is seen most starkly in Post Live’s coverage of healthcare and war.

David Ignatius interviewing Susan Rice in the glow of sponsor Raytheon. (photo: John Vela/Twitter)

Four events from March, June, September and December of 2016, titled “Securing Tomorrow,” were all sponsored by weapons manufacturer Raytheon and the Center for a New American Security, a DC think tank largely funded by weapons contractors, the US Department of Defense, the Japanese government and US oil companies.

Needless to say, how politicians can slash military budgets and prevent war from happening in the first place were entirely absent from the discussion, as evidenced by videos of the event found on the Post’s website.

The series’ Beltway-friendly banter featured Post columnist David Ignatius, who spoke mostly in the first person plural when talking about the US military, chatting it up with Deputy Secretary of State Robert Work (3/30/16), National Security Advisor Susan Rice (6/10/16), Director of Intelligence James Clapper (9/20/16) and DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson (12/13/16). Opening remarks were given by a representative from Raytheon, the sponsor.

Raytheon, whose bombs were used by Saudi Arabia to kill 140 people attending a wedding in Yemen last October, heavily promoted the event, tweeting out links to the live video stream throughout the day.

Post spokesperson Kris Coratti told FAIR: “The Washington Post draws a hard line between the content of our events, which are developed and run by our newsroom, and our sponsors. Sponsors do not pay our people, nor do they have any say in the programming.”

When FAIR asked how the sponsors could have no say in the programming when they literally give remarks at the program, Coratti responded, “Opening remarks are their own, and not part of the news program.”

That would be hard to discern from the event agenda (posted on Twitter), which sandwiched the “Sponsor Remarks” of Raytheon VP Rick Hunt between the “Welcome Remarks” of the Post’s VP of communications (Coratti herself) and the “Conversation” with Secretary Johnson—all listed in the same typeface.

Raytheon on the agenda. (photo: Chris Shea/Twitter).

Healthcare is another frequent topic of Post Live events. A session asking “Is Technology Improving Your Health?” (6/14/16) was sponsored by Philips, which describes itself as “a leading health technology company focused on improving people’s health.” A program on “Chasing Cancer” (12/6/16) was presented by AFLAC, an insurance company that specializes in cancer policies, with additional support from Pfizer and Genentech, makers of cancer drugs.

Most recently, a Post Live event on the future of the Affordable Healthcare Act (12/12/16) was sponsored by industry giants GlaxoSmithKline and UnitedHealth. Filled with industry executives, the topic of single-payer healthcare was taboo, as Corporate Crime Reporter’s Russ Mokhiber (1/12/17) noted:

Was anyone who was supportive of single-payer national health insurance invited to participate? No.

And the Post insists that the sponsors had nothing to do with this.

Speaking at that healthcare session last month, GlaxoSmithKline’s Caroline De Marco made it clear that in her company’s view, a Medicare-for-All single-payer system was not an option.

“Maintaining a market-based system with strong collaboration between the government and private sector is the best way to insure patient affordability and access,” De Marco said.
Click to expand...

Similarly, at no point in the security series did Ignatius feel the need to interview anyone outside the US military apparatus on how to “secure tomorrow.” No peace advocates, no anti-war voices, no budget skeptics in Congress. Of course, such participants wouldn’t boost the Post’s insider cred, nor would they attract big sponsor dollars from $44 billion weapons contractors.

As with most instances of corporate influence, what makes the Post Live series dodgy isn’t that journalists and business executives all gather in a room and hatch anti-poor and pro-war conspiracies. It’s that such gatherings, by design, exclude any voices that would meaningfully question corporate sponsors or the US apparatchiks who take part. It’s a process of filtering rather than overt collusion; and it’s inherent in a business model that trades on the independence and credibility of a journalistic institution as an alternative revenue stream for their parent corporation.
Click to expand...

Horhey · Feb 18, 2017

Melvin Goodman, "David Ignatius, the CIA’s Apologist-in-Chief," Counterpunch

Google "David Ignatius Russia"

That's because he's is an "access journalist". As Walter Karp explained in 1989:

It is a bitter irony of source journalism that the most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the ‘best’ sources.
Click to expand...

So they can't really be journalists then:

Log in or Sign up

WaPos Love Letter to Corporate Conflicts of Interest

Horhey Well-Known Member

Horhey Well-Known Member

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

WaPos Love Letter to Corporate Conflicts of Interest

Horhey Well-Known Member

Horhey Well-Known Member

Share This Page

Useful Searches

WaPos Love Letter to Corporate Conflicts of Interest