Source: Reporters tell me the truth off the record: the fake news business « Jon Rappoport’s Blog

January 23, 2017

During my 34 years of working as a reporter, I’ve had many informal conversations with mainstream journalists. They were illuminating.

Here, from my notes (1982-2011), taken after the conversations, are what these guardians on the watchtower revealed:

ONE: “Investigative reporting has been dying.

TWO: “Most reporters who cover major issues are de facto intelligence assets.

THREE: “We’re in a business. We’re selling a product. That’s our role. If our bosses don’t like what we’re submitting to them, they let us know we’re giving them the wrong product.

FOUR: “I can write an article that’s critical of what a drug company is specifically doing, but I can’t criticize the company. If I did, my editor would read me the riot act. He knows if he published that article, his boss would get a visit from the company. They would threaten to pull their advertising. Everybody would be in serious trouble.

FIVE: “I thought I could quit working for my paper and get hired by somebody else, who would give me more freedom to write the stories I wanted to. I made a few quiet inquiries. Turned out I was wrong. They’re all pretty much the same

SIX: “Sometimes an order comes down. By the time I get it, it isn’t sounding exactly like an order. It’s more like ‘this is what we’re doing’. We need to go after a politician and bury him. That kind of thing.

SEVEN: “I’m a guy who’s expected to put out baloney for our audience. I can slice it a few different ways, but it’s the same basic thing. After a few years, I can do it in my sleep. I know the routine.”

EIGHT: “You talk about who’s really running things behind the scene. I know something about that. But I can’t write it in a story. That would be called original research. I’m not allowed to do that. I can only quote authorities on two sides of an issue. And the guy I quote first—he carries the point of view of the story. The other guy is the doubter. I place him in the weaker position. I get to choose, but I already know what’s needed and required.”

NINE: “Reporters in my business have two choices. They can lower their IQs and become cynics, or they can maintain their intelligence and get booted out. That’s what it comes down to. Anybody with an IQ over 90 can see we have agendas. The whole business is agenda-driven. The main job of a reporter who wants to keep working is developing a cover—pretending he’s speaking the truth. This is a cover for his real identity. A guy who pleases his bosses.

TEN: “My decision to get out of the news business was pretty easy. I wanted to write a story about the influence of the Council on Foreign Relations on government policy, since World War Two. The way I was told to forget about it was like a cop talking to a drug dealer. All of a sudden, I was the bad guy. I really got into it with my editor. I saw what a phony he was. The thing is, I knew he had a cozy thing going with the CIA. Several people knew it. In my years in the business, I got a first-hand education in what selling out means. I came pretty close to the edge. There’s a weird adrenaline kick to it. You see your whole future laid out in front of you. It’s very rewarding, in terms of money and status. If you just play ball, it’ll be a smooth ride.”

ELEVEN: “What the teachers told me in journalism school was a load. All I needed was one honest talk with a professor, and I never would have bothered with the whole thing. I was naive.

TWELVE: “I saw what I called ‘the inch-below’ thing. An inch below what we were reporting was the real story. It was about power players and what they were doing to make profit for major corporations. It kept coming up. Crimes. People should have been arrested. I could have written great stories. But nobody wanted them. I would have proved intent. I’m talking about wars. Not little stuff. Whole wars, and the money. The profits. In court, a lawyer could have taken what I had and made a great circumstantial case. The jury would have been convinced. When you can’t publish these stories, you sink into boredom after a while. Tremendous boredom. That’s why some reporters become drunks.”