{"id":1115,"date":"2017-01-24T07:14:57","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T12:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/?p=1115"},"modified":"2017-01-24T07:14:57","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T12:14:57","slug":"reporters-tell-me-the-truth-off-the-record-the-fake-news-business-jon-rappoports-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/reporters-tell-me-the-truth-off-the-record-the-fake-news-business-jon-rappoports-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Reporters tell me the truth off the record: the fake news business \u00ab Jon Rappoport’s Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Source: Reporters tell me the truth off the record: the fake news business \u00ab Jon Rappoport’s Blog<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

January 23, 2017<\/p>\n

During my 34 years of working as a reporter, I\u2019ve had many informal conversations with mainstream journalists. They were illuminating.<\/p>\n

Here, from my notes (1982-2011), taken after the conversations, are what these guardians on the watchtower revealed:<\/p>\n

ONE: \u201cInvestigative reporting has been dying.<\/p>\n

TWO: \u201cMost reporters who cover major issues are de facto intelligence assets.<\/p>\n

THREE: \u201cWe\u2019re in a business. We\u2019re selling a product. That\u2019s our role. If our bosses don\u2019t like what we\u2019re submitting to them, they let us know we\u2019re giving them the wrong product.<\/p>\n

FOUR: \u201cI can write an article that\u2019s critical of what a drug company is specifically doing, but I can\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

FIVE: \u201cI 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\u2019re all pretty much the same<\/p>\n

SIX: \u201cSometimes an order comes down. By the time I get it, it isn\u2019t sounding exactly like an order. It\u2019s more like \u2018this is what we\u2019re doing\u2019. We need to go after a politician and bury him. That kind of thing.<\/p>\n

SEVEN: \u201cI\u2019m a guy who\u2019s expected to put out baloney for our audience. I can slice it a few different ways, but it\u2019s the same basic thing. After a few years, I can do it in my sleep. I know the routine.\u201d<\/p>\n

EIGHT: \u201cYou talk about who\u2019s really running things behind the scene. I know something about that. But I can\u2019t write it in a story. That would be called original research. I\u2019m not allowed to do that. I can only quote authorities on two sides of an issue. And the guy I quote first\u2014he 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\u2019s needed and required.\u201d<\/p>\n

NINE: \u201cReporters 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\u2019s 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\u2014pretending he\u2019s speaking the truth. This is a cover for his real identity. A guy who pleases his bosses.<\/p>\n

TEN: \u201cMy 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\u2019s a weird adrenaline kick to it. You see your whole future laid out in front of you. It\u2019s very rewarding, in terms of money and status. If you just play ball, it\u2019ll be a smooth ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

ELEVEN: \u201cWhat 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.<\/p>\n

TWELVE: \u201cI saw what I called \u2018the inch-below\u2019 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\u2019m 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\u2019t publish these stories, you sink into boredom after a while. Tremendous boredom. That\u2019s why some reporters become drunks.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: Reporters tell me the truth off the record: the fake news business \u00ab Jon Rappoport’s Blog January 23, 2017 During my 34 years of working as a reporter, I\u2019ve 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 … Continue reading Reporters tell me the truth off the record: the fake news business \u00ab Jon Rappoport’s Blog<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1117,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions\/1117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}