In his latest piece for The Nation, journalist Sebastian Jones investigates the conflicts of interest surrounding political analysts working on TV for the news networks.
His four-month long investigation, "The media lobbying complex", discovered that since 2007 at least seventy-five registered lobbyists, public relations representatives and corporate officials have appeared on major networks with no mention of their corporate or political ties. Jones says the number may be even higher.
On Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, Jones explains the numerous cases in which a guest will advocate for a certain position while working for a lobbying firm or PR firm that would benefit from what they're pushing. Crucially, these conflicts of interest are not explained to the viewer.
For example: Barry McCaffrey, a "military analyst," appeared on MSNBC claiming the US needed more time to win in Afghanistan. Unmentioned was his tie to DynCorp, a company that just received a "five-year deal worth an estimated $5.9 billion to aid American forces in Afghanistan."
Mark Penn, identified as a Clinton administration pollster and Democratic strategist, pushed to halt healthcare reform. His role as CEO of Burson-Marsteller, a PR firm representing Pfizer and Eli Lilly, went unacknowledged in a CNN interview.
The video below is an interview with journalist Sebastian Jones, who carried out this investigation for The Nation. The video was produced and hosted by the excellent independant American public-service broadcaster, Democracy Now.
Fascinating and as is to be expected, rather disturbing stuff. It made me wonder if the British press might also be harbouring some of these corporate stool pigeons? - Christopher Landau
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