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CAMPOS: 'Analyst' for hire

By Paul Campos, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 3, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Upton Sinclair once remarked that it's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.

This observation is borne out by the reactions of Barry McCaffrey to the extraordinarily damning revelations contained in a very long front-page New York Times story regarding McCaffrey's role as a military analyst for NBC.

The story, which is remarkably detailed and well-sourced, really has to be read in its entirety. The gist of it is that McCaffrey, a retired general, has spent the last few years getting paid a whole lot of money by defense contractors to go on TV and shill for their products, while giving his audience the impression that he's providing them with a disinterested analysis of what the U.S. military ought to be doing in Afghanistan and Iraq.

McCaffrey, in short, is a very well-compensated player in the immensely profitable game of dividing up the hundreds of billions of tax dollars we stuff into the rapacious maw of our military industrial complex.

(As another Times story detailed back in April, the Pentagon actually had a whole program, since shut down, to provide supposedly "independent" retired military personnel, including McCaffrey, with administration talking points for the purpose of selling - quite literally - the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.)

Here is how the game is played: Current defense contractors, and companies that hope to get a piece of the multibillion-dollar tax dollar action, hire retired generals to use their influence and connections to push their products on TV, in the guise of doing "analysis." In addition, someone like McCaffrey, who is particularly well-connected with the military establishment, can and does get special access to key decision-makers in the Pentagon, allowing him to lobby for his corporate clients even more effectively.

This access in turn helps amplify McCaffrey's media "platform," which then further benefits his value as a lobbyist. (This is what is called "positive synergy" in our business schools, and "getting over" in the argot of inner-city drug dealers.)

But none of this has ever been disclosed to NBC's viewers, to whom McCaffrey continues to be presented as a disinterested analyst rather than a particularly well-connected corporate shill.

And what is McCaffrey's reaction to the revelation of his - shall we say - complex relationship to his journalistic subject matter? He is deeply shocked that anyone could possibly imagine that anything he says on TV could be motivated by anything other than pure patriotism, and his dedication to the task of helping America spread Freedom(Trademark) throughout the world.

NBC, it appears, takes a similar view (although they, like the other television networks, have now managed to go for seven months without even mentioning the earlier Times story - a story which seemed to demonstrate that the networks are violating the most basic norms of journalistic integrity by failing to disclose the egregious conflicts of interest besetting people like McCaffrey).

This attitude is warranted if one believes that - in one of those remarkable coincidences that seem to occur only at the highest echelons of political, economic and social power - the financial interests of McCaffrey are precisely the same as the interests of the American taxpayer (not to mention the people of Afghanistan and Iraq).

That of course is possible - but the first rule of journalism is that the audience should be given the information it needs to make up its own mind about such matters.

In the days ahead, I will be curious to see how people like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow - liberal administration gadflies who host news programs on the NBC family of networks - cover this story.

Olbermann in particular has spent the last couple of years consciously echoing the style of such giants of journalism as Edward R. Murrow. He should consider what Murrow would have to say about this sort of thing.

Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado. He can be reached at paul.campos@colorado.edu.

Comments

  • December 3, 2008

    3:31 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    TYoungman writes:

    Eisenhower predicted what would happen if the military industrial complex gained too much influence in the government

    (“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience... in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”)

    Now, after decades of sending good people to die in wars with no definable goals or boundaries, all in the name of creating new markets for peddlers of bombs and bullets, we see how right he was.

    It is disgusting that NBC would allow themselves to be tricked (at best) into being used as a propaganda tool for war profiteers.

  • December 3, 2008

    6:48 a.m.

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    Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

    TYoungman - NBC wasn't tricked into anything. They willingly lead the way along with CBS and ABC.

    The “news” isn’t about the “news” and hasn’t been since the advent of radio. It’s about delivering a message to the people to influence their decisions and motivate their desires into a particular channel.

    The liberal mass media doesn’t care about the facts, only the presentation of the issue. Ex-generals ooze confidence and “knowledge” of the issues so they are paraded to the people to manipulate the message.

    ALERT – Will the aliens who have abducted Paul Campos please return him? The recent articles under his by-line are not the real Paul Campos we have grown to love and hate.

  • December 3, 2008

    7 a.m.

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    VVVV writes:

    Media has bias?!?!? NOOO. Say it isn't so!

    See? I could win an emmy. Like the running joke on the internet, "I saw it on the internet, so it must be true" stems from the original joke, "I saw it on TV, so it must be true," I highly doubt, judging from personal opinion polls (which themselves are known to be corrupt), that the general public has in any way been swayed in the long term into thinking that war in Iraq and Afghanistan is good. Now all we have to do is give the sheeple some backbones, so the next time a President uses fear to get them to forget their principles, they'll have second thoughts.

    "There never was a good war or a bad peace." - Ben Franklin

  • December 3, 2008

    7:16 a.m.

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    freethinker07 writes:

    Pray tell, what are the "the most basic norms of journalistic integrity"? A whole bunch of us would like to know. Many of us suspect that when push comes to shove, there aren't any.

    I stopped believing journalists when a foreign affairs commentator working for the Rocky told me on the phone "I write opinion pieces, what I say doesn't have to be true." I wrote his editor to tell him and nothing happened.

    I have asked several publications what their standards are for fact checking. No response. I have asked whether anyone checks sources to make sure that a journalist is telling the truth. No response. I have asked how I can tell which pieces in a newspaper are opinion and which pieces are supposed to be objective fact. No response.

  • December 3, 2008

    7:44 a.m.

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    Achilles writes:

    So NBC's military analyst is really just a PR rep. for the military industry - big deal.

    Campos sounds shocked as if everything on television is from objective, non-biased, disinterested people. I guess Campos really just wanted to write the words "military industrial complex".

    Feel better now, Campos, now that you got that out of your system.

    I wonder if you are equally outraged that a complicit media helped an inexperienced Marxist become president. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1KOB...

    Considering that we let any idiot citizen over the teenie-bopper age of 18 vote, I am much more worried about the media industrial complex.

  • December 3, 2008

    8:57 a.m.

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    VeryOpinionated writes:

    Paul C. references two NYT articles.

    The most recent article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/was...) - One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex, was published Nov. 29, 2008.

    The other article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/was...) - Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand, was published April 20, 2008.

    There's another interesting article about McCaffrey published yesterday (December 2) at Portfolio.com (http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/...) - titled "Why NBC News Should've Known Better." It discusses an earlier scandal that arose during McCaffrey's time as White House drug czar (2000).

    I think they're all worth reading.

  • December 3, 2008

    9:17 a.m.

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    blacksho89 writes:

    John_II: You Tube is NOT a reliable source to cite. It is even less reliable than ABC, NBC, or CNN, if that is possible.
    freethinker07: a "commentator", by the very definition of the word, states opinions. I have no problem reading biased opinions as long as they are labeled as opinion or commentary. Campos' columns are on the editorial page; the headline that stated "Poor People Get More Cancer" was on a news page (and if you read the article, it becomes obvious that the headline was inaccurate and biased).

  • December 3, 2008

    10:08 a.m.

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    Achilles writes:

    "John_II: You Tube is NOT a reliable source to cite." - blacksho

    The YouTube link is from www.howobamagotelected.com

    The site posts a study by Zogby about Obama voters. It also includes the video I posted of actual Obama voters.

  • December 3, 2008

    12:23 p.m.

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    Hank writes:

    ""John_II: You Tube is NOT a reliable source to cite." - blacksho

    The YouTube link is from www.howobamagotelected.com

    The site posts a study by Zogby about Obama voters. It also includes the video I posted of actual Obama voters."

    Yeah, and the Zogby poll was comissioned by the same guy who produced the video and runs the web site - John Ziegler.
    http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cf...

    Rather ironic on a thread titled "'Analyst' for hire" dontcha think?

  • December 3, 2008

    1:18 p.m.

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    Hank writes:

    And let's not forget this is the same John_II that once wrote that "There is no wisdom in polls", but I guess now he thinks there is.

  • December 3, 2008

    1:47 p.m.

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    gary writes:

    Why believe any of them...including Campos...Littwin and the whole bunch!!

    Nuff Said!

  • December 3, 2008

    2:06 p.m.

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    Achilles writes:

    Hank,

    I am flattered you remember my quote. There is no wisdom in polls. I didn't tout the poll. I touted the video of actual Obama voters talking about what they know about politics - which is surprisingly little. But the video was very revealing and backed my own assertions that stupid women and ignorant blacks have vaulted Obama to the presidency. Hooray for democracy!

  • December 3, 2008

    2:19 p.m.

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    Hank writes:

    John_II - it only backs your assertions in your own mind, the rest of us will simply consider the source. Any 2-bit yahoo can make a video.

  • December 3, 2008

    2:36 p.m.

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    Hank writes:

    "I touted the video of actual Obama voters talking about what they know about politics - which is surprisingly little."

    And here's a video of actual McCain voters:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD3p_g...

    See how it works?

  • December 3, 2008

    2:44 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Achilles writes:

    Hank,

    You respond with a video created by al Jezeera? Are you kidding me?

    And, frankly, those comments weren't so bad.

  • December 3, 2008

    4:06 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    TYoungman writes:

    Jon_11 you are obviously bitter about the election - try to get past it. Labeling Obama as a Marxist won't help the right any more than labeling Bush as a fascist has helped the left over the last 8 years.

    18 - 21 year old voters demonstrated more knowledge about politics than did their older counterparts (of which I am one) when asked a series of basic questions about the American political system (ie, what is the function of the House Minority Whip?).

    Also -most of them would know that Marxism is completely irrelevant in modern politics.You are labeling Obama with an ism the finer points of which you don't even understand - so who is the "idiot citizen"?

  • December 3, 2008

    4:27 p.m.

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    Hank writes:

    John_II

    "You respond with a video created by al Jezeera? Are you kidding me?"

    No I'm not kidding, that's the point, as I said - any yahoo can make a video.

    "And, frankly, those comments weren't so bad."

    So the comment:
    "I'm afraid that if he wins the blacks will take over"
    wasn't so bad? You really are a sad case.

  • December 3, 2008

    4:33 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    TYoungman writes:

    Jon_II

    Read this before you throw the word "Marxist" around :
    http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61/61.txt

    Also - to quote your earlier post:

    "the video was very revealing and backed my own assertions that stupid women and ignorant blacks have vaulted Obama to the presidency. Hooray for democracy!"

    Comments like these help me to understand how Bush was elected twice. Let me guess, you voted for him both times, right?

  • December 3, 2008

    5:16 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    HopiMedicineMan writes:

    Opening the article, I thought Campos was advertising for a job for himself. I was going to suggest a cleaning job at a Taos casino.

    What the heck, such a job change, could only improve his reputation.

    (Aren't law professors supposed to be smart?)

  • December 3, 2008

    5:55 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    malis writes:

    John_II, I'm afraid your faith in ‘www.howobamagotelected.com’ is misplaced. As Hank mentioned, the creator of that site is an ultra-right wing talk-radio host named John Zeigler (who's website proudly proclaims “In 2007 John was named the 54th most important talk host in the country by Talkers Magazine”).

    He commissioned his poll through Zogby’s organization, but it was never called “A Zogby Poll.”

    You can find out more about the whole story in this interview of Zeigler. Take a look and come back and tell me how credible you think he is.

    http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/1...

  • December 4, 2008

    5:46 a.m.

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    jmjohnson writes:

    While this article makes some very excellent points, I find it sad and funny that a substantial segment of the population believes any of this will change under Obama. Those individuals have yet to read a little history, so it would seem.

    A saying that sums this up is, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

  • December 4, 2008

    1:08 p.m.

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    jay writes:

    you know, jmjohnson, i'm not sure you're correct there.

    i see fundamental differences between bush's policy platform and obama's.

  • December 4, 2008

    8:56 p.m.

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    anderson writes:

    The charge leveled by Campos isn't exactly new. Nonetheless, people should be outraged by the idea that some retired Generals were in bed with the defense industry and paid for it (imbedded?)--and that all the major media sources were compliant. Isn't that one of the major lessons we learned from this? I remember in the lead up to the invasion, and especially once it happened, how guys like McCaffery were all over TV and radio, and no one questioned the purpose or the premises of the invasion.

    jmjohnson is right to question whether any of this will change. We have to hope it will. If we merely resign ourselves to the idea that nothing can be done, then the big operatives will continue with "business as usual".

  • December 5, 2008

    8:57 a.m.

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    jmjohnson writes:

    Well Anderson and Jay,

    Yes, we can hope this will change under Obama, but judging by his National Security appointees thus far (all Pro-War Hawks) the odds are against any substantial change in the arena of warfare and foreign policy.

    In the end, we are fooling ourselves if we think we can change any of this, as we've been brainwashed into believing that the only way to change things is to vote for the "other" party in the next election... Never realizing that both parties are controlled by the same elites who only have their interests in mind, not the welfare of the rest of the nation.

    When I look at Obama, I don't see a mixed-race American, I see another socio-political internationalist elite individual.

  • December 5, 2008

    11:56 a.m.

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    jay writes:

    "the odds are against any substantial change in the arena of warfare and foreign policy."

    well...here we're into conspiracy theory territory, mr. johnson.

    you can believe that obama will reverse the policy platform that he's carried thus far...but i don't think such rhetoric carries much credibility.