US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

[Jan Klimkowski]

While an independent journalism system would be dissecting the impacts of NSA surveillance on privacy rights, and separating fact from fiction, U.S. news networks have obsessed on questions like: How much damage has Snowden caused? How can he be brought to justice?

I've often stated my judgement that the number of actual Mockingbirds in MSM is lower than is sometimes claimed.

I've yet to see a reliable source for the notorious alleged DCIA Colby claim that "The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media."

If Colby did say it, it was a lie.

And probably a psyop.

Here is my own experience of working in MSM.

There are key editors who are witting Mockingbirds, acting as gatekeepers, ensuring that stories which can damage national security are either toned down or pulled.

There are journalists who are witting Mockingbirds, in the direct pay and influence of intelligence organs, or publishing stories given to them by intelligence sources literally verbatim, without performing any journalistic due diligence.

There are journalists who are unwitting Mockingbirds, for instance through relying on a source who, unknown to the reporter, is an intelligence asset.

However, the Mockingbirds in key editorial and managerial positions can have a devastating impact in terms of setting and controlling the agenda. I suspect that in most American newsrooms it has been made clear that How much damage has Snowden caused? How can he be brought to justice? IS the angle, and promoting any other angle will not make it onto air or into print, and represents career suicide.

Here in the UK, several "security correspondents" have been commissioned to make programmes or write articles about "the huge number of terror plots that have been thwarted by Prism type techniques". These are not journalistic pieces. There is no sense that if the security correspondent found that actually Prism has prevented next to no terror attacks, then this would be reported in their piece. So we are forced to conclude that their pieces are actually propaganda.

In my experience, there are a high number of witting Mockingbirds amongst security correspondents.