Local CBS news stations training psychological ops soldiers

10-04-2010 • RawStory.com

It is yet more evidence of an increasingly cooperative relationship between the US military and news media, that has led some media critics to question whether news organizations are becoming tools of military policy. Cook reports that Raleigh's WRAL says it hasn't hosted a psyops soldier since 2007, but WTOC in Savannah currently has a psyops trainee in the newsroom. Rick Gall, news director at WRAL, told Yahoo! News that the psyops interns' work consisted primarily of "shadowing" employees to see how news is gathered and delivered. "My sense was, this was an educational opportunity to see how the broadcasting industry operates," he said. "They'd spend time in the various departments of the station, including the newsroom. I wasn't concerned about having someone learn what we do, and there was no influence on newsgathering." But that will likely not satisfy media critics who have been raising the alarm about the increasingly close relationship between the military and the media. Among other things, critics point to the relatively recent practice of "embedding" reporters within military units as a sign that the military wants to shape the nature of news coverage.

1 Comments in Response to Local CBS news stations training psychological ops soldiers

Comment by Powell Gammill

Entered on: 10/4/2010 5:51:02 AM

But that would mean the US Army sought out the experts at doing 'influenc[ing] the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of its audiences.' You mean Walter Cronkite was just a Judas goat? I'm so shocked . . . that they would admit the deliberate pro-government corporate manipulation of us.

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