American Journalism Has Entered Highly Dangerous Terrain<\/i><\/p>\n
A tip-off is that the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0refuses to face up to a conflict of interest involving Jeff Bezos \u2014 who\u2019s now the sole owner of the powerful newspaper at the same time he remains Amazon\u2019s CEO and main stakeholder.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Post\u00a0is supposed to expose CIA secrets. But Amazon is under contract to keep them. Amazon has a new $600 million \u201ccloud\u201d computing deal with the CIA.<\/p>\n
The situation is unprecedented. But in an\u00a0email exchange<\/a>\u00a0early this month,\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0executive editor Martin Baron told me that the newspaper doesn\u2019t need to routinely inform readers of the CIA-Amazon-Bezos ties when reporting on the CIA. He wrote that such in-story acknowledgment would be \u201cfar outside the norm of disclosures about potential conflicts of interest at media organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n But there isn\u2019t anything normal about the new situation. As I wrote to Baron, \u201cfew journalists could have anticipated ownership of the paper by a multibillionaire whose outside company would be so closely tied to the CIA.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0Washington Post\u2019s refusal to provide readers with minimal disclosure in coverage of the CIA is important on its own. But it\u2019s also a marker for an ominous pattern \u2014 combining denial with accommodation to raw financial and governmental power \u2014 a synergy of media leverage, corporate digital muscle and secretive agencies implementing policies of mass surveillance, covert action and ongoing warfare.<\/p>\n Digital prowess at collecting global data and keeping secrets is crucial to the missions of Amazon and the CIA. The two institutions have only begun to explore how to work together more effectively.<\/p>\n For the CIA, the emerging newspaper role of Mr. Amazon is value added to any working relationship with him. The CIA\u2019s zeal to increase its leverage over major American media outlets is longstanding.<\/p>\n After creation of the CIA in 1947, it enjoyed direct collaboration with many U.S. news organizations. But the agency faced a major challenge in October 1977, when \u2014 soon after leaving the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0\u2013 famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein provided an\u00a0extensive expose<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Rolling Stone.<\/p>\n Citing CIA documents, Bernstein wrote that during the previous 25 years \u201cmore than 400 American journalists \u2026 have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency.\u201d He added: \u201cThe history of the CIA\u2019s involvement with the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and deception.\u201d<\/p>\n Bernstein\u2019s story tarnished the reputations of many journalists and media institutions, including the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0and\u00a0New York Times. While the CIA\u2019s mission was widely assumed to involve \u201cobfuscation and deception,\u201d the mission of the nation\u2019s finest newspapers was ostensibly the opposite.<\/p>\n During the last few decades, as far as we know, the extent of extreme media cohabitation with the CIA has declined sharply. At the same time, as the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq attests, many prominent U.S. journalists and media outlets have continued to regurgitate, for public consumption, what\u2019s fed to them by the CIA and other official \u201cnational security\u201d sources.<\/p>\n The recent purchase of the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0by Jeff Bezos has poured some high-finance concrete for a new structural bridge between the media industry and the surveillance\/warfare state. The development puts the CIA in closer institutionalized proximity to the\u00a0Post, arguably the most important political media outlet in the United States.<\/p>\n At this point, about 30,000 people have signed a petition (launched by RootsAction.org) with a minimal request: \u201cThe\u00a0Washington Post\u2019s coverage of the CIA should include full disclosure that the sole owner of the\u00a0Post\u00a0is also the main owner of Amazon \u2014 and Amazon is now gaining huge profits directly from the CIA.\u201d On behalf of the petition\u2019s signers, I\u2019m scheduled to deliver it to the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0headquarters on January 15. The\u00a0petition<\/a>\u00a0is an opening salvo in a long-term battle.<\/p>\n By its own account, Amazon \u2014 which has yielded Jeff Bezos personal wealth of around $25 billion so far \u2014 is eager to widen its services to the CIA beyond the initial $600 million deal. \u201cWe look forward to a successful relationship with the CIA,\u201d a statement from Amazon said two months ago. As Bezos continues to gain even more wealth from Amazon, how likely is that goal to affect his newspaper\u2019s coverage of the CIA?<\/p>\n _________________________<\/p>\n Norman Solomon<\/i> is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include <\/i>War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. Information about the documentary based on the book is at\u00a0www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n