PLANTING STORIES….On Wednesday, Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times broke a story about the U.S. military secretly writing stories and having them planted in the Iraqi media with the help of a consulting outfit called the Lincoln Group.
A few hours later Knight Ridder posted a story by Jonathan Landay that covered the same ground and added that “U.S. psychological-warfare officers have been involved in writing news releases and drafting media strategies for top commanders.”
Today, Jeff Gerth and Scott Shane of the New York Times chimed in. They made it clear that they had been chasing this story on their own before the LA Times printed it.
All of these articles are the product of weeks of research, and it’s not just coincidence that all of these reporters have been working on the exact same story. Somebody’s been trying to get the word out about this. Somebody who’s not very happy with this program. But who?
