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Information Control for Social Manipulation Continued from page 16 by the originating approving authority." tives will be underrepresented." In fact, This means that althonoh the renorter in only 20 of the 393 renresented the Traai by the originating approving authority." This means that, although the reporter in Jordan, Baghdad or the West Bank most assuredly understands the background and nuances of his or her story far better than the authorities in Atlanta, the anonymous CNN script editors will decide upon the spin the story should take. In other words, CNN is censoring itself, or is agreeing to be censored. (Fisk, 2003, February 25; Goodman & Rendall, 2003) tives will be underrepresented." In fact, only 20 of the 393 represented the Iraqi government and only three represented anti-war organisations. At a time when 61% of US respondents were telling poll- sters that more time was needed for diplo- macy and inspections, only 6% of US sources on the four networks were sceptics regarding the need for war, half of them were people on the street, and half of them were unnamed. ("In Iraq crisis, networks are mega - Phones...", 2003, March 18) in January 1991, the media [were] fed care- fully selected footage by [General Norman] Schwarzkopf in Saudi Arabia and [General Colin] Powell in Washington, DC. Most of it was downright misleading". It's happening this time, too. According to Christian Lowe of the military magazine Army Times, "embedded" journalists 2 being "hounded by military public affairs officers who follow their every move and look over their shoulders as they interview aviators, sailors, and maintainers for their stories". (Solomon, 2002; Miller, 2003, April 3) 123) Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) conducted a quantitative study from January 30, 2003 to February 12, 2003, concerning ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. It concluded that of the 393 on- camera sources who appeared in nightly news stories about Iraq, more than two- thirds (267) of the guests were from the US and 75% of those (199) were either current or former government or military officials, with only one expressing scepticism or opposition to the war. "Such a predomi- nance of official sources virtually assures that independent and grassroots perspec- About the Author: David B. Deserano is a recent graduate from Portland State University, Oregon, with an MS in Communication Theory. Much of his time has been spent researching and documenting the numerous links between the US govern- ment and a supposedly free media. He has turned this article (which originated as his Masters thesis) into an illustrated ‘zine. To contact Dave Deserano, email him at fortytwoent@yahoo.com. The full text of this article with refer- ences is posted at the NEXUS website, http://www.nexusmagazine.com. 122) On January 27, 2003, CNN released a document to its entire reporting staff. Entitled "Reminder of Script Approval", it relayed the fact that all stories must be submitted to an anonymous row of script editors in Atlanta who can insist upon changes. It read: "A script is not approved for air unless it is properly marked approved by an autho- rized manager and duped [duplicated] to burcopy [bureau copy]... When a script is updated it must be re-approved, preferably 74 = NEXUS www.nexusmagazine.com FEBRUARY — MARCH 2004