@The Wizard Operation Mockingbird dates back to the inception of the CIA. (Long lost or forgotten, there was a significant amount of propaganda during WWII and included the MSM.) However, news organizations weren't so consolidated during that period of time; there were union and FDR Democratic newspapers, and there were a lot of reporters in the field. So, while influential, the CIA reach fell short of 100%. And with decent critical reading skills one could differentiate between the bs and more factual reports.

The shutdown of this crap came after the Vietnam War and with the Church committee investigations. Within a few years, when obviously the public and politicians didn't care so much, it returned. The heavy lifting was taken care of by Congress -- axing the fairness doctrine and concentrated ownership -- followed up by Google, 'social media,' etc that took away the advert dollars that newspaper needed to survive and that led to axing the employment of reporters with the stenos surviving. (The report on how reporters ganged up to discredit Gary Webb and succeeded in doing so is totally disgusting. They destroyed Webb and paid no price for their immorality.)

Bits and pieces of verifiable facts still leak through MSM reports but they aren't so easy to identify within the context of so much hyperbolic crap. And unfortunately, a reporter's past record getting the facts and story right is no guarantee that the she/he will continue to do so. ie Amy Goodman (one of many I've tuned out). So far Aaron Mate and Max Blumenthal (post 2014) are doing good work.

These are opinion pieces, but it says a lot about the Times that it decided to print them. Both are complete garbage, pure biased opinion. Most lines contain at least two lies. They reflect complete Western bias.

The NYTimes has for decades been owned by the deep state. I always wondered how exactly they did it until I had a customer who was a senior editor for the paper for 16 years. I asked him how the paper could have become a cheerleader for the Iraq war. How exactly did the Bush administration accomplish this? Well, here's the answer. Senior management would call the senior editors into a conference room and tell them exactly how critical stories were to be written. They also use editorial privilege to guarantee that the stories follow the line. Now we can add to that by what we know of the CIA. After the press turned against the government during the Vietnam war the CIA wanted to guarantee that that would never happen again. As such they have CIA minders that meet regularly with senior management. Almost always they get their way unless a story is do big that its omission would be obvious. The joke is that today the Times is equivalent to the Soviet Pravda and the Washington Post is the equivalent to Izvestia. This is not a joke, though, it's right on.

@The Wizard @The Wizard @The Wizard
who? Must certainly have been a smart thinking head.
@ all C99p-ers
All the admissions to not read xyz or not read blog so and so, reminds me of some discussions in my youth years. The question was, if one should read 'Mein Kampf' or listen to Goebbels speeches or not.

I have my own opinion about this, especially in my old age, I would adhere to, even if I were a teacher. How can you know something is bad, if you have not read the piece or blog that is supposedly bad?

The only problem I have reading or listening to 'bad stuff' is that it gives me diarrhea and I can assure you cleaning up the underwear is no fun.

PS I didn't follow my own advice and did't read "Mein Kampf" just to know what the dear leader of yesteryears in times back said. But I really would not advise anybody to read or not to read it. I would also not to be proud of one of the other.

I asked my family members, who grew up with the Weimar Republic and Nazi Third Reich, and nobody had read "Mein Kampf". I had two youngster fans of Hitler in my mother's family during the late 1920ies, and lots of people, whojust were not fans and no resistance heroes either. They survived. I think one should not be ashamed of trying to live and survive.

In any case, propaganda books and speeches are simply boring.
Read whatever you want, is my mantra, and do not prevent anyone from reading what they want, unharmeed.

These are opinion pieces, but it says a lot about the Times that it decided to print them. Both are complete garbage, pure biased opinion. Most lines contain at least two lies. They reflect complete Western bias.

The NYTimes has for decades been owned by the deep state. I always wondered how exactly they did it until I had a customer who was a senior editor for the paper for 16 years. I asked him how the paper could have become a cheerleader for the Iraq war. How exactly did the Bush administration accomplish this? Well, here's the answer. Senior management would call the senior editors into a conference room and tell them exactly how critical stories were to be written. They also use editorial privilege to guarantee that the stories follow the line. Now we can add to that by what we know of the CIA. After the press turned against the government during the Vietnam war the CIA wanted to guarantee that that would never happen again. As such they have CIA minders that meet regularly with senior management. Almost always they get their way unless a story is do big that its omission would be obvious. The joke is that today the Times is equivalent to the Soviet Pravda and the Washington Post is the equivalent to Izvestia. This is not a joke, though, it's right on.