Army Embeds Active-Duty PSYOPS Soldiers at Local TV Stations .

Vatic Note:   NOTICE, its say "SOLDIERS"???  Sound like Nazi Germany or Communist Red China????  I have an idea.  Would you all do me a favor???  I would very much like it if you would substitute the  Words Chinese Government everywhere that you see its discussing us.  For instance in the first paragraph below I will insert Chinese gov where US gov is implied or stated.  OK?  Then you do the same all the way down and see how mad you would be  at the Chinese government and how you would react, especially if they use the MILITARY TO DO IT.   THEN ASK YOURSELF WHY YOU ARE NOT REACTING THAT WAY HEARING IT ABOUT OUR OWN GOVERNMENT.  I think that would be a self educating exercise.  Give it a shot and think about the results and ponder them.  This article fits perfectly with the one just before it about the students and how the press mischaracterized what happened.   They called the students anarchists who were simply having their annual year end party that is a historical event in the college, with no warning or instructions by the school not to have it.... but the president of the college did set them up in collusion with HOMELAND SECURITY AND YOU KNOW WHO IS RUNNING THAT DEPT NOW?  SPLC AND ADL.  Heck I would not be surprised if MOSSAD was running it now.  KICK OUT ALL FOREIGN NATIONALS FROM OUR GOV. 

Army Embeds Active-Duty PSYOPS Soldiers at Local TV Stations .
http://www.rebelnews.org/opinion/americas/818833-army-embeds-active-duty-psyops-soldiers-at-local-tv-stations
Wednesday, 04 May 2011 12:54

In the last twenty years, it has been reported several times that (Chinese)  army specialists in propaganda and psychological warfare have been embedded in the staff of (Chinese) television networks.

In the 1980s, officers from the (Chinese) 4th Army PSYOPS group staffed the National Security Council’s Office of Public Diplomacy (OPD), a shadowy government propaganda agency that planted stories in the (Chinese) U.S. media supporting the Reagan Administration’s Central America policies. In an article in the Miami Herald in 1987, a senior (Chinese) US official described OPD as a “vast psychological warfare operation of the kind the military conducts to influence a population in enemy territory.” (VN:  now do the same thing in the rest of the paragraphs and see the difference in how you feel about it when its the chinese doing it to their people and when its the US doing it to ours, BIG DIFFERENCE,  you want to tell the Chinese people to fight back, right? ) 

An investigation by the congressional General Accounting Office found that OPD had engaged in “prohibited, covert propaganda activities,” and the office was soon shut down as a result of the Iran-Contra investigations. But the 4th PSYOPS group still operates.

An unofficial strategy paper published by the U.S. Naval War College in 1996 and written by an Army officer entitled “Military Operations in the CNN World: Using the Media as a Force Multiplier” urged military commanders to find ways to “leverage the vast resources of the fourth estate” for the purposes of “communicating the [mission's] objective and endstate, boosting friendly morale, executing more effective psychological operations, playing a major role in deception of the enemy, and enhancing intelligence collection.”

In 2000, the Dutch newspaper Trouw and France’s Intelligence Newsletter revealed that several officers from the US Army’s 4th Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) Group at Ft. Bragg worked in the news division at CNN’s Atlanta headquarters last year, starting in the final days of the Kosovo War.

Upon discovery, the mission was discontinued and the CNN spokesperson said: “It was inappropriate for PSYOPS personnel to be at CNN, they are not here now, and they never again will be at CNN”.

Since then, the PSYOPS operations did not end, and have even spread to local television networks. Here’s a recent article in “The Upshot” on the presence of these agents at WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina and WTOC, in Savannah, Georgia.

“The U.S. Army has used local television stations in the U.S. as training posts for some of its psychological-operations personnel, The Upshot has learned. Since at least 2001, both WRAL, a CBS affiliate in Raleigh, N.C., and WTOC, a CBS affiliate in Savannah, Ga., have regularly hosted active-duty soldiers from the Army’s 4th Psychological Operations group as part of the Army’s Training With Industry program.

Training With Industry is designed to offer career soldiers a chance to pick up skills through internships and fellowships with private businesses. The PSYOPS soldiers used WRAL and WTOC to learn broadcasting and communications expertise that they could apply in their mission, as the Army describes it, of “influenc[ing] the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign audiences.”

WRAL and WTOC were on a list of participants in the Army’s Training With Industry program provided to The Upshot in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, and a spokeswoman with the Army’s Human Resources Command confirmed that PSYOPS soldiers worked at the stations.

“Both of those stations are very supportive of the military, and think very highly of the program,” said Lt. Col. Stacy Bathrick. “Our officers are there to learn best practices in terms of programming and production side that they can use when they deploy. To be able to get hands-on interaction with a news station — there’s nothing like that.” Bathrick said the soldiers were never involved in newsgathering.

The relationship between PSYOPS, Training With Industry, and television news operations has stirred controversy in the past. In 2000, after a Dutch newspaper reported that PSYOPS troops had been placed in CNN’s newsroom under the program, CNN discontinued the internships and admitted that they had been a mistake. “It was inappropriate for PSYOPS personnel to be at CNN, they are not here now, and they never again will be at CNN,” a spokesperson said at the time.

WRAL’s news director, Rick Gall, feels differently. “My sense was, this was an educational opportunity to see how the broadcasting industry operates,” said Gall. “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. It was like shadowing.” WRAL is owned by Capitol Broadcasting Company, which owns a variety of media outlets in North Carolina.

Gall said WRAL hasn’t hosted a soldier — which he described as an “embed” — since 2007. According to Bathrick, the Army’s relationship with WTOC in Savannah is ongoing — a PSYOPS officer is currently embedded there. Bill Cathcart, WTOC’s vice president and general manager, did not return phone calls or an e-mail seeking comment. WTOC is owned by Raycom Media, a television chain based in Alabama.

WRAL and WTOC are not alone among media outlets that the U.S. military has sought to learn from through Training With Industry. The Upshot has previously reported that the Marine Corps placed public affairs officers with the Chicago Tribune for several years in order to better understand how to influence and work with the news media, and CNNMoney.com hosted an officer in 2007 and 2008, despite the network’s embarrassment over the program in 2000.”

- Source
Source: Vigilant Citizen

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