bible for most go on or keep. watch the hour here in moscow you all with auti headlines now america fears for its image after sensitive details are published online over its relations with its closest partners experts say it shows a degradation of washington's foreign policy. to senior iranian nuclear scientists talk it in bomb attacks tehran blames israel and the u.s. saying it's an attempt to jump the country's nuclear program. keeping tensions high south korea on pyongyang with a regional joint military exercise with the u.s. only a week off through a deadly tsunami exchange in the region. well what can be more important than

trusting the news and information we see and hear as one american journalist has found out neither news nor campaign ads need to be true in a special report so wilson examines how the media shapes public opinion and whether it is an information gateway or simply a means of manipulation that's coming up next right here on r.t. stay with us. when just. sand and airways can try. to. keep the crown. piece here. in.

our story begins during the great depression times were hard and broadcasting was brand new it seemed like a miracle. i'll see our friends get it into the queue behind your radio dial. wherever you may be radio brought entertainment and sports and news of the world right into our own homes. just broadcasting retained faith it was hope. in that spirit our government made policies to make sure the media protects the public i'm simply ways are considered public property the federal communications commission is charged with the responsibility of protecting the people before the f.c.c. decided broadcasters needed to be licensed to licenses were free of charge but there was a catch t.v. and radio owners had to serve the public if they did not people could challenge their licenses and the f.c.c. could take them away. and the f.c.c.

understood that radio and t.v. should be owned locally so they passed strict rules limiting the number of stations any one person could l.a. independent needed to stay cool be told me six hours operated by n.b.c. . then came the war. and radio became a lifeline. the president of. the information we were getting was vital we all knew that it's a date which will live. in infamy important to our national security important to our democracy our margaret this is edward morrow speaking from iraq and we learned this new medium could be used against us each and every night at least they are often a video proof of her yankee perth or during their rescue or are not. sure

for sure what they did of course of those fascist regimes was it just broadcast over and over again the information and the perspective of the point of view and the propaganda that they wanted people to digest absorb and so the federal communications commission back in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine and cooperated something called the fairness doctrine the fairness doctrine required radio and t.v. stations to provide coverage to fight only important controversy on issues and to provide a reasonable opportunity for the presentation of contrast in a few points you ask to bring them on you have to give people the opportunity to express an alternative point of view now it was a code that served us well good evening through the administrations of truman eisenhower kennedy johnson nixon ford and carter more generally like yours robert reich. and then a real media man came into power with that i will faithfully execute the office

ronald reagan was the king of deregulation of his f.c.c. deregulated t.v. and radio active so one person could own dozens of broadcast ations nationwide and said the free market would provide fairness in broadcasting so they got rid of the fair to start. anyway back then republicans and democrats passed a bill to reinstate the fairness doctrine newt gingrich and trent lott were co-sponsors. but ronald reagan vetoed it. the nine hundred ninety six telecommunications act suddenly allowed big companies like clear channel to own twelve hundred stations nationwide and brown program them with conservative talk radio was. to set the bars. and looking at the five largest operators where we found was the one or ten to wanted fan which conservative talk show hosts self declared conservative

hosts versus folks who declared themselves liberal or progressive. vantage of roughly twenty five hundred hours of conservative talk as opposed to two hundred fifty hours of liberal or progressive talk this is an extraordinary amount but in places like houston texas for example. we looking monday through friday commercial radio stations one hundred percent conservative talk no progressives no liberals represented the two thousand and seven study by free press and the center for american progress shows ninety two percent of conservative stations don't air even a single minute of the other side you want to hear a radio talk or bash republicans good luck especially if you live in the midwest mainstream that breaks the inside the beltway mystique but you might hear it schultz ed does his nationally syndicated show out of fargo north dakota and his

ratings are good he's matching bill o'reilly's numbers. don't see talkers magazine now is out the ed schultz show has got over three million listeners progressive talk got its start in two thousand and four and it now seems to be having an effect many formerly red states that heard ed and air america were highly competitive voted blue in two thousand and eight while those that heard only conservative talk went read. as usual. but here's the scary part since the democrats made gains in the two thousand and six election corporate radio took to get into every other progressive talker in the key swing state of ohio off the air first and. then columbus fall and replaced them with shows they get half there are things that they're out there greasing the skids right now in the winter of those seven with a zero point six number. when i

was on there in the fall of zero five it was like a two point four things got a strange to me you did it. market that you're going to have a problem and it isn't just ohio since two thousand and six dozen so well performing liberal programs have been taken off the air across the country fresno new haven san diego austin and many more i think it's political and i don't think there's any doubt you can look at the numbers this business is owned by conservatives it's managed by conservatives and it is programmed by conservatives the distorting effect of all that was causing a problem in our democracy was causing people to act based on false information to make decisions about public policy to make decisions in the voting booth based

on simply information that was wrong and that there had to be a corrective to that and so in may of two thousand and four i launched a media matters media matters is a research website which tracks conservative misinformation in the news it's a simple concept record with talk show hosts and news people say then check their facts turns out there's a lot of good also good which david brock used to perpetrate author david brock uncovered evidence about a media hill that has been sincere by liberals time pattern of crying sexual harassment or political radicalism most important are likely destroyed. then he learned to keep been lied to and subscribe i came to be aware that the people around clarence thomas who had helped me write that account. didn't believe the account themselves same with rocks troopergate story that led to the paula jones lawsuit the judge dismissed that case because it had no merit. in other words

it was a frivolous lawsuit and that whole thing led to president clinton's impeachment. i just couldn't do what i was doing anymore once i realized what it was he'd been working for a newspaper magnate richard mellon scaife who paid the american spectator magazine two million dollars to dig up dirt on the clintons the information didn't need to be true just bandaging the conservative movement also had a hidden media agenda well they claim that the complaint is one of liberal bias i think and i've looked pretty carefully at the sun i've looked at many of the studies that claim this at the end of the day the real goal is to disable journalism from being able to do its job independently and neutrally jane and her husband steve wilson were an award winning investigative reporting teams working at

w.t.v. news in tampa bay florida first then they uncovered a story about tour moments being secretly into our milk supply t.v. team ran this promotion for the investigation just i am sure nobody else in the country covered this and then they get fired for trying to tell the story when b.t.h. manufacture monsanto threaten to sue fox news. pulled the report then tried to get the investigators to change their story. but the reporters wouldn't back down they can ask you to put things on the air broadcast to the public over the public airwaves that are untrue that are unsubstantiated or flat out on true and that's also what they were asking us to do they crossed that line and that's an important distinction to make so a korean wilson threatened to report the news distortion to the f.c.c. that's when he fired them very courageous they file a whistleblower suit and they go to trial a korea turny john chambliss senator since the lawyers. this. all of the year and

from there on him through a mouth than ever is made to talk to scientists or to distort the story in a way that we will believe that monsanto these folks refused to do in this weather for steve wilson played his own case you know what that story cost. two careers. and i want to say. there was only one way or wilson could win under judge roll steinberg instructed the jury for they'd have to prove w. t.v. station management or had deliberately tried to distort the news proof of a violation requires that the planners establish that the via t.v. t.'s station or news management acted intentionally and deliberately to falsify or distort plainness proposed news report on b g eight wilson last but janie cre won her case because she threatened to disclose to the federal

communications commission on your oath the broadcast of a false distorted or slanted news report yes so a creep proved news distortion and you wouldn't know it from the spin on w t v t there fox thirteen representatives say the jury through its verdicts clearly stated that the station did not tell a korean wilson to falsify and distort the news through their b.t.h. story but we are completely vindicated on the finding of this theory that we do not distort news for lost wages eighty eight thousand seven hundred and twenty five dollars that does not have to do with the store show the news it is not true false vacation of the us for lost earning capacity one hundred twenty thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars i think today is a wonderful day for boxer two for other damages two hundred fifteen thousand five hundred and twenty five dollars fox appealed the jury's decision which is in the end their attorneys argued there is no law against news distortion you haven't

found a stash. you haven't found a rule we haven't found a regulation what we're doing is importing into that the news distortion called and it went to the second district court of appeals in florida and they bought the fox argument that yes policy but it's not technically against any rule of regulation to destroy. what they're saying is the new is really belongs in the corporation the putting it out and that it's not against the water why do the public it's an f.c.c. rule but it's not against the law where does that leave us as people who are served by the broadcast airwaves. vice president joe biden you're probably going. to defy the rules and wilson ended up paying fox attorney fees. the road to war in iraq took some strange turn stranger than a detour to the west african country of these your reports which do hold government accountable like this can cost a lot of money for

a team of people to put months into research and travel and production just to air one eight minute story to build a nuclear bomb explode they've largely been replaced with coverage like this that costs very little anna nicole smith interview that means profits for shareholders and divert attention. you know whatever happened to investigative reporting and i think part of what happened is corporatization of the media it's the bottom line so the first thing you do is you fire a quarter of the newsroom or half the newsroom so you don't even have the reporters that go out there and to get the story it's you know how can you get a quick and i can tell you it's a lot cheaper to have two people arguing on t.v. from you know you know polarized point of views than actual reporters out there digging up the story and saying ok america here's the facts you decide. this is the. media consolidation means fewer reporters and those who remain too

often feel pressured. to play nice with government it's a nasty little game called access that is one of the biggest media manipulations is you want our guy you want our woman well you better play the game you better play by our rules if you want that we call that in our field a get to interview some real headline maker that everybody wants to get on their air and you want that person that's a valuable commodity you better play the game the top newsmakers in the bush administration were a great cat and they were all over the airwaves as they made their case for war in iraq where were the hard questions. abysmal i think that the press dropped the ball i think when they should have been the real watchdogs and should have. let the chips fall where they may they defaulted totally and they did this they say in the run up to the war it was so clear for two years

we were going to war and nobody asked why but we know now. that saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons high quality aluminum tubes which is what you have to have in order to build a bomb suitable for nuclear weapons production there were no weapons of mass destruction worth of that the first thing to scare everyone we don't want the smoking gun that could come in the form of the mushroom cloud note. we do have solid evidence of the presence in iraq. kill qaeda members there was a pattern the relationship that went back at least a decade between iraq and al qaeda was a lot of obvious deception at a time when it was crucial for our country which was right after nine eleven they felt that they had big to be super patriots and support the government no matter what they gave up their one weapon which was skepticism out of the news pete at the

administration. i have a contract with. the order to time and time and dangers saddam hussein put his biological weapons laboratories in trucks little turned out to be true only talk shows instead of providing clarity on the single most of mine an issue of our generation the press only created confusion it is smoking gun is an interesting phrase six years after the attacks on new york city in the pentagon the newsweek poll showed forty one percent of americans saddam hussein was directly terrorist attacks i don't think we ever know i didn't say that there was a direct connection between september eleventh and saddam was something nobody's ever suggested that the attacks of september the eleventh were ordered by iraq no wonder the news media has lost the public trust they want to make policy choices

based on truth and what i heard is that people didn't really quite feel that the mainstream media in the media as we most of us experience. was truth telling the group fairness and accuracy in reporting did a. study. two weeks around february fifth two thousand and three right before the invasion before major that newscast n.b.c. a.b.c. c.b.s. and the p.b.s. news hour with jim lehrer there were three hundred ninety three interviews done around the war only three were with antiwar leaders three of almost four hundred when half the population was supposed to be invasion that is no longer in the mainstream media that's an extreme beating the drums for war a recent new york times report says the media got right in bed with the pentagon to promote the war former military officers would get talking points directly from the pentagon than say them on the air no questions asked if they serve

a good. gesture. that there is no you know the retired u.s. general talking point. in iraq ruled by the message needs to be a wedge in iraq imagine iraq other countries are clearly talking point link iraq to iran i believe that iran is now the number one troublemaker in iraq that's bad enough but a lot of these pentagon pundits were making big money from defense contracts most of the t.v. and the radio military analysts have ties to military contractors people who could possibly be making money on the war most would consider that a potential conflict of interest maybe not even potential at the same time reporters who did ask hard questions were punished by the white house luckily their managers stood by them reporter jonathan landay covered the speech dick cheney gave in august two thousand and two to the veterans of foreign wars many of us are. quire nuclear weapons. that was based on absolutely nothing it was as if it was

pulled out of thin air there was absolutely no intelligence no evidence whatsoever for that assertion landi and more and struggle began writing about faulty intelligence about how there was no link between iraq and al-qaeda about failed policies that series of stories one station of people in the pentagon trying to shut me out of travel with the secretary of defense i was not allowed to have not been allowed in or invited onto trips pentagon trip since for three years. the chill by white house correspondent william douglas. he had been trying to get on the vice president's plane in early two thousand and four there were some things that the vice president did like that we wrote. there was no on the plane it's my belief that

a lot of journalists did not ask hard questions. of this administration's policies particularly in the run up to the war. because they were afraid of losing access and having happen to them what happened to me and has happened to others an example of why media ownership matters to democracy before reporting. sheds light on the reasons why. they are being asked to go and risk life and limb and health and family and everything else then we're doing and if that displeases the secretary of defense if it just pleases the vice president so be it. the biggest scandal of the bush administration is the story of reporters who protected their access to top officials first and put their responsibility to the public laughs. the story really begins with him bastard joseph wilson

wilson was the acting ambassador to iraq before the first gulf war when saddam hussein took more than one hundred americans hostages joe wilson stared him down saddam hussein backed off and released the americans for that president george herbert walker bush proclaimed wilson a national hero. then that he heard president george w. bush make this statement in the two thousand and three state of the union address to british government. from africa a year earlier the cia had sent wilson to investigate the uranium claim and he knew it wasn't true corruption. wrote about it in the new york times that touched off a firestorm at the white house. tried to discredit wilson by writing

a story that wilson's wife valerie plame who worked at the cia said. on the trip trouble was she worked as a spy for the cia nobody was supposed to know she worked there the cia even told no that not to publish that information but know that did what mr harlow told me he asked me not to use your name did not say she was she was a cover employee and i still don't believe she was in any activities former president bush was not amused human intelligence spies. is very important. it's pretty hard to get it. if somebody working clandestine service. was going to appear i'm sure that both. deputy defense secretary richard admitted he was the first to leak despise name and he apologized for it. but white house staffers karl rove in lewis libby also spraying the covert agents name to

reporters at the same time for sure in the president's own press secretary they had nothing to do with it they're good individuals they're important members of our white house team and that's why i spoke with them so that i could come back to you and say that they were not involved i went to both those individuals asked them point blank were you involved in the leaking of valerie plame identity in any way both them told me unequivocally no but scott mcclellan now says in his new book rove and libby lied to him and it turns out a lot of reporters knew it but said nothing and scott mcclellan the white house spokesperson gets up and he says karl rove is absolutely none vall well there were at least three probably four people if not in that room that watched it live at various news organization the knew that that was a flat out lie because they had talked to karl rove about plame you know she was good with. access to the white house they allowed themselves to be used for

political gain using the reporters you know. to carry out their political mission and that's different from cultivating a source to get information that's of value to you as a journalist here you are being used by the tolerant official to carry out their political work instead of clarifying the facts in this national security breach the media just had a free for all i think that while i always you know upsets ballerinas this wasn't covert which is just ridiculous was she in fact a covert agent was never even proved there is no doubt that the relationship with the cia was classified if you give the identity of a classified person it doesn't mean diddly squat to be a covert agent and i still don't believe. he knew whether she was covert or not from day one and she isn't she's never been proven to be covert to endangering national security by outing a cold mary will be a operators are not a career c.

was not a covert operative i.e. says that she was for the record valerie plame wilson was a covert agent the cia put it in writing. question is that so much of the taxpayer's money i mean i seriously have a real train is too big to fail expression if you're wealthy governments around the world bailed out the rich and powerful for them the worst of the recession is probably. the closest team has been to the term screen where rich academic life gives birth to innovative ideas. now r g goes to the area which together with boosting industrial development. offers to make a journey into russia's history. and to enjoy burgers and vivid cultural life.

welcome to the pair and region in russia close up on our cheap.

quite.