Propaganda

I was initially elated that a letter writer had remembered the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ("The atomic age turns 67,"Aug. 9). But elation turned to disappointment as the author went on to recite the myth, perpetrated by Harry Truman and Gen. Leslie Groves, that "100 million Japanese were prepared to fight to the death to defend their homeland," and that "most historians believe that President Harry Truman made the correct decision to use these weapons.

A museum of journalism in Washington, D.C., the Newseum plans to honor and include in the institution's Journalists' Memorial Mahmoud Al-Kumi and Hussam Salama. Both worked for Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV. Also, Basel Tawfiq Youssef of Syrian State TV and Maya Naser, from Iran's Press TV are set to be honored. They did not fall as reporters attempting to maintain the free flow of news. The honorees died as foot soldiers for regimes that use propaganda to sustain their repression and abuse of a free society and a free press.

I find it unconscionable that our esteemed members of the "fourth estate" employed by Patuxent Publishing have been relatively biased in their reporting on the siting of the proposed CSX intermodal site in Maryland. Not once have your reporters done any obvious investigative work to confirm what residents suspect: that CSX has been less than transparent in its disclosures to the general public. Whenever anyone asks CSX (and the Maryland Department of Transportation to a lesser degree)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy MSNBC has long been as bad as Fox News when it comes to ideological bias. But with the hiring of longtime Team Obama loyalists David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, it's official: MSNBC is worse. The cable channel that flies under the banner of NBC News is now all but a bona fide organ of state propaganda, an information channel that speaks in the same dominant voice as the folks running the government -- and tries to mask what it is up to. I didn't plan on getting all free-press-and-democracy amped up about the hirings until I saw Axelrod with Andrea Mitchell last week in his first appearance on MSNBC.

"Operation Southside," the weekend's massive raid against drugs and violence, was the seventh sweep the police department has conducted since Thomas C. Frazier became Baltimore's top cop nearly a year ago.It would be naive to suggest that these kinds of raids -- which were sorely lacking under Commissioner Edward Woods -- will run drug lords out of the city altogether. More accurate is to describe these periodic sweeps as armed propaganda: The police department is taking a stand and telling addicts and traffickers that the days of unhindered open-air drug markets are over.

Throughout America's history, the nation's citizens have been uncomfortable with the idea of government rather than a free press reporting on the news, both in the United States and abroad. Critics have labeled U.S. government attempts to bring news to people in other nations as "propaganda" intended to sway popular opinion, sometimes using false information. Supporters prefer to call such efforts "information campaigns" intended to educate the public with facts. Government efforts to report on its actions are particularly controversial during wartime as the president in power always seeks to maintain public support at home and abroad despite inevitable casualties and setbacks.

ONE exchange, at least, in the debate between Ross Perot and Vice President Al Gore on the North American Free Trade Agreement should have brought a smile to the lips of the television audience. It came shortly after Mr. Gore seemed to accuse Mr. Perot of being in a position to profit personally from a defeat of the agreement. Mr. Perot snapped, "Now, do you guys ever do anything but propaganda?" To which the vice president replied, "Isn't that your business, also?"The notion that Ross Perot, who has spent tens of millions of dollars of his own money advertising his opinions on public issues, would accuse someone of engaging in propaganda was certainly laughable.

BOSTON - I have to confess that I am nowhere nearly as tolerant as I thought I was. Midway through the episode of Postcards From Buster that is at the center of the latest culture skirmish, the animated bunny is handed a plate of Vermont's finest maple syrup on snow. With a pickle on the side. Pickles and maple syrup? I don't think so. Nevertheless, it is not the culinary preferences in this show that freaked out the U.S. Department of Education. It's the sexual preferences. Postcards is the PBS kids program produced by Boston's WGBH with a clear mandate to "help children understand and respect differences and learn to live in a multicultural society."

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy MSNBC has long been as bad as Fox News when it comes to ideological bias. But with the hiring of longtime Team Obama loyalists David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, it's official: MSNBC is worse. The cable channel that flies under the banner of NBC News is now all but a bona fide organ of state propaganda, an information channel that speaks in the same dominant voice as the folks running the government -- and tries to mask what it is up to. I didn't plan on getting all free-press-and-democracy amped up about the hirings until I saw Axelrod with Andrea Mitchell last week in his first appearance on MSNBC.

WashingtonMEETING WITH Tom King, the British defense minister, here the other day President Bush complained that Saddam Hussein was making "a conscientious effort on his part to raise the propaganda value of accusing us of indiscriminate bombing of civilians, and it's simply not true." Saddam is operating, Bush said, "this one-sided propaganda machine cranking out a lot of ++ myths and falsehoods."What was being overlooked, the president argued, is "a lot of the brutality that's so evident and so purposeful on his part -- the treatment of the prisoners, the Scud missile attacks [that]

I was initially elated that a letter writer had remembered the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ("The atomic age turns 67,"Aug. 9). But elation turned to disappointment as the author went on to recite the myth, perpetrated by Harry Truman and Gen. Leslie Groves, that "100 million Japanese were prepared to fight to the death to defend their homeland," and that "most historians believe that President Harry Truman made the correct decision to use these weapons.

Did you hear about the new bill that would allow the U.S. government's official overseas information agency to rebroadcast its content onto American TV and radio? The bipartisan Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 was introduced in Congress last week by Reps. Mac Thornberry, a Texas Republican, and Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat, both of whom are presumably dissatisfied with their satellite TV package and think more government-produced content would go down better with an after-work beer.

I find it unconscionable that our esteemed members of the "fourth estate" employed by Patuxent Publishing have been relatively biased in their reporting on the siting of the proposed CSX intermodal site in Maryland. Not once have your reporters done any obvious investigative work to confirm what residents suspect: that CSX has been less than transparent in its disclosures to the general public. Whenever anyone asks CSX (and the Maryland Department of Transportation to a lesser degree)

In yesterday's mail I received a second piece of political propaganda in less than a week from Americans for Prosperity on behalf of Andy Harris, smearing Rep. Frank Kratovil and accusing him of "voting to spend nearly $2 million to study ants. " I think it is criminal and destructive to our democracy that groups outside of our district and our state are spending so much money, attempting to influence our state and local elections. This kind of thing is not in the best interest of the citizens of the 1st District.

The bellicose charges, military exercises, diplomatic challenges and missile test firings playing out between Iran, the U.S. and Israel this week reflect the continuing unease over Tehran's nuclear ambition and a possible military response to it. The launching of nine missiles, including one that could reach Tel Aviv, was Iran's latest move in a political game of one-upmanship. It comes in the wake of U.S.-British military exercises in the Persian Gulf and last month's Israeli air maneuvers that some suspect were a practice run for a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Ironically, it was the American press, not the Soviet press, which gave the Sputnik launch such immense coverage, allowing it to become one of the most powerful weapons of propaganda the Soviet Union had." - SERGEI KHRUSHCHEV, son of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, on the impact of the launch of Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, 50 years ago today

MOSCOW -- Russian authorities rejected yesterday as an overblown propaganda ploy the announcement this week that one of its citizens was arrested last year in Georgia while allegedly trying to sell a small amount of weapons-grade uranium. Russian national Oleg Khintsagov was arrested Feb. 1 last year in a sting operation after he smuggled about 3.5 ounces of the uranium into Georgia from his homeland, expecting to receive $1 million for it, Shota Utiashvili, chief of the analytical department of the Georgian Interior Ministry, said yesterday in an interview from Tbilisi, the country's capital.

DAYTON, Ohio -- The pro-life movement seems to be changing.Republican activists sliced each other up last summer over whether the Republican Party should abandon its support for a pro-life constitutional amendment. The pro-change group said the constitutional amendment was unrealistic. The anti-change group said any departure from the existing language would signal a retreat.Down at the grass roots, the matter seems to have been decided. No one talks about the constitutional amendment anymore.

America's health care woes all could be solved with a government-run universal-coverage system. Or so says Michael Moore in his new film, Sicko, which claims that even Cuba's health care system is superior to ours. Although it's easy to dismiss Mr. Moore as a radical propagandist, his message is gaining traction in the policy community. The Commonwealth Fund, a prominent health policy research foundation, has produced a new study that also portrays government-run health systems as far superior to ours.

That was a splendid call from the gun lobby in America, to insist the only problem with gun ownership is even more people should have them. This means supporters of President Bush have only once pursued anyone for possessing weapons, and then it turned out he didn't have any. - The (London) Independent David Halberstam died as he lived: on his way to a story. The fatal car crash kept him from interviewing Y. A. Tittle, the former New York Giants quarterback. Mr. Halberstam wrote as well about sports as about serious issues, such as the truth of the Vietnam War, which won him a Pulitzer.