The Press Is Free for Them What Owns It

Undercover, under fire
The Washington press corps is too busy cozying up to the people it covers to get at the truth.
by Ken Silverstein, the Washington editor of Harper's Magazine (LATimes 2007-06-30)

"EARLIER THIS YEAR, I put on a brand-new tailored suit, picked up a sleek leather briefcase and headed to downtown Washington for meetings with some of the city's most prominent lobbyists. I had contacted their firms several weeks earlier, pretending to be the representative of a London-based energy company with business interests in Turkmenistan. I told them I wanted to hire the services of a firm to burnish that country's image.

"I didn't mention that Turkmenistan is run by an ugly, neo-Stalinist regime. They surely knew that, and besides, they didn't care. As I explained in this month's issue of Harper's Magazine, the lobbyists I met at Cassidy & Associates and APCO were more than eager to help out. In exchange for fees of up to $1.5 million a year, they offered to send congressional delegations to Turkmenistan and write and plant opinion pieces in newspapers under the names of academics and think-tank experts they would recruit. They even offered to set up supposedly 'independent' media events in Washington that would promote Turkmenistan (the agenda and speakers would actually be determined by the lobbyists)."

The rest of the story: The Los Angeles Times.