CNN’s Yellin: Network execs killed critical White House stories

On Wednesday night, CNN’s Jessica Yellin talked to Anderson Cooper about Scott McClellan’s tell-all memoir and agreed with the former press secretary that White House reporters “dropped the ball” during the run-up to war.

But Yellin went much further, revealing that news executives — presumably at ABC News, where she’d worked from July 2003 to August 2007 — actively pushed her to not do hard-hitting pieces on the Bush administration.

“The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings,” Yellin said.

“And my own experience at the White House was that the higher the president’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives — and I was not at this network at the time — but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president, I think over time….”

But then a shocked Cooper jumped in, asking, “You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?”

“Not in that exact…. They wouldn’t say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces,” Yellin said. “They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical, and try to put on pieces that were more positive. Yes, that was my experience.”

–by Michael Calderone

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Ok Not to sound like a broken record but where are the indictments for those responsible for lying us into this war, and not just the Administration but the bastard complicite News Media. Then there is the matter of the War crimes committed and committed. Looks to me like alot of people shoud be sitting in jail cells right now ehh ——–

The most crucial question that was never asked by mainstream was this: “Mr. President, you have agreed that the most solemn responsibility of the presidency is in deciding whether or not to send our troops into harms way. When you were told that the likelihood of Iraq possessing WMDs was a “Slam Dunk” meaning absolutely certain, why did you not ask to see the actual proof of that assertion before sending our troops to die? There never was proof positive or Colon Powell would have surely used it at the UN, instead of only the smoke and mirrors.”

This is an examples of just one part of Noam Chomky’s Propaganda Model. If you guys aren’t familiar with it, I highly suggest reading on it (a google search will suffice). It will illuminate the world of corporate media, and put the pieces together that most people see, but cannot coherently express!