2008 Woodie Awards
NPR correspondent speaks about national security in Kagin
Minnesota alum warns of an age of government manipulation of media, less 'leaks' from officials
By: Andrew Guyton
Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: News
Longtime National Public Radio correspondent and Minnesota native Tom Gjelten spoke at a packed Kagin Commons Tuesday night as part of an ongoing NPR lecture series at Macalester. Gjelten, perhaps most notable for reporting live from the Pentagon at the moment the third plane hit on September 11, is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, and has worked at NPR since 1982, most recently as one of its national intelligence correspondents.
A Peabody Award winner for NPR's 2004 series "The War in Iraq," Gjelten spoke at length on the New York Times' recent story "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand."
The investigative piece revealed a Pentagon PR program designed to bolster public sentiment about the administration's wartime decisions by providing a cadre of television and radio "military analysts," almost all of whom were retired military officers themselves.
The retired officers were provided with incentives ranging from meetings with senior administration officials to access to classified intelligence, in exchange for exclusive promotion of administration talking points on relevant news issues. "Please let me know if you have any specific points you want covered or that you would prefer to downplay," one such analyst said in an e-mail.
This story hit close to home for Gjelten, as he had personally recruited one of these analysts, retired Army General Robert H. Scales, to be NPR's own military analyst in early 2003. "Recall the stuff I did after my last visit," Scales said in an email to the Pentagon, according to the Times article. "I will do the same this time."
Though Gjelten could not recall a time when Gen. Scales had spun war news on an NPR broadcast, and Gen. Scales was quoted in an interview as having said "None of us drink the Kool-Aid," Gjelten pointed to this issue as just one of the many challenges facing national security reporters in this day and age. Gelten said that it is hard enough working with confidential sources already, and that being deliberately fed misinformation from people who are supposed to be impartial makes their jobs infinitely more difficult.
A Peabody Award winner for NPR's 2004 series "The War in Iraq," Gjelten spoke at length on the New York Times' recent story "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand."
The investigative piece revealed a Pentagon PR program designed to bolster public sentiment about the administration's wartime decisions by providing a cadre of television and radio "military analysts," almost all of whom were retired military officers themselves.
The retired officers were provided with incentives ranging from meetings with senior administration officials to access to classified intelligence, in exchange for exclusive promotion of administration talking points on relevant news issues. "Please let me know if you have any specific points you want covered or that you would prefer to downplay," one such analyst said in an e-mail.
This story hit close to home for Gjelten, as he had personally recruited one of these analysts, retired Army General Robert H. Scales, to be NPR's own military analyst in early 2003. "Recall the stuff I did after my last visit," Scales said in an email to the Pentagon, according to the Times article. "I will do the same this time."
Though Gjelten could not recall a time when Gen. Scales had spun war news on an NPR broadcast, and Gen. Scales was quoted in an interview as having said "None of us drink the Kool-Aid," Gjelten pointed to this issue as just one of the many challenges facing national security reporters in this day and age. Gelten said that it is hard enough working with confidential sources already, and that being deliberately fed misinformation from people who are supposed to be impartial makes their jobs infinitely more difficult.
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