The Pulitzer Prize Awarded the Media Won't Report

Amazingly, shockingly, yesterday David Barstow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, not that you would know it, if all you did was turn on your television and watch the news. Glenn Greenwald reports that Barstow won the award for two articles (if you haven't read them you should) of master reporting that appeared on the front page of the New York Times, but was virtually ignored by every major news television outlet. Yes, that implicates our beloved Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. "We all have to pay the mortgage."

Simply, the Pentagon needed some good press for the war in Iraq, the build-up, the performance of the war, the criticisms, you name it, so they sent out the generals, paid by the Pentagon and more than that have ties to the companies doing business in Iraq set to make hundreds of billions of dollars. And the networks who also paid them for their services in their analysis of the situation. Basically, the Pentagon wanted to sell the war, the generals saw the benefit, and the networks provided a pulpit. Simple. Voila, we have the war in Iraq. Barstow's reporting exposed it all.

The Pulitzer committee described the award of Barstow's reporting as such:

Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended.

Greenwald goes on:

By whom were these "ties to companies" undisclosed and for whom did these deeply conflicted retired generals pose as "analysts"? ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox -- the very companies that have simply suppressed the story from their viewers. They kept completely silent about Barstow's story even though it sparked Congressional inquiries, vehement objections from the then-leading Democratic presidential candidates, and allegations that the Pentagon program violated legal prohibitions on domestic propaganda programs. The Pentagon's secret collaboration with these "independent analysts" shaped multiple news stories from each of these outlets on a variety of critical topics. Most amazingly, many of them continue to employ as so-called "independent analysts" the very retired generals at the heart of Barstow's story, yet still refuse to inform their viewers about any part of this story.

Even after the articles won the prestigious Pulitzer you would think the news organizations might report something of the story. Nope. Silent.

Read the rest of the article from Glenn Greenwald here. Disgusting. "Don't believe anything you hear and half of what you see" has new meaning.