[grc] Fwd: Oliver Stone and Importance of Community Radio

Mon Jul 4 13:36:58 PDT 2016

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Just Peace Program <heather at wrfg.org>
Date: Mon, Jul 4, 2016 at 9:41 AM
Subject: Oliver Stone and Importance of Community Radio
To: wings at wings.org

Community Radio as the "voice of the people"

*
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001MN-mw9lfK5fkhAHNguFZFUO37I_9Wap_MNM-SbLZl19WbWKms8I-zm_1hyNHmh3RFKEEALzdgEug8MUP_9i5pFVzOTyzqS1AGY-QO67HiWDOS0basSKUrOI0nrAIB5H-MtHSobVGaUhEKjp8Inrm2aRoSne-Jdb2&c=CsN_rnxUMURWEQm-WqZH1snENvtu4ZT0L6Jce2aSrX1Op6nSJeKrYw==&ch=siXtcDzODkb4fAjcQlpqpFrmU3HsPI0YXLKcNl0r7atg3TtOgfXJpw==>
  Just Peace *
*M**o**ndays, 6pm - 7pm EST ----- WRFG-Atlanta 89.3 FM*
www.wrfg.org
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001MN-mw9lfK5fkhAHNguFZFUO37I_9Wap_MNM-SbLZl19WbWKms8I-zm_1hyNHmh3RFKEEALzdgEug8MUP_9i5pFVzOTyzqS1AGY-QO67HiWDOS0basSKUrOI0nrAIB5H-MtHSobVGaUhEKjp8Inrm2aRoSne-Jdb2&c=CsN_rnxUMURWEQm-WqZH1snENvtu4ZT0L6Jce2aSrX1Op6nSJeKrYw==&ch=siXtcDzODkb4fAjcQlpqpFrmU3HsPI0YXLKcNl0r7atg3TtOgfXJpw==>

*Oliver Stone, NPR and Importance of Community RadioA history of WRFG's
Founding*
*Our phone number into the studio is 404 523 8989 <404%20523%208989>. It's
easy to call and make a donation at whatever level - the basic subscription
is $40.00. For $89.30, however, we will offer the recording of the "1906
Atlanta Race Riot" that grew out of the Living Atlanta Project. As
mentioned previously, today, in this first week of our summer fund drive,
from 6-7PM we on Just Peace will explore WRFG's founding and achievements.
We will talk with WRFG founders Harlon Joye and Barbara Joye as well as
Bernard West who played a critical role in one of WRFG's major
achievements, and that being the "Living Atlanta" research project. We are
the independent media supported and funded by the people  *
Yesterday I listened to a 2016 interview with  Oliver Stone by Harry
Kreisler at the University of California
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001MN-mw9lfK5fkhAHNguFZFUO37I_9Wap_MNM-SbLZl19WbWKms8I-znSmRTRvRhcCn1v0-K8r2JooyuZkRRfrVBZ-xDSQaN4JAX4reqttfSNOHZioUgAYcg31H3mCh6DH5vnimVhYNyuOjQaDXXqUREEf3s5OEVcEoCNiMYzEJ65YypwtHjZBafDB_QN_K1rS3OMu6rKwDAU=&c=CsN_rnxUMURWEQm-WqZH1snENvtu4ZT0L6Jce2aSrX1Op6nSJeKrYw==&ch=siXtcDzODkb4fAjcQlpqpFrmU3HsPI0YXLKcNl0r7atg3TtOgfXJpw==>.
In it, Stone describes how he is essentially "banned" from NPR because of a
confrontation he said he had with an NPR producer a few years ago about
Hugo Chavez. Stone obviously appreciated the work of the incomparable
Chavez which was seemingly not shared by the NPR producer. *NPR has become
politicized he said.* Stone might not have known about, or didn't refer to
the fact, that during the Reagan administration, threats by Reagan's State
Department's "Office of Public Diplomacy" administrator Otto Reich to NPR,
and other independent minded reporters, was significant.  I personally
refer to Otto Reich as Reagan's propaganda minister. Reich at one point
threatened NPR with loss of its government money from CPB - the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting. This threat worked.

*But, Stone said, he is consistently on KPFA-FM - the Pacifica "founding
community radio station" in Berkeley. This to me was one of the important
testimonies of community radio. We at WRFG receive no CPB funding. We are
here for the people, a voice of the people and funded by the people!*

Below is a 2001 article from FAIR about Otto Reich when he was about to be
appointed by Bush, Jr.  Writer Jeff Cohen refers to Reich's threats to
independent media and overall media manipulation during the Reagan
administration.

*The Return of Otto Reich*
*Will Government Propagandist Join Bush Administration?*

By Jeff Cohen
FAIR
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In totalitarian countries, government propaganda officers wield great
power. They're authorized to use the media to stir up state-sanctioned
passions and fears through the selective dissemination of information -
sometimes factual, sometimes phony.
If you think the United States has never employed propaganda officers, meet
Otto Reich. He may soon be our country's chief diplomat in Latin America if
the Bush administration has its way.

In March, Bush announced his intention to nominate Reich as assistant
secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. If he's officially
nominated, it will be interesting to see how journalists handle Reich -
because from 1983 through 1986, it was Reich's job to handle journalists.
That's when he commanded the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy,
whose main mission was to inflame fears about Nicaragua and its left-wing
Sandinista government that had come to power by overthrowing a corrupt,
U.S.-supported dictator.

By covertly disseminating intelligence leaks to journalists, Reich and the
OPD sought to trump up a Nicaraguan "threat," and to sanctify the
U.S.-backed Contra guerrillas fighting Nicaragua's government as "freedom
fighters." The propaganda was aimed at influencing Congress to continue to
fund the Contras.

Take the scary news that Soviet MiG fighter jets were arriving in
Nicaragua. With journalists citing unnamed "intelligence sources," the
well-timed story surged through U.S. media on the night of Ronald Reagan's
reelection. At NBC, Andrea Mitchell broke into election coverage with the
story. The furor spurred a Democratic senator to discuss a possible
airstrike against Nicaragua. But the story turned out to be a hoax. Several
journalists later acknowledged they'd been handed the story by Reich's
office.

It isn't the only erroneous story journalists link to the OPD. According to
the Miami Herald, for example, Reich's office promoted the fable that
Nicaragua had acquired chemical weapons from the Soviets. According to
Newsweek, the OPD told reporters that high-level Sandinistas were involved
in drug trafficking, but U.S. drug officials said there was no evidence for
such a charge.

Reich's office worked alongside the White House National Security Council,
collaborating with CIA propaganda experts, Army psychological warfare
specialists and a then-obscure Marine lieutenant colonel named Oliver
North. Declassified documents detailing OPD activities are on file and
online at the National Security Archive, a D.C.-based nonprofit (
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB40/
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001MN-mw9lfK5fkhAHNguFZFUO37I_9Wap_MNM-SbLZl19WbWKms8I-znSmRTRvRhcCs25gCWw3yHhffqXyUcy0xTSNJ1z-X4_XHDP_tt9zrg8FjwgjPzGujdbp9RFiV-_MbMv4FgZTyAmcHin1PztCAGKOTERMqPULQ7tVC0XUbUVSF3VIqTjOT6i5N7wRgDvOr4rCJInhQgzLf0UnosICDA==&c=CsN_rnxUMURWEQm-WqZH1snENvtu4ZT0L6Jce2aSrX1Op6nSJeKrYw==&ch=siXtcDzODkb4fAjcQlpqpFrmU3HsPI0YXLKcNl0r7atg3TtOgfXJpw==>
).

In a March 13, 1985 "Eyes Only" memo to Pat Buchanan, then-White House
Communications Director, the OPD bragged about the recent results of its
"White Propaganda" operation in support of the Contras. The OPD said it
helped write an anti-Sandinista column for the Wall Street Journal that ran
two days earlier; assisted in a "positive piece" on the Contras by Fred
Francis that aired the night before on NBC; wrote op-eds for the Washington
Post and New York Times that would run with the bylines of Contra leaders;
arranged an extensive media tour for a Contra leader "through a cut-out"
(to hide the OPD's role); and prepared to leak a State Department cable
that would embarrass the Sandinistas: "Do not be surprised if this cable
somehow hits the evening news."

The memo said that the Wall Street Journal column, "Nicaragua Is Armed for
Trouble," was written by an OPD "consultant," but cautioned that
"officially, this office had no role in its preparation." Weeks later,
after the Journal published a news report on Nicaragua that Reich disliked,
the OPD chief wrote an angry letter-to-the editor touting the "Armed for
Trouble" column and complaining that the news report was "an echo of
Sandinista propaganda." It was an audacious charge since Reich himself was
"echoing" propaganda his office had covertly boasted to have assisted in.

Besides media manipulation through planted stories and leaks, there was
also cajoling and bullying of journalists. Reich visited CBS in April 1984
to complain at length about its Central America coverage. In a memo to
President Reagan, Secretary of State George Shultz described the meeting as
an example of "what the Office of Public Diplomacy has been doing to help
improve the quality of information the American people are receiving. It
has been repeated dozens of times over the past few months."

Six months later, Reich met with a dozen National Public Radio reporters
and editors about their allegedly biased Nicaragua coverage. According to
NPR foreign affairs correspondent Bill Buzenberg: "Reich bragged that he
had made similar visits to other unnamed newspapers and major television
networks.... Reich said he had gotten others to change some of their
reporters in the field." Buzenberg told me in a 1987 interview that he
viewed the OPD chief's comments as a "calculated attempt to intimidate."

Reich had little tolerance for independent-minded reporters. In the summer
of 1985, his office helped circulate a specious story suggesting that U.S.
reporters received sexual favors from Sandinista-provided prostitutes in
return for favorable coverage. "It isn't only women," Reich told New York
magazine; for gay journalists, they'd procure men.
The OPD viewed many in the media as allies to be rewarded, particularly on
the weekend pundit shows. According to a Feb. 1985 OPD memo, certain
correspondents on the McLaughlin, Brinkley and Agronsky programs had "open
invitations for personal briefings."

After Reich had left to become ambassador to Venezuela, the OPD was shut
down in 1987, in the wake of a U.S. comptroller general's report which
concluded that Reich's office had "engaged in prohibited, covert propaganda
activities." According to the Miami Herald, a "senior U.S. official"
described the OPD as "a vast psychological warfare operation of the kind
the military conducts to influence a population in enemy territory." But
the population targeted was not an enemy - it was the U.S. public.

A confrontation is brewing on Capitol Hill over Otto Reich. He is supported
by the Cuban-American lobby, which is so powerful with the Bush White House
that Reich reportedly got the nod for the assistant secretary state job
over a career foreign service officer favored by Secretary of State Colin
Powell. The Cuban-born Reich, now a corporate lobbyist, helped draft the
Helms-Burton Act tightening the embargo of Cuba.

Reich is opposed by Democratic senators who remember his exploits at the
OPD. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) commented in March that Reich's "office may
have been the genesis of acts of propaganda not just prohibited in this
country, but which reflect a kind of carelessness about the truth."

A key player to watch in any confirmation battle will be the press corps
itself. What will be the reaction of journalists who were manipulated by
leaks from his office? Or of the newspapers that may have run op-ed columns
unaware that his office was behind them?
If senators don't adequately raise questions about Otto Reich's history as
a media manipulator, one would hope that journalists will.

*Heather Gray*

*ProducerJust Peace **- WRFG-Atlanta 89.3FM*
*404 523 34**71*
heather at wrfg.org

*General Programming Policy in WRFG's by-laws*:
*WRFG is a community-oriented, educational, alternative medium and our
programming must reflect this. We are for those alternatives that uplift
human dignity and give people more control over their lives. WRFG is
opposed to those forces in our lives that dehumanize and oppress people,
especially economic exploitation, racism, sexism, militarism and
anti-foreign/anti-immigrant chauvinism.*

# # #

Just Peace Program, 1083 Austin Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30307
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