From the annals of propaganda news: Apparently a group called Vets for Freedom, which bills itself as “America’s largest non-partisan organization,” has been trying to convince newspapers to run stories by two of its combat veterans who are now embedded reporters in Iraq, on the theory that their reporting will offer “balanced and credible viewpoints.” But it turns out the group has ties with the Bush-Cheney public relations team, as first reported by the Buffalo News. And a former Bush spokesperson, Taylor Gross, has been hyping the group to newspapers without mentioning that he’s a former political operative.
But the Buffalo story hasn’t received much broader attention. Meanwhile, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post have all run op-eds by Vets for Freedom “without any reporting on who they actually were.”
