![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/dees-Putin-media.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAs I have reported on many occasions, the presstitutes constitute not a free press but a Ministry of Propaganda for the government and ruling oligarchic interests.\u00a0 Ben Norton explains that the New York Times gets permission from Washington before it prints a story:<\/span><\/p>\n The New York Times has publicly acknowledged that it sends some of its stories to the US government for approval from \u201cnational security officials\u201d before publication.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n He explains that CIA control and manipulation of the media has a long tradition, a tradition exposed by journalists who know:<\/span><\/p>\n Legendary journalist Carl Bernstein, a former Washington Post reporter who helped uncover the Watergate scandal, published a major cover story for Rolling Stone in 1977 titled \u201cThe CIA and the Media: How America\u2019s Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Bernstein obtained CIA documents that revealed that more than 400 American journalists in the previous 25 years had \u201csecretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Bernstein wrote:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSome of these journalists\u2019 relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provided a full range of clandestine services\u2014from simple intelligence gathering to serving as go\u2011betweens with spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors without\u2011portfolio for their country. Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested in the derring\u2011do of the spy business as in filing articles; and, the smallest category, full\u2011time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America\u2019s leading news organizations.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Virtually all major US media outlets cooperated with the CIA, Bernstein revealed, including ABC, NBC, the AP, UPI, Reuters, Newsweek, Hearst newspapers, the Miami Herald, the Saturday Evening Post, and the New York Herald\u2011Tribune.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n However, he added, \u201cBy far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the\u00a0New York Times,\u00a0CBS and Time Inc.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n These layers of state manipulation, censorship, and even direct crafting of the news media show that, as much as they claim to be independent, The New York Times and other outlets effectively serve as de facto spokespeople for the government \u2014 or at least for the US national security state.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n