Jeff Bezos Is Doing Huge Business with the CIA, While Keeping His Washington Post Readers in the Dark
Jeff Bezos Is Doing Huge Business with the CIA, While
Keeping His Washington Post Readers in the Dark
Amazon has a bad history of currying favor with the U.S.
government’s “national security” establishment.
By Norman Solomon / AlterNet December 18, 2013
News media should illuminate conflicts of interest, not
embody them. But the owner of the Washington Post is now doing big business
with the Central Intelligence Agency, while readers of the newspaper’s CIA
coverage are left in the dark.
The Post’s new owner, Jeff Bezos, is the founder and CEO
of Amazon -- which recently landed a $600 million contract with the CIA. But
the Post’s articles about the CIA are not disclosing that the newspaper’s sole
owner is the main owner of CIA business partner Amazon.
Even for a multi-billionaire like Bezos, a $600 million
contract is a big deal. That’s more than twice as much as Bezos paid to buy the
Post four months ago.
And there’s likely to be plenty more where that CIA
largesse came from. Amazon’s offer wasn’t the low bid, but it won the CIA contract
anyway by offering advanced high-tech “cloud” infrastructure.
Bezos personally and publicly touts Amazon Web Services,
and it’s evident that Amazon will be seeking more CIA contracts. Last month,
Amazon issued a statement saying, “We look forward to a successful relationship
with the CIA.”
As Amazon’s majority owner and the Post’s only owner,
Bezos stands to gain a lot more if his newspaper does less ruffling and more
soothing of CIA feathers.
Amazon has a bad history of currying favor with the U.S.
government’s “national security” establishment. The media watch group FAIR
pointed out what happened after WikiLeaks published State Department cables:
“WikiLeaks was booted from Amazon’s webhosting service AWS. So at the height of
public interest in what WikiLeaks was publishing, readers were unable to access
the WikiLeaks website.”
How’s that for a commitment to the public’s right to
know?
Days ago, my colleagues at RootsAction.org launched a
petition that says: “The Washington Post’s coverage of the CIA should include
full disclosure that the sole owner of the Post is also the main owner of
Amazon -- and Amazon is now gaining huge profits directly from the CIA.” More
than 15,000 people have signed the petition so far this week, with many posting
comments that underscore widespread belief in journalistic principles.
While the Post functions as a powerhouse media outlet in
the Nation’s Capital, it’s also a national and global entity -- read every day
by millions of people who never hold its newsprint edition in their hands.
Hundreds of daily papers reprint the Post’s news articles and opinion pieces,
while online readership spans the world.
Propaganda largely depends on patterns of omission and
repetition. If, in its coverage of the CIA, the Washington Post were willing to
fully disclose the financial ties that bind its owner to the CIA, such candor
would shed some light on how top-down power actually works in our society.
“The Post is unquestionably the political paper of record
in the United States, and how it covers governance sets the agenda for the
balance of the news media,” journalism scholar Robert W. McChesney points out.
“Citizens need to know about this conflict of interest in the columns of the
Post itself.”
In a statement just released by the Institute for Public
Accuracy, McChesney added: “If some official enemy of the United States had a
comparable situation -- say the owner of the dominant newspaper in Caracas was
getting $600 million in secretive contracts from the Maduro government -- the
Post itself would lead the howling chorus impaling that newspaper and that
government for making a mockery of a free press. It is time for the Post to
take a dose of its own medicine.”
From the Institute, we also contacted other media and
intelligence analysts to ask for assessments; their comments are unlikely to
ever appear in the Washington Post.
“What emerges now is what, in intelligence parlance, is
called an ‘agent of influence’ owning the Post -- with a huge financial
interest in playing nice with the CIA,” said former CIA official Ray McGovern.
“In other words, two main players nourishing the national security state in
undisguised collaboration.”
A former reporter for the Washington Post and many other
news organizations, John Hanrahan, said: “It's all so basic. Readers of the
Washington Post, which reports frequently on the CIA, are entitled to know --
and to be reminded on a regular basis in stories and editorials in the
newspaper and online -- that the Post's new owner Jeff Bezos stands to benefit
substantially from Amazon's $600 million contract with the CIA. Even with such
disclosure, the public should not feel assured they are getting tough-minded
reporting on the CIA. One thing is certain: Post reporters and editors are
aware that Bezos, as majority owner of Amazon, has a financial stake in
maintaining good relations with the CIA -- and this sends a clear message to
even the hardest-nosed journalist that making the CIA look bad might not be a
good career move.”
The rich and powerful blow hard against the flame of
truly independent journalism. If we want the lantern carried high, we’re going
to have to do it ourselves.
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