Newly Published Clinton Email Reveals How Government Manipulates Media

Washington D.C. — A Hillary Clinton staffer planted questions in a CBS 60 Minutes interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, according to email records released this week. At the time of the interview in early 2011, Assange had already leaked sensitive, embarrassing information from the State Department. The unclassified staff email to Clinton, released amid her ongoing email scandal, demonstrates not only that the former Secretary of State and her staff were out to discredit Assange, but that the government manipulates media and wields heavy influence over it.
In an email from January 28, 2011, Philip J. Crowley, then Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, alerted Hillary Clinton that 60 Minutes conducted an interview with Assange set to air on the 30th. As Crowley informed her, “We had made a number of suggestions for outside experts and former diplomats to interview to ‘balance’ the piece.” This statement alone shows the access to media that powerful government agents enjoy.
He goes on to further reveal that influence: “60 Minutes assures me that they raised a number of questions and concerns we planted with them during the course of the interview,” Crowley said, suggesting the interview would not be embarrassing to Clinton or the State Department: “We will be prepared to respond to the narrative Assange presents during the program.”
The 2011 interview features a younger looking Assange with interviewer Steve Kroft.
Several minutes into the conversation, Kroft asks Assange point-blank if he is a “subversive.” Interestingly, the only politician Assange names directly in his response is Clinton herself: “I’m sure there are certain views among Hillary Clinton and her lot that we are subverting their authority. But you’re right, we are subverting illegitimate authority. The question is whether the authority is legitimate or whether it is illegitimate.”
Kroft pushed Assange regarding accusations that sensitive information about government operators was leaked to terrorists: “There have been reports of people quoting Taliban leaders saying they had the names of these people and they were going to take retribution,” he commented. Assange retaliated that the Taliban is not a coherent group, though he did not deny the dangers of releasing information.
Other notable, potentially planted statements and questions?
“There’s a perception on the part of some people who believe that your agenda right now is anti-American,” Kroft said to Assange, who dismissed that notion by highlighting the fact that Americans send Wikileaks information and it is in the “revolutionary” spirit to do so.
Kroft pushed, “Someone in the Australian government said that, ‘Look, if you play outside the rules you can’t expect to be protected by the rules.’ And you played outside the rules. You’ve played outside the United States’ rules.” Assange reminded him that he had not sought out classified information and rather, it was provided to him. He explained:
“There is the First Amendment. It covers the case. And there’s been no precedent that I’m aware of in the past 50 years of prosecuting a publisher for espionage. It is just not done. Those are the rules. You do not do it.” Assange dismissed ideas that he should be prosecuted.
When accusing Assange of espionage didn’t work, Kroft tried another angle. He suggested that if Julian Assange was not punished, it would set a dangerous precedent for others to leak classified documents. Kroft said:
“…if they don’t come after you now that what they have done is essentially endorsed small, powerful organization with access to very powerful information releasing it outside their control. And if they let you get away it, then they are encouraging —”
Assange interrupted: “Then what? They will have to have freedom of the press?” After a brief and tense exchange, Assange asserted, “If we’re talking about creating threats to small publishers to stop them publishing, the U.S. has lost its way. It has abrogated its founding traditions. It has thrown the First Amendment in the bin. Because publishers must be free to publish.”
Ironically, throughout their conversation about free speech and the freedom of the press, Kroft was feeding him questions straight from the mouth of government — more specifically, a government agency with a probable vendetta against Assange for releasing embarrassing information.
The government is no stranger to manipulating the media. It was recently revealed that the CIA heavily influenced the bin-Laden-themed film, Zero Dark Thirty. The military regularly reviews films with military-subject matter and helps dictate content. The New York Times presented information in a way that deceptively downplayed the CIA’s operations in Syria, a move many view as a consequence of the agency’s decades-old efforts to manipulate the media.
News of the State Department’s manipulation of Assange’s interview is not a revelation. Nevertheless, it constitutes yet another crack in the facade of carefully crafted sound bites and the subtle, yet potent, manipulation of information.
As Edward Snowden, who recently joined Twitter, posted,
New government doc states @60Minutes planted government questions to shape @Wikileaks interview. If true, sad to see. pic.twitter.com/IJxK8tlfr8
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 1, 2015
This article was previously published on October 1, 2015 at The Anti-Media.
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DYN October 7, 2015 , 8:54 am Vote0
Just a small point – Because there is fundamentally nothing new in government manipulation of the media (as you point out in the article), I think a better title for your article would be “Newly Published Clinton Email Provides Yet Another Example of How Government Colludes with the Media.”
Something Clever October 7, 2015 , 9:17 am Vote3
At this point, what difference does it make? 🙂
Did you see the story about how Angela Merkel got caught telling Mark Zuckerberg on an open mic that his company needed to do something about anti-immigrant posting? http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/30/angela-merkel-caught-on-hot-mic-confronting-mark-z/
That’s some Bilderberg shit going on right there.
Joe Cobb October 7, 2015 , 12:32 pm Vote0
I think it is good to have a discussion like this one, about different models and paradigms of our physical (and social) universe. But I am not sure it is useful to get to “the essence” or “to explain” what is the essence so long as we humans can make plans and observe our plans consistently, replicating A→B repeatedly.
My specialty is economics and in the “social sciences” we do not even have to pretend we can actually measure “human action”: we know if the center of the process is subjective valuation by individual minds, there are no “fixed, objective” things that statistics or “government money Units” can accurately measure (e.g. “utility”). Apparently, in the “physical sciences,” there has been a lot of “reification” and this new point of view (rope metaphor) is another improvement in explaining complex phenomena in a manner our limited language and biological brains can digest.
Richard Nikoley October 7, 2015 , 4:06 pm Vote0
Carey, that’s really good work. I had to do my own bit on it.
http://freetheanimal.com/2015/10/modern-politics-words.html
Sorry to drop a link in your comments. Been at this for 30 years. You have Carte Blanche to drop your links in my comments, and my place gets 150K page views monthly.
So, please make it an outlet for you, even if off topic if you like. I like your style, here.
Kevin Beck October 8, 2015 , 8:13 am Vote0
Did any of the State Department’s lackeys ever reach the conclusion that they wouldn’t have to worry about their dark secrets being exposed for all the world to see, if they didn’t engage in the level of international espionage that they engage in while expressing outrage about it?
If some of these activities may have been embarrassing to the Secretary of State, then why were these being done?
We have reached the point where this government is becoming an outrage to its own citizens.