Iraq

In tomorrow’s NYTimes you’ll find a 7,500 word “examination” by David Barstow on the dozens of retired Generals and Colonels who take to the cable and broadcast airwaves to inform Americans as “military analysts”. Barstow also writes about the “Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage.” The Times sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of documents as the basis for their story.

The documents refer to the analysts as “message force multipliers” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages.” One analyst even offered the Pentagon tips on how to outmaneuver the “the Chris Matthewses and the Wolf Blitzers of the world.”

Former MSNBC military analyst Ken Allard is among several TV talking heads interviewed for the story. “I felt we’d been hosed,” Allard said as conditions deteriorated in Iraq. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, said it is “a bit incredible” to think retired military officers could be “wound up” and turned into “puppets of the Defense Department.” Another, former FNC analyst Gen. Paul Vallely told The Times, “I saw immediately in 2003 that things were going south,” But on the air, at the time, Vallely told Alan Colmes, “You can’t believe the progress.” He predicted the insurgency would be “down to a few numbers” within months.

Barstow also evaluates whether the military analysts, many of whom worked for companies trying to gain contracts, were given special DOD access for their businesses. “Not related at all,” said CNN analyst Gen. Donald Shepperd. He pointed out that many in the Pentagon held CNN “in the lowest esteem.”

• How the networks deal with their military analysts’ outside business dealings, after the jump…

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…asks Washington Post critic Tom Shales about last night’s cover-ups during the Emmy telecast on FoxTV. Shales was a guest on MSNBC talking about the larger issue of censorship. The backstory, in case you missed it: instead of using the word “sleeping,” Ray Romano used that other word that applies to people when they go to bed. Later, after her win for best actress, Sally Field used a God-related swear word to describe war. That too, was censored.

But instead of a bleep, the camera cut away to a wide shot. “There’s such a sense of paranoia and fear now,” says Shales. [The networks] are afraid about lip readers and about someone seeing what someone says…and it looks terrible on the air.”

Shales also used the Field expletive to go after the network that carried the telecast. “Fox, of course, has a well-earned reputation as a very conservative company run by Rupert Murdoch…and I wonder if she would have been censored if she hadn’t been talking about the war.”

President Bush hosted another lunch today for journalists, (ahead of tonight’s address) and those journalists are talking about it:

NBC’s Brian Williams: “A number of television journalists gathered for lunch with the president at the White House today — a practice becoming more and more common when this president has a major speech to deliver. Vice President Cheney attended but did not speak.”

FNC’s Chris Wallace: “It was a different George Bush than I have seen before. I have been privileged enough to go to three or four of these lunches over the years. There is a certain lame duck, sense of, ‘I’m at the end of my term, I don’t need to worry about polls.’ He said repeatedly ‘presidents who worry about polls are lousy presidents.’”

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos (before the lunch): “These 1.5 to 2-hour sessions…can be incredibly illuminating. Yes, the president is never really off stage. Yes, he’s giving us his talking points. But the chance to hear him explain his policies, and to have a conversation, to see his expressions close up, to get the occasional off-the-record nugget that can be used to pursue other stories, is invaluable.”

> Brian Williams will anchor along with Tim Russert, NBC News’ coverage of Pres. Bush’s speech tomorrow night beginning at 9:00pmET. NBC will also air the Democratic response, delivered by Sen. Jack Reed.

> Katie Couric will anchor CBS’ coverage of the event from Washington, DC. It’s not determined yet whether the network will carry the Democratic response.

> Charlie Gibson will anchor ABC’s coverage. This evening, ABC News announced it will take the Democratic response.

CNN just announced that Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr will interview Gen. David Petraeus today “about Iraq and his Congressional testimony.” The interview will air LIVE at approximately 1:40pmET.

Gen. Petreaus, along with the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, spent an hour Monday night on Fox News Channel with anchor Brit Hume.

>More: CNN’s interview is one of several the General is doing today with all networks, including evening news anchors Charlie Gibson, Brian Williams and Katie Couric. Also, Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker will be in studio with Jim Lehrer tonight on PBS’ The NewsHour.

ABC News’ sixth installment of their “Iraq: Where Things Stand” series includes a poll of Iraqi citizens commissioned by ABC News and their international partners the BBC and Japan’s NHK. The poll and the reports are timed to coincide with this week’s testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker on Capitol Hill.

Reports began airing this weekend on GMA, This Week with George Stephanopoulos and World News Sunday and will continue on air and on ABCNEWS.com.

The press release is after the jump…

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The highly anticipated testimony of Gen. David Petraeus was put on hold for several minutes this afternoon because of a faulty microphone. After opening statements from the committee Chairman and then the ranking Republican, Gen. Petraeus was given the floor. But his microphone didn’t work. Brian Williams anchoring on MSNBC said “the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, apparently powerless over the audio system in the hearing room.” After a 14-minute delay, Gen. Petraeus began his testimony at 1:29pmET.

Also, FNC reports two protesters were ejected from the hearing while three others were refused entry.

Brian Williams began tonight’s NBC Nightly News telling viewers, “the reporters covering President Bush were told they could only tell their spouses and their boss who, in turn, weren’t allowed to tell anyone else that the President of the United States was leaving for a secret trip to Iraq.”

And so from Washington to Baghdad, a secret it remained. CBS Evening News executive producer Rick Kaplan who, along with anchor Katie Couric, has been in the region since last Thursday, reveals to TVNewser how he learned of the President’s visit. “A General told us to be at his chopper at a certain time to travel to an undisclosed location…he had a big surprise…we didn’t know until the very last minute what was going on.”

Kaplan, Couric and their cameraman flew from Baghdad to the al Anbar province to cover the president’s visit with the troops and meetings with Iraqi leaders. Couric’s interview with the president (which had audio problems during the east coast feed) led the Evening News tonight.

ABC’s chief White House correspondent Martha Raddatz, on her 14th reporting trip to Iraq, also got a one-on-one with the President at al Asad Air Base. In addition to Raddatz’s reporting, ABC’s Jonathan Karl, traveling with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, got an exclusive interview with Gates who was on hand for the president’s meetings at al Asad.

NBC’s John Yang was the pool reporter for the White House, and led off Nightly News. On the secrecy of the trip, Yang reported “Mr. Bush was spirited out of the White House on Sunday evening and driven to Andrews Air Force Base where he boarded Air Force One, while it was still in the hanger. White House officials won’t tell us how they did it. They tell us it worked so well, they just might want to try to do it again.”

CBS News has announced the murder of one of their translators in Iraq. Anwar Abbas Lafta had been working with CBS News for 10 months. He was abducted from his home last Monday. In a release, CBS writes “during the week, two ransom calls were received by Mr. Abbas’ family. On Saturday, Aug. 25, a cousin, who, along with Mr. Abbas’ brother, had been searching police stations and morgues for the body, received a call from the local police saying they had found a body on the north side of Sadr City. The cousin identified the body that evening.”

“This is not the first time the CBS News family has suffered the worst loss possible — the life of a colleague. We certainly hope it is the last,” said Sean McManus, CBS News and Sports President.

On this morning’s Reliable Sources on CNN, Howard Kurtz talked about last week’s PEJ study which showed how much (or little) the cable news channels covered the Iraq war in the second quarter.

Kurtz chose last Thursday night on FNC to prove his point.

Kurtz: “On Thursday, the day that [Sen.] John Warner late in the day made his call for at least a partial, symbolic withdrawal from Iraq, big news in most places. It got exactly one mention in primetime on FOX News during a news cut-in.”

After a Fox News montage that ended on news of Lindsay Lohan going to jail, Kurtz’s guest Michelle Cottle said, “a lot of this has to do with the political battle, was what was so hot about the war going up to the election. And the Republicans took a beating, and so now what you’re seeing is — you know, it’s depressing war. War news is depressing. Lindsay Lohan is hot. It’s sexy.”