"Bought Journalism" in Germany

In 1960, the payola scandal stunned America. Radio DJ’s were being secretly remunerated for favoring airplay for some records. President Eisenhower called it an issue of public morality and the FCC proposed a new law making involvement in Payola a criminal act. It was an abuse of public trust, since the airwaves over which radio stations broadcast their signals are the property of the people of the United States. [1]

In Germany now, a sort of payola scandal has been revealed by Udo Ulfkotte, a veteran reporter whose new book, Bought Journalism, has climbed to #7 on the bestseller list there.

Ulfkotte comes clean and admits he was secretly on the payroll of U.S. intelligence. “Moreover, Ulfkotte said that some media outlets are just an appendage of NATO propaganda service.”

Ersjdamoo was first alerted to the CIA payola scandal in Germany thanks to a report by Peter Oliver on the Russia Today network news, broadcast September 25, 2014. Oliver’s report cannot yet be found on the RT website, for some reason.

However the reports on Ulfkotte’s book, Bought Journalism, have crossed over from German-only to some Spanish outlets at this point. So, for example, Spain’s El Mundo reports that Ulfkotte, who works for Frankfurt’s Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, names names, including his own. “The author admits having received money from U.S. intelligence services in return for focusing upon various topics from a certain point of view, and denounces that, thanks to this type of practice, more than a few of the German news outlets have been converted into NATO propaganda branches.” [2]

Reportedly [2], conduits for the payola going to certain German reporters include…

• Atlantik-Brücke
• Trilateral Commission
• German Marshall Fund
• American Council on Germany
• American Academy
• Aspen Institute
• Institute for European Politics

Ulfkotte claims, according to the El Mundo report, that a list of names of the bought journalists routinely circulates among the above listed organizations and that these names are called upon to orchestrate “news” reports, editorials, and TV/radio discussions so as to help dominate German public opinion. [2]

The Spanish language branch of the Russia Today network corroborates the El Mundo report. Ulfkotte’s book “offers a multitude of cases, names, and examples of manipulation of German public opinion orchestrated by the U.S. embassy in Germany and by various international entities.” [3]

In Germany Ulfkotte has revealed once more the continuing presence of the CIA Mighty Wurlitzer. It was all part of “Operation Mockingbird”, a secret campaign by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to influence media. The U.S. Congress investigated the CIA Wurlitzer in 1976 [4], but Ulfkotte’s book indicates the creature is still alive and well.

The continued presence of the CIA Mighty Wurlitzer has also been indicated through recent revelations that CIA worked to destroy the career of crusading journalist Gary Webb. Webb, writing for the San Jose Mercury News, had uncovered links between the cocaine trade, Nicaragua’s Contra rebels, and African American neighborhoods in California. CIA was condoning cocaine smuggling into the United States. Some people began to say that “CIA” really meant “Cocaine Import Agency.” On September 18, the CIA released a trove of documents spanning three decades of secret government operations. Gary Webb’s reporting was giving CIA a “bad hair day.” Thanks in part to “a ground base of already productive relations with journalists, the CIA’s Public Affairs officers watched with relief as the largest newspapers in the country rescued the agency from disaster, and, in the process, destroyed the reputation of an aggressive, award-winning reporter.” [5]

——- Sources ——-
[1] “The payola scandal heats up”, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-payola-scandal-heats-up
[2] “Periodistas alemanes comprados”, by Rosalía Sánchez. El Mundo (Spain), September 26, 2014. http://www.elmundo.es/television/2014/09/26/54252661e2704ee3778b4574.html
[3] “Experiodista alemán: los medios de Alemania están comprados por EE.UU. y la OTAN”, Russia Today (Spanish version), September 26, 2014. http://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/view/141438-periodistas-alemania-comprados-eeuu-otan
[4] “Operation Mockingbird”, Wikipedia, September 27, 2014
[5] “Managing a Nightmare: The CIA Reveals How It Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb”, by Ryan Devereaux. The Intercept, September 25, 2014. http://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/