It is impossible to be an informed citizen by watching network news. The business-friendly script is carefully edited to portray America’s activities around the world in a positive light. This produces coverage which is invariably sympathetic to US foreign policy goals and lacks objectivity or depth. For the last decade or so, it didn’t matter what network broadcast one watched, the lead stories and commercial breaks were featured at just the same time, from just the same ideological perspective, using just the same talking points and buzzwords to present a solid wall of disinformation which was intended to overpower the viewer into believing that “this is the news”.

The internet has broken the spell of controlled information and provided us with unlimited access to divergent information and viewpoints. Intelligent people have naturally gravitated to the sites that give them a more accurate and detailed summary of the days’ events without the meticulously managed spin of network news. This has caused considerable frustration among the ruling class which claims a monopoly on information and which has spent a fortune building an empire to mislead the public on issues that are critical to their continued dominance. That’s why congress is currently getting involved in the internet, to destroy the citizens’ free access to unfiltered news. They don’t care about saving a few seconds of time for the transmission of information on business-related sites; that’s all nonsense. They want to control what you see, what you hear, and what you know. That’s the key for maintaining the class system which keeps them in power.

Katie Couric is the latest addition to the network-paradigm. Her promotion to “news anchor” indicates a further departure from hard news to personality-driven fluff that resembles factual information. It is a spoof on news programs no different than the Daily Show, albeit conspicuously less entertaining. The underlying cynicism of using Couric is impossible to ignore. It shows in stark terms that network “credibility” is not even a small consideration in the decision-making process. Substance does not matter; the only thing that matters is ratings. The networks’ lone concern is finding a suitable vehicle for hawking the products of their commercial sponsors. That’s why they selected someone whose meager qualifications are her air-brushed, non-threatening appearance and her “perkiness”. She has been chosen as the draught-horse for the heavily-redacted, corporate-friendly news. The results are predictably abysmal and even depressing.

The first two programs indicate an approach to the news which emphasizes familiarity and casualness. It’s like getting the neighborhood gossip from the girl next door; and that is what it is supposed to be. The clear intention is to provide Rumsfeld’s world-view via Katie Couric’s persona; creating a “softer, gentler” take on America’s global interventions. The method is subtle and manipulative. The main issues (Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine etc) are completely ignored or glossed over in a completely non-critical manner suggesting that America, the gentle giant, is doing its best to calm down the fractious Arab world and keep them from killing each other.

Last night’s presentation followed the same formula; trivializing the headline news and moving quickly into a slick 4 minute infomercial about the “wonderful work our spy agencies are doing” listening in on every phone call we make “to keep us all safer”. The segment was presented as top secret “insiders-view” of the main office for intelligence collection in Colorado. It was designed to put a friendly face on the hard working men and women who are engaged in mauling the 4th amendment on a daily basis. Like Bush, Couric’s job is to sell the public on the idea that personal freedom is obsolete and that living in a government cage can be comfortable and secure.

Later, in Katie’s “Free Speech” segment of the program, a former-government official provided a sanitized view of “immigration” that was identical to the policies and outlook of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) the amalgam of 4,000 American elites who try to advance their globalist agenda through their various operatives in the media (Jim Lehrer, Margaret Warner, Tom Brocaw, Tom Friedman) Tom Friedman, the CFRs number one pitchman for globalization (“The World is Flat”) was on the show the previous night. Tonight’s show will feature Rush Limbaugh, reinforcing the belief that “free speech” should be limited to those whose opinions that match the views of corporate kingpins and American plutocrats.

Don’t expect Noam Chomsky anytime soon.

The Katie Show wound up with a “feel-good” segment about a blind, black boy who has managed to adjust to his handicap and have a relatively normal life. It is the classic “Horatio Alger” story of someone who disdains government hand-outs and “pulls himself up by his own bootstraps”. It is a favorite message of people on the far-right that : “Government has no responsibility to its people; you are on your own.” Somehow, that message is more persuasive coming from Katie Couric than from the thousands of victims who were abandoned during Hurricane Katrina. That, of course, was the truest example of the Republican theory of “natural selection,” or rather, “It’s every man for himself”.

Behind the glitzy sets and the contrived presentation, the Couric Show is clearly the most ideologically-driven of the network newscasts. Even a cursory analysis exposes the influence of far-right doctrinaires preaching their creed through their newest megaphone, Katie Couric.

It’s not a bad strategy. She’s bound to have more success soft-pedaling war and tax cuts than the malingering dolt from Crawford.

It will be interesting to see how she softens us up for nuking Iran.

____________________

Read from Looking Glass News

The Cablization of Network News

Katie Couric: the Pretty Face of Corporate Propaganda

CHRIS MATTHEWS : " I JUST LOVE THIS GUY AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF "

TV's Aryan Sisterhood

Russert: At the Feet of the Powerful and Throat of the Weak

St. Peter Jennings: Excuse Maker for War and Empire

Howard Kurtz, Unreliable Source

Ted Koppel: "Natural Fit" at NPR News and Longtime Booster of Henry Kissinger

Only 5 Corporations Now Control Majority Of US Media

Chris Matthews: 2005's Misinformer of the Year

The Clownification of America

America's corporate-controlled media: garbage disguised as news

The Life and Crimes of a Global Goebbels

Two Girls Bleed, Only One Leads

CNN's Vice President of Racism

All "MEDIA" News Articles

TELEVISION AND THE HIVE MIND

Mass Mind Control Through Network Television: Are Your Thoughts Your Own?

Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

TV Brainwashing

The Doors Of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything

Keepers at the Gate: He Who Controls Television Controls the Masses

Methods of Media Manipulation

MOCKINGBIRD: The Subversion Of The Free Press By The CIA

All "MEDIA" Commentaries