According to Major Thomas Collins of the US Army Information Service, CNN
(Cable News Network) regularly employs military specialists in
"Psychological Operations" ("PsyOps").
"PsyOps personnel, soldiers and officers have been working in CNN's
headquarters in Atlanta through our program, 'Training with Industry'," said
Major Collins in a telephone interview with Trouw, adding, "They worked as
regular employees of CNN. Conceivably, they would have worked on stories
during the Kosovo War. They helped in the production of news."
The temporary outplacement of US Army PsyOps personnel in various sectors of
society began a couple of years ago. Contract periods vary from a couple of
weeks to one year.
CNN is the biggest and most widely viewed news station in the world. The
intimate liaisons with Army PsyOps specialists raise serious doubts about
CNN's journalistic integrity and independence.
The military CNN personnel belonged to the air-mobile Fourth Psychological Operations Group, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. One of the main tasks of this group of almost 1,200
soldiers and officers is to spread "selected information".
US PsyOps personnel use a variety of techniques to influence media and
public opinion in armed conflicts in which American state interests are said
to be at stake. Recent examples include the Gulf War, the Bosnian War and
the crisis in Kosovo.
CNN spokeswoman Megan Mahoney said: "I don't believe that we would employ
military personnel; it doesn't seem like something we would normally do."
So far, CNN senior officials have not commented on the allegations.
(Source: By Abe de Vries, Trouw, 21 February 2000; translated from Dutch by
an Emperor's Clothes volunteer, website www.tenc. net [emperors-clothes])
