Operation Mockingbird: When the CIA Owned the American Press
Three thousand journalists. Four hundred news outlets. One agency writing the news.
In 1948, Frank Wisner, head of the CIA's Office of Policy Coordination, launched what insiders called Mockingbird: a covert program to plant CIA narratives in the American press. By the mid-1950s the program had assets at The New York Times, Newsweek, CBS, Time, The Washington Post, Reader's Digest, the Christian Science Monitor, and the AP and UPI wire services.
Carl Bernstein - yes, the Watergate Bernstein - exposed Mockingbird in a 25,000-word 1977 cover story for Rolling Stone. The Church Committee corroborated him. The CIA admitted to over 400 journalists and 25 major media organizations on its payroll.
The Agency claims the program ended in 1976. The Agency has never been a reliable narrator of its own behavior.
Today, when 90% of American media is owned by six corporations, when intelligence officials cycle directly into anchor chairs at CNN and MSNBC, when the same three "experts" appear on every network reading the same talking points - ask yourself if Mockingbird ever ended, or if it just got better at hiding.