NSA Nutjob: Anatomy of a Fake ‘Observer’ Story

[DonViejo]

by Michael Moynihan Jul 1, 2013 4:45 AM EDT

Not only did The Guardian’s sister publication base a cover story—later pulled—on a single paranoid conspiracist, the reporter failed even to speak with him. But the story’s still percolating online, says Michael Moynihan.

For those desiccated journalists old enough to remember, the scandal-plagued presidency of Bill Clinton was the golden age of enterprising conspiracists, imaginative cranks, and swivel-eyed charlatans. Back then, before the Internet allowed for the easy dissemination, repetition, and debunking of sinister nonsense, a certain amount of skill was required to spread conspiracy theories. For Clinton’s tormentors, the most reliable route for dodgy information was the sympathetic foreign reporter. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, the Washington correspondent for Britain’s august, right-leaning broadsheet The Daily Telegraph, dutifully “raised questions” about the suicide of former White House staffer Vince Foster and the president’s supposed involvement in a cocaine-smuggling ring. The stories were then laundered back into the mainstream American news media (”According to a report in London’s Daily Telegraph...”).

The Telegraph was—and is—a great newspaper, which is why Evans-Pritchard’s dive into the anti-Clinton fever swamps so annoyed the White House. The Guardian, one of the Telegraph’s left-leaning competitors on Fleet Street, is also a great newspaper, as is its sister publication The Observer. (Both papers are owned by the Guardian Media Group and share a website but have separate editorial staffs). So it’s troubling that The Observer splashed a front-cover story Sunday on the NSA, “Revealed: Secret European Deal to Hand Over Private Data to Americans,” citing a single source named Wayne Madsen.

Shortly after going to press, and after a flood of tweets from outraged readers like me, The Observer realized that the story’s author, Jamie Doward, failed to conduct even the most perfunctory Google search on Madsen. That would have revealed him to be a paranoid conspiracy theorist in the tradition of Alex Jones, on whose radio show he often appears.

Recovered from my own perfunctory Google search, here are a few of Wayne Madsen’s greatest scoops: Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik was an Israeli agent who murdered 69 people on behalf of his handlers in Tel Aviv. The attacks of 9/11 were masterminded in Israel and Washington, D.C., as a “false flag” operation. The 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole was also a “false flag” operation, executed by—you guessed it!—the Israelis.

full article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/01/nsa-nutjob-anatomy-of-a-fake-observer-story.html

[ieoeja]

1. The FBI's "Vast Rightwing Conspiracy" report was due to "scandals" coming from overseas media.

A common Cold War propaganda tactic was to initiate the story in a third country, preferably one friendly enough to the victim to be taken seriously by the target (supporters of the victim), but independant enough to be a willing dupe. The CIA and KGB both used this practice. And the UK would be an obvious "friendly" to the US.

Hence, the FBI investigation which uncovered the Arkansas Project. The reason Cold War tactics was used: the Arkansas Project employed several former CIA agents. Once the investigation determined the attacks were domestic and legal, the FBI stopped their investigation and issued the report which described it as a "vast rightwing conspiracy".

Rightists even managed to use Hillary quoting the report as part of their propaganda. They re-sourced the quote to Hillary herself, pretending the report did not exist, as proof that the Clintons were paranoid crazies.