Media Hits by the Pentagon Pundits

On the heels of last month's New York Times investigative report exposing the hidden relationship between media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries, Media Matters for America has documented more than 4,500 media appearances by the Pentagon pundits on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, and NPR. "In the face of such damning evidence, the silence of those in the media who hosted or quoted these military analysts more than 4,500 times reeks of irresponsible journalism," said Karl Frisch, a spokesman for Media Matters. "Because the media have failed to follow up on this story with the tough questions one would expect, members of Congress have been forced to act. It's time for the media to step up and do their job." One reporter answering the call is Alyssa Rosenberg at The New Republic, who is reviewing the 8,000 pages of Department of Defense documents obtained by the Times to produce a series of "DOD Document Dumps." Reading through the documents, she writes, is "like paging through a flip book from hell. Anyone who has watched cable news for more than five minutes over the past few years won't be shocked to find that the Bush administration used self-serving talking points to promote the war. But browsing through years of spin all at once, the thing that strikes me most is that anyone actually fell for the clunky attempts at minting catch-phrases and laughably convoluted logic the military and its mouthpieces were peddling."