STATE DEPT TELLS US HOW TO IDENTIFY "MISINFORMATION"

[destruction]

Plucked from another board:

Pot, Kettle, Black: State Department Tells Us How to Identify Misinformation

Steve Watson | August 31 2005

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jul/27-595713.html

How can a journalist or a news consumer tell if a story is true or false? There are no exact rules, but the following clues can help indicate if a story or allegation is true.

We all need to be extremely grateful that the State department has it's own advice section on what we should and should not believe. I for one find it incredibly difficult to believe straight facts, even when they put the government in a bad light. Thank goodness that everything the government does and says is accurate. It is important to have a bench mark of truth against which we can formulate our beliefs.

Of course I am being sarcastic. The State Department cites websites such as Rense.com as "MISINFORMATION". The majority of material on Rense.com consists of mainstream media reports which are well written by good journalists, but are simply not seen on the nightly news. The majority of the subject matter on Rense is often also covered on Prison Planet and Infowars, so by attacking Rense as a source of "unreliable information", The State Department is also attacking us.

Let us go back a few months and highlight a story that quickly bloomed into a national scandal. The LA Times and the Boston Globe reported on how the government had spent millions of taxpayers dollars on the production of FAKE NEWS REPORTS. Yes that's right, ILLEGAL FAKE NEWS REPORTS on Medicare. Viewers were duped into believing that what they were seeing was a balanced news report when in actual fact it was covert Propaganda produced by the government.

''You think you are getting a news story but what you are getting is a paid announcement," said Susan Poling, managing associate general counsel at the Government Accountability Office. ''What is objectionable about these is the fact the viewer has no idea their tax dollars are being used to write and produce this video segment."

HOW DARE the government do this and then tell us how to identify unreliable information! The State Department even tell us how they do it:

Extremist groups, such as splinter communist parties, often publish disinformation. This can be especially difficult to identify if the false allegations are published by front groups. Front groups purport to be independent, non-partisan organizations but actually controlled by political parties or groups.

We have also reported on how this kind of activity is also going on in Britain as well as the US. Our so called free press is being paid to spread misinformation that suits the agenda of our governments.

Consider the source: Certain websites, publications, and individuals are known for spreading false stories

Two words - JEFF GANNON.

Earlier this year the story broke that The Bush administration provided White House media credentials to a man who has virtually no journalistic background, asks softball questions to the president and his spokesman in the midst of contentious news conferences, and routinely reprints long passages verbatim from official press releases as original news articles on his website. This story was another national scandal that uncovered the fact that, more so than any other media outlet, it is the government that disseminates misinformation.

Highly controversial issues - AIDS, organ transplantation, international adoption, and the September 11 attacks are all new, frightening or, in some ways, discomforting topics. Such highly controversial issues are natural candidates for the rise of false rumors, unwarranted fears and suspicions.

The State Department cites Organ Transplantation and harvesting as an "Urban Legend", saying there is no evidence for it. Here's a lengthy report on the subject by David J. Rothman, Bernard Schoenberg Professor of Social Medicine and History at Columbia University. Rothman says "in China officials profitably market organs of executed Chinese prisoners."

Here is a list of every mainstream media source you could think of reporting on the issue http://www.vachss.com/help_text/organ_trafficking.html

Oh and here is the State Department themselves covering the issue.

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/rm/2001/3792.htm

Remember "consider the source".

In March 1992, then-Russian foreign intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov admitted that the disinformation service of the Soviet KGB intelligence service had concocted the false story that the AIDS virus had been created in a US military laboratory as a biological weapon.

The subject of the creation of the AIDS virus is in the 1969 congressional record House Resolution 15090 where scientists discuss making it. One physician mentions a government-sponsored research project that would create a "synthetic biological agent ... for which no natural immunity would have been acquired."

Dr Boyd Graves has relentlessly researched the synthetic origin of AIDS. Furthermore Nobel peace laureate and ecologist Wangari Maathai has gone on record as asserting that the AIDS virus was a deliberately created biological agent. The "Urban Legend" is the claim that AIDS comes from monkeys. If in doubt use the monkey theory, it works everytime - everything comes from monkeys because they are a bit like us.

Of course, according to the government, any theories that do not match the official line on the 9/11 attacks are a conspiracy. Strange here in this State Department report though how they only cite the most "out there" 9/11 theories such as the missile at the Pentagon and others that are simply meaningless and pointless. We have made it clear that we feel the missile theory does not hold water, yet it is interesting that several times Donald Rumsfeld has mentioned a missile hitting the Pentagon on 9/11. Slip of the tongue or MISINFORMATION?

How about the stand down of NORAD, the drills of flying aircraft into the same targets on the same morning, the admission from the WTC owner that Building 7 was deliberately demolished? How about the key issues on 9/11? Are they all conspiracy theories or Urban legends too or are they provable facts that simply get lumped in with the wacky misinformation? Remember "we must not tolerate any wild conspiracy theories regarding the attacks of 9/11".

Another example of a highly controversial issue is depleted uranium, a relatively new armor-piercing substance that was used by the U.S. military for the first time during the 1991 Gulf War.... most people believe that depleted uranium is much more dangerous than it actually is.

DU remains radioactive longer than the age of the earth (estimated at 4.5 billion years).

Professor Yagasaki a physicist and well-respected nuclear radiation expert, from the

University of the Ryukyus, Okinawahas, calculated that 800 tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent to 83,000 Nagasaki bombs in a paper presented at the World Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg in October 2003. The amount of DU used in Iraq in 2003 alone was equivalent to nearly 250,000 Nagasaki bombs.

We have documented how the former head of the Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project, Dr Doug Rokke, asserts that thousands of troops are sick and dying from illegal DU use.

“The VA has determined that 250,000 troops are now permanently disabled, 15,000 troops are dead and over 425,000 are ill and slowly dying from what the Department of Defense still calls a mystery disease. How many more will have to die before action is taken?â€

Further eminent scientific minds such as Dr Keith Baverstock PhD; Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Kuopio, KUOPIO, Finland, who presented evidence to the European Parliament in June 2003 have gone public, stating how the evidence on DU is irrefutable and is being ignored.

Dr. James A. Howenstine is a board certified specialist in internal medicine who spent 34 years caring for office and hospital patients. He, among many others has spoken out about how another horrifying consequence of DU exposure is damage to sperm causing many severe deformities in the children born to veterans of the first Gulf War. A group of 251 soldiers from Mississippi, who all had normal babies before service in Iraq, were studied. Sixty seven percent of their post war babies were born with severe birth defects. These children were missing legs, arms, organs or eyes and had immune system and blood diseases. In some Gulf War veterans families the only normal children are those who were born before serving in Iraq. The Department of Defense denies any knowledge of birth defects in Gulf War I veterans.

Just one of the many pictures of the deformities that our governments' use of Depleted Uranium is causing to children. This is a mild example compared to many others that are simply too horrific to post.

Of course, many many Iraqi children continue to be born with deformities due to excessive DU use. The effects are simply horrific and for the Department of State to even suggest the effects are an urban myth is simply SICK.

Does the story claim that vast, powerful, evil forces are secretly manipulating events? If so, this fits the profile of a conspiracy theory. The U.S. military or intelligence community is a favorite villain in many conspiracy theories.

In many cases we do publish stories that suggest the Intelligence communities and the government are manipulating events, covering up information and perpetrating evil acts. That is because, as you have seen here, in the majority of cases THEY ARE.

Why should we take advice on what to believe from a government that LIES continually, over and over again. A government that uses fake weapons dossiers and invented intelligence in order to invade and overthrow sovereign countries to forward their own agenda, whilst killing hundreds of thousands in the process?

Why should we listen to a government that puts out fake news casts and in many cases controls the information we see on our nightly news? More and more people are turning off the TV and coming to us for their news because they know what we report is more accurate and better researched.

This is why they are desperately trying to crack down on the Internet and the free press, passing laws in order that they can deem any anti-government stance as hate speech. It's time to see through THEIR misinformation and turn off their false transmissions. WE are the majority, WE are the mainstream, WE identify the misinformation.

Actual text of Gov't website:

How to Identify Misinformation

How can a journalist or a news consumer tell if a story is true or false? There are no exact rules, but the following clues can help indicate if a story or allegation is true.

* Does the story fit the pattern of a conspiracy theory?

* Does the story fit the pattern of an “urban legend?â€

* Does the story contain a shocking revelation about a highly controversial issue?

* Is the source trustworthy?

* What does further research tell you?

Does the story fit the pattern of a conspiracy theory?

Does the story claim that vast, powerful, evil forces are secretly manipulating events? If so, this fits the profile of a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories are rarely true, even though they have great appeal and are often widely believed. In reality, events usually have much less exciting explanations.

The U.S. military or intelligence community is a favorite villain in many conspiracy theories.

For example, the Soviet disinformation apparatus regularly blamed the U.S. military or intelligence community for a variety of natural disasters as well as political events. In March 1992, then-Russian foreign intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov admitted that the disinformation service of the Soviet KGB intelligence service had concocted the false story that the AIDS virus had been created in a US military laboratory as a biological weapon. When AIDS was first discovered, no one knew how this horrifying new disease had arisen, although scientists have now used DNA analysis to determine that “all HIV-1 strains known to infect man†are closely related to a simian immunodeficiency virus found in a western equatorial African chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes troglodytes. But the Soviets used widespread suspicions about the U.S. military to blame it for AIDS. (More details on this.)

In his book 9/11: The Big Lie, French author Thierry Meyssan falsely claimed that no plane hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Instead, he claimed that the building had been struck by a cruise missile fired by elements within the U.S. government. No such vast conspiracy existed and many eyewitness accounts and evidence gathered on the scene confirmed that the hijacked airliner had struck the building. But, nevertheless, the book was a best-seller in France and has been translated into 19 languages, demonstrating the power that even the most groundless conspiracy theories can have. (More details on 9/11: The Big Lie.)

Does the story fit the pattern of an “urban legend?â€

Is the story startlingly good, bad, amazing, horrifying, or otherwise seemingly “too good†or “too terrible†to be true? If so, it may be an “urban legend.†Urban legends, which often circulate by word of mouth, e-mail, or the Internet, are false claims that are widely believed because they put a common fear, hope, suspicion, or other powerful emotion into story form.

For example, after the September 11 attacks, a story arose that someone had survived the World Trade Center collapse by “surfing†a piece of building debris from the 82nd floor to the ground. Of course, no one could survive such a fall, but many initially believed this story, out of desperate hope that some people trapped in the towers miraculously survived their collapse. (More details on this.)

Another September 11 urban legend is that an undamaged Bible was found in the midst of the crash site at the Pentagon. In reality, it was a dictionary. But, if a Bible had survived unscathed, that would have seemed much more significant, and been seen by many as a sign of divine intervention. (More details on this.)

Since 1987, the false story that Americans or others are kidnapping or adopting children in order to use them in organ transplants has been widely believed. There is absolutely no evidence that any such event has ever occurred, but such allegations have won the most prestigious journalism prizes in France in 1995 and Spain in 1996. (More details on this.)

This urban legend is based on fears about both organ transplantation and international adoptions, both of which were relatively new practices in the 1980s. As advances in medical science made organ transplantation more widespread, unfounded fears began to spread that people would be murdered for their organs. At the same time, there were also unfounded fears about the fate of infants adopted by foreigners and taken far from their home countries. The so-called “baby parts†rumor combined both these fears in story form, which gave it great credibility even though there was absolutely no evidence for the allegation.

In late 2004, a reporter for Saudi Arabia’s Al Watan newspaper repeated a version of the organ trafficking urban legend, falsely claiming that U.S. forces in Iraq were harvesting organs from dead or wounded Iraqis for sale in the United States. This shows how the details of urban legends can change, to fit different circumstances. (More details in English and Arabic.)

Highly controversial issues

AIDS, organ transplantation, international adoption, and the September 11 attacks are all new, frightening or, in some ways, discomforting topics. Such highly controversial issues are natural candidates for the rise of false rumors, unwarranted fears and suspicions. Another example of a highly controversial issue is depleted uranium, a relatively new armor-piercing substance that was used by the U.S. military for the first time during the 1991 Gulf War.

There are many exaggerated fears about depleted uranium because people associate it with weapons-grade uranium or fuel-grade uranium, which are much more dangerous substances. When most people hear the word uranium, a number of strongly held associations spring to mind, including the atomic bomb, Hiroshima, nuclear reactors, radiation illness, cancer, and birth defects.

Depleted uranium is what is left over when natural uranium is enriched to make weapons-grade or fuel-grade uranium. In the process, the uranium loses, or is depleted, of almost half its radioactivity, which is how depleted uranium gets its name. But facts like this are less important in peoples’ minds than the deeply ingrained associations they have with the world “uranium.†For this reason, most people believe that depleted uranium is much more dangerous than it actually is. (More details on depleted uranium in English and Arabic.)

Another highly controversial issue is that of forbidden weapons, such as chemical or biological weapons. The United States is regularly, and falsely, accused of using these weapons. (More details on this in English and Arabic.)

In the same way, many other highly controversial issues are naturally prone to misunderstanding and false rumors. Any highly controversial issue or taboo behavior is ripe material for false rumors and urban legends.

Consider the source

Certain websites, publications, and individuals are known for spreading false stories, including:

* Aljazeera.com, a deceptive, look-alike website that has sought to fool people into thinking it is run by the Qatari satellite television station Al Jazeera

* Jihad Unspun, a website run by a Canadian woman who converted to Islam after the September 11 attacks when she became convinced that Osama bin Laden was right

* Islam Memo (Mafkarat-al-Islam), which spreads a great deal of disinformation about Iraq.

(More details on Islam Memo and Jihad Unspun in English and Arabic.)

There are many conspiracy theory websites, which contain a great deal of unreliable information. Examples include:

* Rense.com

* Australian “private investigator†Joe Vialls, who died in 2005

* Conspiracy Planet

Extremist groups, such as splinter communist parties, often publish disinformation. This can be especially difficult to identify if the false allegations are published by front groups. Front groups purport to be independent, non-partisan organizations but actually controlled by political parties or groups. Some examples of front groups are:

* The International Action Center, which is a front group for a splinter communist party called the Workers World Party

* The Free Arab Voice, a website that serves as a front for Arab communist Muhammad Abu Nasr and his colleagues.

(More details on Muhammad Abu Nasr in English or Arabic.)

Research the allegations

The only way to determine whether an allegation is true or false is to research it as thoroughly as possible. Of course, this may not always be possible given publication deadlines and time pressures, but there is no substitute for thorough research, going back to the original sources. Using the Internet, many allegations can be fairly thoroughly researched in a matter of hours.

For example, in July 2005, the counter-misinformation team researched the allegation that U.S. soldiers in Iraq had killed innocent Iraqi boys playing football and then “planted†rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) next to them, to make it appear that they were insurgents.

Using a variety of search terms in “Google,†a researcher was able to find the article and photographs upon which the allegations were based. Because weapons did not appear in the initial photographs, but did appear in later photographs, some observers believed this was evidence that the weapons had been planted and that the boys who had been killed were not armed insurgents.

The researcher was also able to find weblog entries (numbered 100 and 333, on June 26 and July 15, 2005) from the commanding officer of the platoon that was involved in the incident and another member of his platoon. The weblog entries made it clear that:

* the teenaged Iraqi boys were armed insurgents;

* after the firefight between U.S. troops and the insurgents was over, the dead, wounded and captured insurgents were initially photographed separated from their weapons because the first priority was to make sure that it was impossible for any of the surviving insurgents to fire them again;

* following medical treatment for the wounded insurgents, they were photographed with the captured weapons displayed, in line with Iraqi government requirements;

* the insurgents were hiding in a dense palm grove, where visibility was limited to 20 meters, not a likely place for a football game, and they were seen carrying the RPGs on their shoulders.

Thus, an hour or two of research on the Internet was sufficient to establish that the suspicions of the bloggers that the weapons had been planted on innocent Iraqi boys playing football were unfounded.

Finally, if the counter-misinformation team can be of help, ask us. We can’t respond to all requests for information, but if a request is reasonable and we have the time, we will do our best to provide accurate, authoritative information.

Government is basically telling us what to believe

And they actually tried to say Depleted uranium wasn't harmuf.

BULLSHIT!