Pay Scales

Still waiting for NPR to address its participation in the Pentagon's apparently illegal planting of "independent" military analysts on of news outlets to spin war coverage? I haven't heard "boo" on NPR news, but "Talk of the Nation" took it on this past Wednesday. Neal Conan had on Ken Silverstein of Harpers and Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard (a reasonable person would ask, "Why?"). The "meat" of the report was the presence of Brian Duffy, Managing Editor of NPR news.

If you don't already know, NPR hired (and still frequently uses) Major General (Ret.) Robert Scales for "analysis." Turns out that not only is Scales a war profiteer (the company he founded states "In summary, we are new, lean, well-connected and able to meet the needs of any client or individual who wants to work with or better understand our fighting men and women in the land Services.") but he was also an eager participant in the Pentagon's propaganda program. As the New York Times article noted Scales wrote to the Pentagon, "Recall the stuff I did after my last visit; I will do the same this time."

So how did NPR confront this? It mounted an internal review! Duffy states, "We have found in a review since the Times article appeared that there was nothing that the general said to our listeners that was obviously related to or influenced by his outside interests or his participation in this program....in this case we were fortunate in that the general conducted himself with great propriety and provided useful analysis to our listeners....as I said in a review of our relationship with the general we saw nothing to indicate that his remarks to our listeners were unduly influenced by his participation in this program or by any other of his relationships...."

So all of Scales positive cheerleading of the US war machine in action had nothing to do with his "well connected" company that makes a killing off those connections. And how do we know this? Because NPR's own review of its participation in this sham said so.