Media Censors Inspiring Arab-Israeli Article, Google Then Censors Article on Censorship
"Many people are not aware that the military and intelligence services have embedded key agents in all major media organizations (including Google and Yahoo) to monitor what is reported. Often, these agents work under cover. They are hired on as regular staff, yet secretly they are working for the military, FBI, or CIA to influence news selection and content."
Dear friends,
Many of you know that a few months ago I started writing as a citizen journalist for examiner.com. I'm very much enjoying the opportunity to educate and inspire people from around the world on this popular news website. Yet interestingly, Google for the first time has censored one of my examiner.com articles on its main search engine. Most intriguing is that this case of censorship originates in a very inspiring news event.
My censored article, published on examiner.com on May 27th, told about the wonderfully refreshing story of Stanford professor Ronald Levy being the first ever Jewish recipient of the Arab equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize. It's a very encouraging development which you think would be widely reported. Yet as pointed out in my article, there was practically no media coverage of this heartening news.
A careful Google search showed that the only major U.S. or English-language European media to report this landmark event was Reuters. Yet even the Reuters article completely failed to mention Levy's Jewish heritage and the incredible significance of a Jew being awarded the prestigious $200,000 prize for the very first time.
It's quite interesting that the only major media source I found anywhere which reported this wonderful peace overture from Saudi Arabia was Israel's respected daily Haaretz, which posted a detailed and optimistic article titled "U.S. professor becomes first Jew to win 'Arab Nobel Prize'".
This media censorship in itself was astonishing, but I was even more astounded when the day after I published this article, I could not find it in a Google search. I often check Google after I publish articles to see how each article is listed, and to check its ranking. Every article I have ever checked usually shows up on the main Google search page within 12 hours, and always within 24 hours. Why on Earth did Google censor this particular article for the first time?
You can verify this for yourself. It's now been over a week and Google still has not indexed the article. Go to my article at this link. Take any string of 10 words or so in length (other than the quote from Haaretz and the first paragraph). Copy the string of words into the search box at www.google.com and put quotation marks at the beginning and end of the string of words. When you then click the search button, you will likely find no results, and certainly no results with that article. (Example here)
You can do this with any other article I've written for examiner.com before that one, and it will show up in the search. Note that if you do a search on the title or first paragraph of my article, you will find that a number of other websites reported the article, giving only the title and an introduction, and were listed on Google.
Since I posted that article, I've written three other, non-related articles. Two of those posted normally to Google, but the one on CIA mind control programs was the second article ever not to be listed. So it appears I may now have someone monitoring which of my articles get indexed and which don't. On Google's specialized search for news, this kind of censorship of some of my more sensitive articles has been going on for a long time, but now it is happening on their regular searches, too.
[Update June 4th: Not long after I posted this message to examiner.com at 4:40 PM PDT yesterday, the article on CIA mind control was finally indexed on Google. Maybe someone is watching. On checking this morning, after I sent this message to our over 6,000 WantToKnow.info subscribers, the nobel prize censorship article still had not been indexed. I checked again at 1 PM and it was indexed! Yea!!! Thanks to all who contacted Google. Together, we make a difference!]
Why all the censorship?
Why did Google censor this article? Many people are not aware that the military and intelligence services have embedded key agents in all major media organizations (including Google and Yahoo) to monitor what is reported. Often, these agents work under cover. They are hired on as regular staff, yet secretly they are working for the military, FBI, or CIA to influence news selection and content. I highly suspect that these agents somehow censored my article at Google (and Yahoo) and may even have had a role in the original inspiring article not being published.
For one clear example of this, read the Project Censored news article titled "Embedded in media, U.S. Army's Psychological Operations Personnel Worked at CNN." Here's a quote from that article:
"Psyops personnel, soldiers, and officers, have been working in CNN's headquarters in Atlanta through our program ‘Training With Industry,'" Major Thomas Collins of the U.S. Army Information Service said in a telephone interview. Collins asserted, "They worked as regular employees of CNN. They helped in the production of news." The military/CNN personnel belonged to the airmobile Fourth Psychological Operations Group stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. One of the main tasks of this group of almost 1,200 soldiers and officers is to spread "selected information."
Two New York Times articles also reveal infiltration of the media. The first describes "an extensive and largely hidden Pentagon campaign to transform network military analysts into 'surrogates' and 'message force multipliers'". The second, titled "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand," states:
"Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity ... is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance. Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air."
To read key excerpts of these two revealing New York Times articles with links to the full originals on the Times website, click here and here.
In my work as a top language interpreter at the U.S. Department of State, I worked with a number of FBI agents and military officers of all ranks. I probably encountered a number of CIA agents, as well, though they are careful never to admit it. I learned from a few of these insiders first-hand how politics is sometimes manipulated in big ways to profit those in power at the expense of the public.
Though I think there is a need for organizations like our military and intelligence services to protect the public and prevent violent groups from endangering public safety, I find the excessive secrecy and blatant manipulation of public perception in which these agencies engage to actually work against the public interest. Too often, they end up supporting the interests and war agenda of the power elite, while neglecting the interests of the general public. Why do you think they might want to censor inspiring articles on Jewish-Arab relations? Could such articles defeat their war agenda?
Katharine Graham, former owner of the Washington Post, once commented, "We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows." For more on this, click here. Thankfully blossoming citizen-based Internet news websites like examiner.com and articles like this are increasingly breaking through this blatant media and Internet censorship.
The box immediately below provides several ideas on what you can do to further educate yourself on these important matters and work to stop the censorship. Note that though it is very difficult to contact Google directly, you can leave messages on their "Help Forum" at this link or this one, asking them to reinstate my original article and stop censoring others. We've been successful several times in the past in reversing censorship like this, most recently with the CBS 60 Minutes segment on cold fusion. Thanks for your help with this. Together, we are making a big difference.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for PEERS and WantToKnow.info
Former language interpreter for Presidents Bush and Clinton
