Sunday, March 26, 2006
Spinning Propaganda
The Washington Post has this amusing article about the Lincoln Group's distaste for the "P" word:
The Word at WarThat's epitomizes the Bush League's entire philosophy - they really think words create reality rather than describing it. To paraphrase Shakespeare: Waterboarding by any other name would still be torture.
Propaganda? Nah, Here's the Scoop, Say the Guys Who Planted Stories in Iraqi Papers
By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 26, 2006; D01
Oh, no, not at all -- the Lincoln Group does not do propaganda. Sure, the firm's been tarred by some in Congress, the media and the defense establishment for paying Iraqi newspapers to publish hundreds of "news" stories secretly written by U.S. troops.
But Paige Craig, the West Point dropout and former Marine intelligence specialist who is the Lincoln Group's president, says the practice is not propaganda. The word carries such baggage, such suggestions of mind control. So in an industry in which euphemism thrives, a more elegant word is deployed.
"We call it 'influence,' " says Craig, whose business has 12 U.S. government contracts totaling more than $130 million.
