The NYT reports today that a Pentagon PR contractor that paid Iraqi newspapers to run positive stories about the U.S. military did not violate Defense Department policy. But in the last paragraph of the story, the NYT propagates a common myth about the firm’s activities:
The question for the Pentagon is its proper role in shaping perceptions abroad. Particularly in a modern world connected by satellite television and the Internet, misleading information and lies could easily migrate into American news outlets, as could the perception that false information is being spread by the Pentagon.
The NYT insinuates that the firm, the Lincoln Group, was paying Iraqi newspapers to print false information. This itself is false. The LA Times, which originally broke the story back in November, reported that the articles were “basically factual,” albeit one-sided. The NYT runs one-sided stories all the time, but increasingly it’s having trouble with the “basically factual” part as well.