The New York Times‘ three-time Pulitzer Prize winning foreign affairs columnist Thomas L. Friedman has “scooped” an Iranian intelligence note to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which in a strange sort of way captures the truth about the news business in America:
“We have to note that obtaining open-source intelligence in America has become more difficult, because traditional news shows have become more comedic and more comedic news shows more authoritative.
“For instance, CNN’s nightly business report is hosted by a man named “Dobbs.” Real journalists come on his show and present transparently propagandistic stories about immigration and trade and then he fulminates about them, much the way our ayatollahs used to do about “Satanic Americans” on late-night Iranian TV. So viewers have no real idea what’s happening in the U.S. economy.
“Meanwhile, at 11 p.m., something called “The Daily Show,” which appears on Comedy Central, has fake journalists presenting what turns out to be the real news.”
Read the full column here: Intercepting Iran’s take on America
IJR 