Freedom of the Press

It is possible to go further, and to argue that even those in government need an independent press to provide them with a range of information and views on which to found their policy judgements. As this report is being written, the confirmation hearings on President Bush's nomination of Robert Gates to head the Central Intelligence Agency are focusing, in significant part, on the question of why the CIA has "missed" such important recent developments as Saddam Hussein's aggressive intentions against Kuwait and the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union. Gates himself has been accused of "slanting" intelligence information so as to support a particular policy line. More generally, an implication of this debate is that the CIA, an agency of the Executive Branch of government, has tended to tell its boss  the President  what he and his chief advisors wanted to hear, rather than providing them with independent intell

. . .
ts  sought to comprehend Iran, as well as channeling what efforts they did make into an artificial EastWest ideological channel. Thus, Americans were more aware of the Communist Tudeh movement, which neatly fit this framework, than of the force of Khomeini's movement, which was alien and seemingly irrelevant to Cold War thinking. Amin Saikal, The Rise and Fall of the Shah (written in 1980), is an analysis by an Iranianborn scholar of the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, generally referred to in this study, and in most modern studies of Iran, simply as "the Shah." His Preface indicates the degree to which a careful observer of Iranian affairs could have foreseen the course of events: ... it needs to be stressed that I began research for this book in 1975. At that time, the Shah appeared, by all accounts, to be fully in command of Iranian politics ... The Shah's rule was, however, clearly plagued by certain fundamental contradictions and weaknesses ... [which] led me to the view that the Shah's rule was doomed .... (p. xi) Anthony Parsons, The Pride and the Fall, is an account of the last years of the Shah's reign by the British Ambassador in Tehran during that period. Gary Sick, All Fall D
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Content Analysis, York Times, Executive Branch, American Administrations, Iran Times, Bill Rights, Iran Shah, Iranian Revolution, Cold War, Shah Preface, content analysis, york times, times editorials, department bulletins, foreign policy, york times editorials, independent press, american press, cold war, regarding iran, towards iran, policy journalism deference, american policy towards, policy towards iran, foreign policy journalism,
Approximate Word count = 3017
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Freedom of the Press