Mediaboss Marketing

CIA Funding and Manipulation of the U.S. News MediaOperation Mockingbird was a secret Central Intelligence Agency campaign to influence domestic and foreign media beginning in the 1950s.According to the Congress report published in 1976:

"The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets."

Senator Frank Church argued that misinforming the world cost American taxpayers an estimated $265 million a year.

In 1948, Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects (OSP). Soon afterwards OSP was renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). This became the espionage and counter-intelligence branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. Wisner was told to create an organization that concentrated on "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."

Later that year Wisner established Mockingbird, a program to influence the domestic and foreign media. Wisner recruited Philip Graham from The Washington Post to run the project within the industry. According to Deborah Davis in Katharine the Great; "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of The New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles."

In 1951, Allen W. Dulles persuaded Cord Meyer to join the CIA. However, there is evidence that he was recruited several years earlier and had been spying on the liberal organizations he had been a member of in the later 1940s. According to Deborah Davis, Meyer became Mockingbird's "principal operative."

In 1977, Rolling Stone alleged that one of the most important journalists under the control of Operation Mockingbird was Joseph Alsop, whose articles appeared in over 300 different newspapers. Other journalists alleged by Rolling Stone Magazine to have been willing to promote the views of the CIA included Stewart Alsop (New York Herald Tribune), Ben Bradlee (Newsweek), James Reston (New York Times), Charles Douglas Jackson (Time Magazine), Walter Pincus (Washington Post), William C. Baggs (The Miami News), Herb Gold (The Miami News) and Charles Bartlett (Chattanooga Times). According to Nina Burleigh (A Very Private Woman), these journalists sometimes wrote articles that were commissioned by Frank Wisner. The CIA also provided them with classified information to help them with their work.

After 1953, the network was overseen by Allen W. Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. By this time Operation Mockingbird had a major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies. These organizations were run by people with well-known right-wing views such as William Paley (CBS), Henry Luce (Time and Life Magazine), Arthur Hays Sulzberger (New York Times), Alfred Friendly (managing editor of the Washington Post), Jerry O'Leary (Washington Star), Hal Hendrix (Miami News), Barry Bingham, Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal), James Copley (Copley News Services) and Joseph Harrison (Christian Science Monitor).

The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was funded by siphoning of funds intended for the Marshall Plan. Some of this money was used to bribe journalists and publishers. Frank Wisner was constantly looking for ways to help convince the public of the dangers of communism. In 1954, Wisner arranged for the funding of the Hollywood production of Animal Farm, the animated allegory based on the book written by George Orwell.

According to Alex Constantine (Mockingbird: The Subversion Of The Free Press By The CIA), in the 1950s, "some 3,000 salaried and contract CIA employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts". Wisner was also able to restrict newspapers from reporting about certain events. For example, the CIA plots to overthrow the governments of Iran (See: Operation Ajax) and Guatemala (See: Operation PBSUCCESS).

See the article here:
Operation Mockingbird, CIA Media Control Program - YouTube

Operation Mockingbird was an alleged large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that began in the early 1950s and attempted to manipulate news media for propaganda purposes. It funded student and cultural organizations and magazines as front organizations.

According to writer Deborah Davis, Operation Mockingbird recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network and oversaw the operations of front groups. CIA support of front groups was exposed after a 1967 Ramparts magazine article reported that the National Student Association received funding from the CIA. In the 1970s, Congressional investigations and reports also revealed Agency connections with journalists and civic groups. None of these reports, however, mentions an Operation Mockingbird coordinating or supporting these activities.

A Project Mockingbird is mentioned in the CIA Family Jewels report, compiled in the mid-1970s. According to the declassified version of the report released in 2007, Project Mockingbird involved the wire-tapping of two American journalists for several months in the early 1960s.

In the early years of the Cold War, efforts were made by the governments of the Soviet Union and the United States to use media companies to influence public opinion internationally. Reporter Deborah Davis claimed in her 1979 biography of Katharine Graham, owner of The Washington Post, (Katharine the Great), that the CIA ran an "Operation Mockingbird" during this time.[1] Davis claimed that the International Organization of Journalists was created as a Communist front organization and "received money from Moscow and controlled reporters on every major newspaper in Europe, disseminating stories that promoted the Communist cause."[2] Davis claimed that Frank Wisner, director of the Office of Policy Coordination (a covert operations unit created in 1948 by the United States National Security Council) had created Operation Mockingbird in response to the International Organization of Journalists, recruiting Phil Graham from The Washington Post to run the project within the industry. According to Davis, "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of The New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles."[3] Davis claimed that after Cord Meyer joined the CIA in 1951, he became Operation Mockingbird's "principal operative."[4]

In a 1977 Rolling Stone magazine article, "The CIA and the Media," reporter Carl Bernstein wrote that by 1953, CIA Director Allen Dulles oversaw the media network, which had major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies.[5] Its usual modus operandi was to place reports, developed from CIA-provided intelligence, with cooperating or unwitting reporters. Those reports would be repeated or cited by the recipient reporters and would then, in turn, be cited throughout the media wire services. These networks were run by people with well-known liberal, but pro-American-big-business and anti-Soviet views, such as William S. Paley (CBS), Henry Luce (Time and Life), Arthur Hays Sulzberger (The New York Times), Alfred Friendly (managing editor of The Washington Post), Jerry O'Leary (The Washington Star), Hal Hendrix (Miami News), Barry Bingham, Sr. (Louisville Courier-Journal), James S. Copley (Copley News Services) and Joseph Harrison (The Christian Science Monitor).[5]

After the Watergate scandal in 19721974, the U.S. Congress became concerned over possible presidential abuse of the CIA. This concern reached its height when reporter Seymour Hersh published an expose of CIA domestic surveillance in 1975.[6] Congress authorized a series of Congressional investigations into Agency activities from 1975 to 1976. A wide range of CIA operations were examined in these investigations, including CIA ties with journalists and numerous private voluntary organizations. None of the resulting reports, however, refer to an Operation Mockingbird.

The most extensive discussion of CIA relations with news media from these investigations is in the Church Committee's final report, published in April 1976. The report covered CIA ties with both foreign and domestic news media.

For foreign news media, the report concluded that:

The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets.[7]

For domestic media, the report states:

Approximately 50 of the [Agency] assets are individual American journalists or employees of U.S. media organizations. Of these, fewer than half are "accredited" by U.S. media organizations... The remaining individuals are non-accredited freelance contributors and media representatives abroad... More than a dozen United States news organizations and commercial publishing houses formerly provided cover for CIA agents abroad. A few of these organizations were unaware that they provided this cover.[7]

Prior to the release of the Church report, the CIA had already begun restricting its use of journalists. According to the report, former CIA director William Colby informed the committee that in 1973 he had issued instructions that "As a general policy, the Agency will not make any clandestine use of staff employees of U.S. publications which have a substantial impact or influence on public opinion."[8]

In February 1976, Director George H. W. Bush announced an even more restrictive policy: "effective immediately, CIA will not enter into any paid or contractual relationship with any full-time or part-time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station.[9]

By the time the Church Committee Report was completed, all CIA contacts with accredited journalists had been dropped. The Committee noted, however, that "accredited correspondent meant the ban was limited to individuals "formally authorized by contract or issuance of press credentials to represent themselves as correspondents" and that non-contract workers who did not receive press credentials, such as stringers or freelancers, were not included.

In a 1977 Rolling Stone magazine article, "The CIA and the Media," reporter Carl Bernstein claims that the Church Committee report "covered up" CIA relations with news media, and names a number of journalists who, he says, worked with the CIA.[10] Like the Church Committee report, however, Bernstein does not refer to any Operation Mockingbird.

In 2007 a CIA report was declassified that is titled the Family Jewels.[11] Compiled by the CIA in 1973, it refers to a Project Mockingbird and describes a wiretap of journalists. The report was compiled at the request of then CIA director James R. Schlesinger.

According to the report:

Project Mockingbird, a telephone intercept activity, was conducted between 12 March 1963 and 15 June 1963, and targeted two Washington based newsmen who, at the time, had been publishing news articles based on, and frequently quoting, classified materials of this Agency and others, including Top Secret and Special Intelligence.[12]

The wiretap was authorized by CIA director John A. McCone, "in coordination with the Attorney General (Mr. Robert Kennedy), the Secretary of Defense (Mr. Robert McNamara), and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (Gen. Joseph Carroll)." [12]

An internal CIA biography of McCone by CIA Chief Historian David Robarge, made public under an FOIA request, identified the two reporters as Robert Allen and Paul Scott.[13] Their syndicated column, "The Allen-Scott Report," appeared in as many as three hundred papers at the height of its popularity.[14]

See the article here:
Operation Mockingbird - Wikipedia

This documentation is archived and is not being maintained.

TAPI can request the execution of a limited set of media control operations on the call's media stream triggered by telephony events. Although the TAPI clients normally use the media function specifically defined for the media type, media control can yield a significant performance improvement for client/server implementations because simple "detect/control" sequences can be offloaded to the server. The operation TSPI_lineSetMediaControl allows TAPI to specify a list of tuples specifying a telephony event and the associated media-control action, and thus sets up a call's media stream for media control. The telephony events that can trigger media control activities are:

Media control actions are defined generically for the different media types. Not all media streams can provide meaningful interpretations of the media control actions. Operations that may be possible are indicated in LINEMEDIACONTROL_ Constants.

The scope of media control is bounded by the lifetime of the call. Media control on a call ends as soon the call disconnects or goes idle. Only a single media control request can be outstanding on a call across all applications.

Originally posted here:
Media Control (Windows) - msdn.microsoft.com

BEIJING (Reuters) - China issued new rules on instant messaging chat groups on Thursday, tightening control over online discussions ahead of a sensitive leadership reshuffle next month.

Beijing has been ramping up measures to secure the internet and maintain strict censorship, a process that has accelerated ahead of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party, when global attention will be on the worlds No.2 economy.

Group chats on instant messaging apps and online commenting threads have seen a surge in popularity in China in recent years as forums for discussion, partly because they are private for members and so in theory are subject to less censorship.

Internet chat service providers must now verify the identities of their users and keep a blog of group chats for no less than six months, the Cyberspace Administration of China said in a statement released on its website

The rules, which take effect on Oct 8, just before the congress is due to begin, will cover platforms provided by Chinas internet titans, such as Tencents WeChat and QQ, Baidus Tieba and Alibabas Alipay chat.

The regulations also require companies to establish a credit system, and to provide group chat services to users in accordance to their credit rating, CAC said.

Chat group participants who break the rules will see their credit scores lowered, their rights to manage group chats suspended or revoked and should be reported to the relevant government department, it added.

The CAC did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment sent after office hours on Thursday.

The administration also said the owner of the chat group should bear responsibility for the management of the group.

Whoever owns the group should be responsible, and whoever manages the group should be responsible, it said.

The new rules are the latest requirement for Chinas internet giants, who have already been subject to investigations from the CAC into their top social media sites for failing to comply with cyber laws.

The administration has already taken down popular celebrity gossip social media accounts and extended restrictions on what news can be produced and distributed by online platforms, and has embarked on a campaign to remove virtual private network apps, which allow users to access websites blocked by the authorities.

Reporting by Pei Li and Christian Shepherd

Go here to see the original:
China tightens control of chat groups ahead of party congress - Reuters

Get ready because iOS 11 is going to make your iPad look and act in completely different ways.Apple puts multitasking front and center with iOS 11, making the iPad a more powerful and more flexible device. You'll likely come to enjoy your iPad's newfound multitasking abilities after upgrading to iOS 11, but the changes will take a little getting used to. I've been using the iOS 11 beta for weeks; here are five big changes headed your iPad's way when Apple rolls out its new lineup and iOS 11 on Sept. 12.

The first thing you'll notice is the Dock looks different. It no longer runs edge to edge and instead looks MacBook-like. It can hold a lot more apps than the iOS 10 Dock -- up to 15, depending on the size of your iPad. And you can access it without needing to return to the home screen -- it's always just a swipe away. Swipe up from the bottom edge of the screen to call up the Dock, even when you have an app open.

You'll also see three apps on the right side of the Dock, separated from the rest by a little divider. Siri suggests these apps based on which apps you used recently on your iPad and the app you currently have open on your iPhone or Mac.

The App Switcher and Control Panel received makeovers and now live together. Swipe up from the bottom or double-tap the home button and you'll see the newly combined forces -- let's call it the App Panel Control Switcher. No? Then make up your own name for it. Whatever you want to call it, you'll find thumbnails of your recently used apps on the left, which you can tap to open or swipe up to force close. The Control Panel sits to the right. It loses its two-panel layout and now provides the media controls right alongside the settings and shortcut buttons.

The amount of dragging and dropping you'll be doing in iOS 11 will make your iPad feel like a mini, touchscreen MacBook. You can drag an app from the Dock to open it on top of another app in Slide Over mode. The second app sits in a narrow panel that you can position on the left or right edge of the screen. Swipe it off the left edge to hide it or pull down on it to open it in Split View for a more equitable allotment of screen real estate.

Slide Over is great for keeping tabs on the Music app without leaving your current app, but it's even better than quick glances because you can drag and drop photos, links, files and text from one app to another. It's a bit hit or miss at the moment with the beta, but inserting photos and links into emails and texts, for example, is much easier with iOS 11.

Along with its Mac-like multitasking abilities, the iPad gets its version of the MacOS Finder app. In iOS 11, it's simply called the Files app. You'll find it in the new Dock. The Files app replaces the iCloud Drive app you likely never touched. It collects all the files you have created across your various iPad apps as well as any files you have stored in iCloud Drive. It also lets you connect to other cloud services, including Dropbox, Google Drive and Box. I connected my Google Drive and Dropbox accounts and was disappointed that the Files app makes me navigate both in a separate and smaller window rather than just turning over the regular, full-screen Files app interface to the cloud service of my choice.

The iPad's onscreen keyboard makes it easier to type numbers and symbols, but I'm most excited for the quick access it provides to the hashtag symbol (#psyched). You no longer need to switch to the secondary keyboard layout to type a number or a @ or a # or other symbols. The keys are double mapped in iOS 11; to type the secondary symbol (listed in gray above the letter on each key), you just need to do a tiny swipe down on that key. If you are old enough, it feels a bit like dialing a 1 on ancient rotary phone.

The new keyboard design finally takes into account the popularity of the hashtag. On iOS 10, you needed to drill down two levels to find it -- tapping once to go to the numbers keyboard and then again to go to the symbols keyboard (#lame). Now, a quick swipe down on the S key will have you hashtagging like a #boss.

Read more: See all the new features coming with iOS 11

See the article here:
5 ways iOS 11 will change your iPad - CNET