Propaganda
Howard Kurtz's media notes in today's Washington Post discusses how the Pentagon's news clip service is dropping any stories that criticize Rumsfeld or the military. That's nice:

Senior Pentagon managers have repeatedly ordered the department's widely read clipping service to exclude articles critical of the military and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, according to officials familiar with the practice.

Staffers at the Early Bird, whose service is devoured by Pentagon brass, lawmakers, journalists and military personnel around the world, were told to eliminate all newsmagazine articles last October -- four days after the publication of a Newsweek cover story on Iraq that included "Rummy's New Headaches" and a Time piece titled "Is Rumsfeld Losing His Mojo?"

"It comes down to the fact that they don't like these magazine articles," said a Pentagon official who declined to be identified and believes the Early Bird should not "censor" what is reported by major news organizations. The argument made against the offending articles, the official said, is that they are dated or inaccurate.

But the Pentagon press office, which oversees the Early Bird, has waived the magazine ban for some articles that senior managers deem positive. These have included the Time package on the American soldier as Person of the Year (which included a Rumsfeld interview) and two U.S. News & World Report pieces last week -- one on civilian efforts in Iraq and an officer's column defending the ban on coverage of deceased soldiers arriving at Dover Air Force Base.