Thirty thee years ago, in 1973, David Wise published The Politics of Lying. I ran across a few choice morsels that I found particularly compelling, and decided to share them. Goodness gracious, things sure haven’t changed in thirty three years, have they? Well, actually,you’re right. Things have gotten much worse.

The government’s relationship with the television industry offers special problems. Television, as Ben Baddikian has noted is “the President’s medium” Like Everest, television will be used by Presidents because it is there. It offers frightening opportunities for Presidential deception and manipulation. Television has not only increased the impact and speed of communication, it has made it much easier for the government to mislead the public. At the same time, as the only federally licensed medium of communication, television is uniquely vulnerable to government pressure and intimidation. It might be useful, and could even have a deterrent effect, if the press as a whole would quickly and prominently report cases of government pressure directed at the news media, and particularly at the television networks. Such pressures are legitimate news; there is no reason that they should remain the province of cocktail gossip among network executives and editors.