Consortium News
Independent investigative website founded by legendary muckraker Robert Parry. |
"Independent Investigative Journalism Since 1995"
Started: 1995
Founder: Robert Parry
Members: Elizabeth Vos, Joe Lauria
Consortiumnews.com was founded in 1995 by investigative journalist Robert Parry as the first investigative news magazine on the Internet. Parry was best known for his role in covering the Iran-Contra affair for the Associated Press (AP) and Newsweek, including breaking the Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare (CIA manual provided to the Nicaraguan contras) and the CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking in the U.S. scandal in 1985.
After Robert Parry's death on January 27, 2018, the site is continued with Joe Lauria as Editor-in-Chief. The site has a high caliber of writers, including John Pilger, Alexander Mercouris, Ray McGovern,Gareth Porter,Max Blumenthal, Caitlin Johnstone and many others. While it certainly is an excellent site covering government nefariousness, it does shy a little bit away from full coverage of the deeper aspects of politics.
Own words
As one of the reporters who helped expose the Iran-Contra scandal for The Associated Press in the mid-1980s, I was distressed by the silliness and propaganda that had come to pervade American journalism. I feared, too, that the decline of the U.S. press foreshadowed disasters that would come when journalists failed to alert the public about impending dangers.[1]
We also looked at the underlying problems of modern democracy, particularly the insidious manipulation of citizens by government propaganda and the accomplice role played by mainstream media. Rather than encouraging diversity in analyses especially on topics of war and peace, today’s mainstream media takes a perverse pride in excluding responsible, alternative views.
The major Western news outlets now conflate the discrete difficulties from made-up “fake news” and baseless “conspiracy theories” with responsible dissenting analyses. All get thrown into the same pot and subjected to disdain and ridicule.
We have seen travesties, such as legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh having to take his important story debunking the Obama administration’s claims about the Syria-Sarin case of 2013 to the London Review of Books because his normal outlets in the United States wouldn’t run his exposé.
Known members
All 2 of the members already have pages here:
Member |
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Joe Lauria |
Elizabeth Vos |
Documents sourced from Consortium News
Title | Type | Subject(s) | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Document:A Long History of America's Dark Side | article | "Terrorism" Torture US/Foreign policy | 7 October 2010 | Peter Dale Scott Robert Parry | Americans are encouraged to unquestioningly view their country and its soldiers as the "good guys" spreading “democracy” and “liberty” around the world. When the US inflicts death and destruction, it’s viewed as a mistake or an aberration. This article reviews the long history of these acts of brutality, a record that suggests they are neither a “mistake” nor an “aberration” but a conscious counterinsurgency doctrine on the "dark side". |
Document:Faced with Donbass defeat, US and UK up the ante in Ukraine | Article | Boris Johnson Stop the War Coalition Volodymyr Zelensky 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Donbas | 8 June 2022 | Chris Nineham | Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa, argues: “The US and UK governments show no efforts or desire to achieve peaceful settlement of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine.” |
Document:MH-17 Mystery: A New Tonkin Gulf Case? | article | "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 | 17 July 2015 | Robert Parry | A First anniversary retrospective drawing a compelling parallel with the 'Gulf of Tonkin incident' which became the casus belli for the Vietnam war. |
Document:MH-17 Slips into propaganda fog | article | Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 | 9 July 2015 | Robert Parry | Almost a year ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine killing 298 people. Yet, instead of a transparent investigation seeking justice, the case became a propaganda game of finger-pointing, with the CIA withholding key evidence all the better to blame Russia |
Document:Murray Scottish Appeal Denied; Allowed to Try UK Court | Article | Craig Murray Julian Assange Alex Salmond Nicola Sturgeon Leeona Dorrian | 8 June 2021 | Joe Lauria | Craig Murray may have been a Crown target for the contempt conviction because he was among few writers defending Alex Salmond and was vindicated by Salmond’s acquittal. Murray has been a fierce advocate for his friend Julian Assange, the imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher, whom the United States is trying to extradite from Britain. |
Document:October Surprise Memo | memo | October Surprise | 4 November 1991 | Paul Beach | A "smoking gun" internal memo as regards the October Surprise; it references a meeting about how to keep the conspiracy hidden. In particular, it mentions a cable from the Madrid embassy confirming Bill Casey's presence there. |
Document:Propaganda, Intelligence and MH-17 | article | Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 | 17 August 2015 | Ray McGovern | Propaganda is the life-blood of life-destroying wars, and the U.S. government has reached new heights (or depths) in this art of perception management. A case in point is the media manipulation around last year’s Malaysia Airlines shoot-down over Ukraine, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern. |
Document:Russophobia - Reaping the Whirlwind | Article | NATO Russia Ukraine 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Western world UN Charter | 22 September 2022 | Scott Ritter | Vladimir Putin’s order to begin partial mobilisation of Russian military forces continues a confrontation between Russia and a US-led coalition of Western nations that began at the end of the Cold War. |
Document:The Mysterious Death of a UN Hero | Article | Allen Dulles Mobutu Sese Seko Dag Hammarskjöld Susan Williams Hammarskjöld Commission Patrice Lumumba Ndola Roy Welensky Moïse Tshombe Bud Culligan | 16 September 2013 | Lisa Pease | Former President Harry S. Truman was convinced Hammarskjöld had been murdered. A Sept. 20, 1961 New York Times article quoted Truman as having told reporters, “Dag Hammarskjöld was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said ‘When they killed him.’” |
Document:The Politics of Terror | article | Deep politics "Terrorism" "War on Terror" Surveillance State | 31 August 2010 | Douglas Valentine | |
Document:US Issues Assurances on Assange | Article | Julian Assange Mike Pompeo Capital punishment Espionage Act of 1917 First Amendment Gordon Kromberg | 16 April 2024 | Joe Lauria | Stella Assange: “The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty. The Biden Administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late.” |
Document:Ukraine: One ‘Regime Change’ Too Many? | article | Victoria Nuland US/Sponsored Regime-change efforts since 1945 Ukraine Riots 2013-14 | 1 March 2014 | Ray McGovern | A veteran CIA analyst's take on the US-NATO regime change push in the Ukraine |