(From the masters a fine how propaganda works to create a certain slant. Check the link at the end of the piece.)
Pro-Administration Sites Gain Influence
By Anton Troianovski and Peter Finn
Pravda Foreign News
28. October 2007
WASHINGTON — After ignoring the Internet for years to focus on controlling traditional media such as television and newspapers, the White House and its allies are turning their attention to cyberspace, which remains a haven for critical reporting and vibrant discussion in America’s dwindling public sphere.
Allies of President George W. Bush are creating pro-government news and pop culture Web sites while purchasing some established online outlets known for independent journalism. They are nurturing a network of friendly bloggers ready to disseminate propaganda on command. And there is talk of creating a new American computer network — one that would be separate from the Internet at large and, potentially, much easier for the authorities to control.
"The attractiveness of the Internet as a free platform for free people is already dimming," said Joe Danner, a mass media expert at Georgetown University in Washington.
Bush addressed the question of Internet censorship during a national broadcast on radio this month. "In the United States, no control is being exercised over the World Wide Web, over the American segment of the Internet," Bush said. "I think that from the point of view of technological solutions, that would not make any sense.
"Naturally, in this sphere, as in other spheres, we should be thinking about adhering to American laws, about making sure that child pornography is not distributed, that financial crimes are not committed," he continued. "But that is a task for the law enforcement agencies. Total control and the work of the law enforcement agencies are two different things."
[…]
Today, the White House is ready with online forces of its own when street action begins.
On September 15, an anti-war movement held a march in central Washington that drew thousands of people; police detained several hundred, including leaders of the march.
Pater Danilin, a 30-year-old Bush supporter and blogger whose online icon is the fearsome robot of the "Terminator" movie, works for a political consulting company loyal to the White House. He said he and his team, which included people from a youth movement called the Young Republicans, quickly started blogging that day about a smaller, pro-White House march held at the same time.
They linked to one another repeatedly and soon, Danilin said, posts about the pro-White House march had crowded out all the items about the opposition march on the Technorati Web portal’s coveted ranking of the top five American blog posts.
"We played it beautifully," Danilin said.
[…]