Last week PAI Director Kevin Connor joined Amy Goodman and Juan González on Democracy Now! to discuss our latest report on defense industry ties to the Syria debate. The Military Industrial Pundits segment opened with a series of clips of several military analysts we reviewed in our report being introduced under their former titles.
On October 16th he joined Ahmed Shihab-Eldin on HuffPost Live with guests Tara Maller from the New America Foundation and freelance journalist Rania Abouzeid to discuss the report and debate the nature of conflicts of interest.
These media appearances followed a stream of press from the Washington Post, Huffington Post, and Politico. The Washington Post‘s coverage of the report prompted their editorial page editor Fred Hiatt to defend his own failure to disclose Stephen Hadley’s ties to defense industry titan Raytheon.
The report also received a warm twitter reception including some tweets from PAI favorites Spies for Hire author Tim Shorrock and Pulitzer prize-winning conflict journalist C.J. Chivers:
Terrific work from http://t.co/x5hsvdae5O @twittlesis: WP: Analysts in Syria debate have ties to defense contractors http://t.co/YQ1iHmDx2R
— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) October 11, 2013
Arms-Firm Shilling, Media Fail. (That guy on CNN backing Tomahawk strikes? He works 4 firm selling ’em http://t.co/j7EkxXZhey #Syria
— C.J. Chivers (@cjchivers) October 11, 2013
Glenn Greenwald weighed in on Fred Hiatt’s dismissive quote in the Washington Post:
Fred Hiatt has some very permissive & strange views on conflicts of interest – when it comes to defense contractors https://t.co/YjytAnW95o
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 11, 2013
Our June report on the Center for Sustainable Shale Development was back in the news with the abrupt resignation of Heinz Endowments president Robert F. Vagt. The report, “Big Green Fracking Machine,” revealed Vagt’s ties to natural gas pipeline company, Kinder Morgan. Bill Zlatos of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review alluded to the report as causing a stir but did not specify the reasons behind Vagt’s resignation.
Finally, the Eyes on the Ties blog tackled an array of interesting questions:
- Who is funding the fight against the fracking moratoria in Colorado?
- What is this media love affair with Tomahawk cruise missiles?
- Who is caught in CCA’s web now?
- Why did the NY Fed President’s daybook go dark after years of regular meetings with Goldman Sachs and other big banks?