How do you get your first job in the field of state-sponsored propaganda? You can’t cut your teeth at a fake college newspaper. There are no graduate school programs that teach the craft of planting slanted stories, and no fake-writer-in-residence programs. MediaBistro doesn’t even offer seminars on “how to pitch successful propaganda proposals.”
So how do you get your foot in the door?
That’s a question which has been nagging us ever since November, when the Los Angeles Times broke the story that the U.S. military was paying American contractors to plant pro-U.S. stories in Iraqi newspapers. According to the Times, the propaganda campaign was orchestrated by a small D.C.-based P.R. firm called the Lincoln Group.
Soon, details about the Lincoln Group began to trickle out. A story in the Washington Post, for instance, revealed that the Lincoln Group was led by two go-getters in their early 30s, who had only recently moved to Washington — Christian Bailey, a graduate of Oxford University, and Paige Craig, a former U.S. Marine.
And how did two fresh-faced naïfs stumble into D.C. and, a short time later, land multi-million dollar contracts from the U.S. government? For the past several months, details have remained sketchy. Yesterday, however, the New York Times published the best explanation we’ve read about how this dynamic duo’s rose to propaganda stardom — how they became the anti-Woodward and anti-Bernstein of their generation.
“Two years ago, Christian Bailey and Paige Craig were living in a half-renovated Washington group house, with a string of failed startup companies behind them,” reported the Times. “Now their company, Lincoln Group, works out of elegant offices along Pennsylvania Avenue and sponsors polo matches in Virginia horse country. Mr. Bailey recently bought a million-dollar Georgetown row house. Mr. Craig drives a Jaguar and shows up for interviews accompanied by his ‘director of security,’ a beefy bodyguard.”
The story, by David S. Cloud, goes on to provide some priceless details of the duo’s career trajectory — details, which collectively will offer a much-needed road map for prospective propagandists looking to fleece U.S. taxpayers of their money.
According to the Times, Bailey had an uncanny ability to sell foolhardy investors on foolhardy ideas. Shortly after graduating from college, he moved to San Francisco and raised millions of dollars to found a company that planned to manufacture electricity-generating shoes that would be capable of powering portable electronic devices. “You would have been proud,” Bailey wrote in a letter to his mentor, “had you seen this 23-year-old kid pitching, with no product, no customers, no business plan.”
In turn, according to the Times, the mentor gave Bailey some invaluable advice: “I told him, ‘When in trouble, go to D.C.,’ and the kid listened.”
From milking the get-rich-quick daydreamers in Silicon Valley it was apparently a short leap to milking the build-democracy-quick daydreamers at the Pentagon. In a short period of time, Bailey and his partner started and abandoned a scrap-metal business in Iraq, teamed up with a well-connected consulting firm, won a $5 million contract, and with minimal fanfare began racking up fake news clips in Iraqi papers. Along the way, according to the Times, the Lincoln group continued to win government contracts by overselling its business credentials, partnerships, and connections in Iraq.
“Lincoln won its contracts after claiming to have partnerships with major media and advertising companies, former government officials with extensive Middle East experience, and ex-military officers with background in intelligence and psychological warfare,” reported the Times. “But some of those companies and individuals say their associations were fleeting.”
Fleeting or not, the rise of the Lincoln Group is an uplifting story for the ages — one that should give hope to every erstwhile dot-com failure still looking for easy riches. After all, if the Pentagon will put the electronic-shoe guy in charge of promoting democracy in the Middle East, whom won’t they hire?
More details about the Lincoln Group are sure to follow. According to the Times, the Pentagon’s inspector general recently began an audit of the Lincoln Group’s contracts. At the same time, the top U.S. commander in Iraq has ordered a separate investigation.
We will enjoy seeing the results of those inquiries, just as we enjoyed the Times‘ fine story, which will no doubt provide plenty of fodder for fake news-writers looking for career advice.
Coming soon: The 25 Habits of Highly Successful Propagandists.
Felix Gillette writes about the media for The New York Observer.