{"id":330611,"date":"2017-10-16T00:02:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-15T23:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/pentagon-accidentally-adds-reporter-to-emails-on-spinning-puerto-rico-response-rt-america\/"},"modified":"2017-10-16T00:02:41","modified_gmt":"2017-10-15T23:02:41","slug":"pentagon-accidentally-adds-reporter-to-emails-on-spinning-puerto-rico-response-rt-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/pentagon-accidentally-adds-reporter-to-emails-on-spinning-puerto-rico-response-rt-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon accidentally adds reporter to emails on spinning Puerto Rico response \u2014 RT America"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2017.10\/thumbnail\/59e3cc51fc7e9336388b4567.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><time class=\"date date_article-header\">Published time: 15 Oct, 2017 21:09 <\/time><\/p>\n<p>        The Pentagon\u2019s efforts to spin news of its response to the emergency in Puerto Rico in a positive light were revealed when a reporter was erroneously added to its internal email list. <\/p>\n<div class=\"article__text text  js-mediator-article\">\n<p>Bloomberg climate reporter Christopher Flavelle claimed he was \u00a0added to an internal email list in September, which<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-10-13\/how-the-pentagon-spun-hurricane-maria\"> revealed<\/a> the government\u2019s efforts to frame its response to the disaster in Puerto Rico caused by Hurricane Maria in a good way.<\/p>\n<p>Although Flavelle alerted officials to the mishap, for five days he continued to receive the unclassified emails, which he said offer<em> \u201ca glimpse into the federal government\u2019s struggle to convince the public that the response effort was going well.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>After the government began getting heat for failing to respond to the emergency, an email from September 28 advised spokespeople to avoid speaking about waiting on instructions from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as <em>\u201cthat goes against the teamwork topline message,\u201d<\/em> Bloomberg reports.<\/p>\n<p>It told staff to highlight the<em> \u201ccoverage of life-saving\/life-sustaining operations.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When news broke of San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz\u2019s speech criticizing the government, and US President Donald Trump, for spinning the reality on the ground in Puerto Rico, the government advice on FEMA talking points was to ignore the mayor\u2019s comments, and instead say,<em> \u201cthe federal government\u2019s full attention is on Hurricane Maria response.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When President Trump then attacked Cruz\u2019s<em> \u201cpoor leadership ability,\u201d<\/em> the Pentagon expressed concern that his statements were becoming the story and that people were <em>\u201ccriticizing his lack of empathy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The government message was for FEMA to stress its success in reaching<em> \u201call municipalities\u201d<\/em> in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n<p>After Trump described critics of the response as <em>\u201cpolitically motivated ingrates,\u201d<\/em> the government told spokespeople to say, <em>\u201cI am very proud of our DoD forces,\u201d<\/em> and to concede <em>\u201cthere are some challenges to work through.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Following the massacre in Las Vegas on October 2, government communications pointed to the fact that the tragedy had<em> \u201cdrawn mainstream TV attention away from Puerto Rico response.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/406768-pentagon-pr-response-spin-emails\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Published time: 15 Oct, 2017 21:09 The Pentagon\u2019s efforts to spin news of its response to the emergency in Puerto Rico in a positive light were revealed when a reporter was erroneously added to its internal email list. Bloomberg climate reporter Christopher Flavelle claimed he was \u00a0added to an internal email list in September, which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":330612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-330611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}