We all know that the media networks helped beat the drums to invade Iraq. It’s clear from these stats: out of the 343 interviews conducted by network news prior to the Iraq invasion, only three involved an antiwar spokesperson.

Glenn Greenwald has now shown the incredible extent to which the corporate media executives snuffed out stories critical of President George W. Bush or critical of the Iraq invasion. Greenwald’s post is a must-read for anyone who has the stomach to try to understand how bad things got and how bad things still are regarding the corporate media.

Perhaps these should also be heady times for media reformers. We’ve waited a long time for the knowledgeable media insiders to have the guts to speak up, but they have finally started singing. Scott McClellan has dropped his bomb yesterday and other high profile media personalities are now starting to come out of the woodwork. Greenwald focuses on these recent statements by CNN’s Jessica Yellin:

I think the press corps dropped the ball at the beginning. When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings.

And my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives — and I was not at this network at the time — but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president.

Here’s Greenwald’s take on Yellin’s accusations:

Jessica Yellin’s admission is but the latest in a growing mountain of evidence demonstrating that corporate executives forced their news reporters to propagandize in favor of the Bush administration and the war, and censored stories that were critical of the Government.