From "Notes From a Subterranean Library in Oregon," a compilation of Ray Peat's newspaper letters and columns, compiled by T3Uncoupled (2023). Originally published 1979.

Ray Peat, "Paid-off press", p. 33

Your editorial, “Did the press miss the boat in Iran?” hesitantly admits the plausibility of Dorman’s and Omeed’s interpretation of the performance of the U.S. press in reporting events in Iran. As I read the daily falsehoods in the AP reports about the shah’s opponents, I tried to imagine how and where such views might originate. One theory that has been proposed is that Christian reporters were blinded by religious prejudice. Another theory is that they were just lazy, and got their news only from the shah. Several weeks ago, a long and apparently honest interview with Khomeini was broadcast by our public television network, but the false reports continued to be printed in U.S. papers. Khomeini said the U.S. was forcing Iran to spend its money on American weapons, preventing real economic development in Iran. This was interesting and important news, but as far as I can tell, it never became “news” in the U.S. It was at that point that a third hypothesis occurred to me: Maybe the AP people in Iran are working for the CIA or the USIA. As you undoubtedly know, the CIA has in the past used reporters and editors, both at home and abroad, to plant “news” stories. (Wasn’t it the president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors who said that CIA payoffs had brought shame onto the press?). According to a University of California professor, the shah has continually “paid off” large segments of the American media (with checks, copies of which were published). The CIA could find less embarrassing ways to administer the funds. To protect many billions in oil sales to the U.S., and weapons sales to Iran, suppose

$1 billion was diverted to the media: a thousand payoffs of $1 million each. Much less would do, I suppose...