Columbia University Journalism School's Washington Post-CIA-FBI-New America Foundation Connection

Before being named by Washington Post Company board member Lee Bollinger to be the new Dean of Columbia University’s “Washington Post Journalism School," former Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll spent 5 years as the president of the financially secretive New America Foundation [whose board chairman is Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt].

Coincidentally, when Columbia University School of Journalism Dean-Designate Coll was the New America Foundation president, the New America Foundation apparently hired former CIA Counterterrorist Center Deputy Director and former FBI Senior Intelligence Adviser Philip Mudd as a New America Foundation “Senior Research Fellow, Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative.” As the New America Foundation’s own website notes:

“…Philip Mudd studies issues of counterterrorism…with the Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative.

“Mr. Mudd joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1985 as an analyst specializing in South Asia and then the Middle East. He began work in the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center in 1992 and then served on the National Intelligence Council as the Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia (1995-98). After a tour as an executive assistant in the front office of the Agency’s analytic arm, Mr. Mudd went on to manage Iraq analysis at the CIA (1999-2001).

“He began a policy assignment at the White House in early 2001, detailed from CIA to serve as the Director for Gulf Affairs on the White House National Security Council. He left after...September 11...for a short assignment as the CIA member of the small diplomatic team that helped piece together a new government for Afghanistan, and he returned to CIA in early 2002 to become second-in-charge of counterterrorism analysis in the Counterterrorist Center. He was promoted to the position of Deputy Director of the Center in 2003 and served there until 2005.

“At the establishment of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Security Branch in 2005, FBI Director Robert Mueller appointed Mr. Mudd to serve as the Branch’s first-ever deputy director. He received a Presidential nomination to become Undersecretary of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security in early 2009 but later withdrew his nomination, returning to the FBI as its Senior Intelligence Adviser. Mr. Mudd resigned from government service in March 2010.

“Mr. Mudd is the recipient of numerous CIA awards and commendations, including the Director’s Award; the George H.W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism; [and] the CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal…”

So don’t expect the new Dean of Columbia University’s School of Journalism to encourage journalism students at Columbia University to write many muckraking articles about either the Washington Post Company’s historic relationship with the CIA or the way that the CIA, the FBI, the New American Foundation and the Washington Post Company board of directors attempt to use the U.S. mainstream corporate media to manipulate public opinion at home and abroad in the 21st-century.