Since in general you'd never know that the New York Times recently wrote this article, I thought I'd point it out.  Seems that in the spin-up to the Iraq war and the early days of the war itself, many of those "independent"  military experts you were seeing on TV were being paid by contractors to represent viewpoints that the Pentagon fed them in briefings. That's right, we were getting much of our "news" from paid employees of military suppliers, many of whom now represent major corporations in the military environment. 

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon
information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to
generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime
performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq
war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and
military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of
the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war
policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business
relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes
not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the
plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150
military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board
members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but
also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of
contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business
generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious
competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior
officials are highly prized.

Records and interviews show how the
Bush administration has used its control over access and information in
an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse —
an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the
major TV and radio networks.

I assume that the reason we're hearing absolutely nothing about this long-term carefully researched story is because once again the news media would consider it unpatriotic to let us know what the hell is  going on.  Just like anyone who isn't wearing an American Flag lapel pin hates our country.

To be fair, PBS has run a story on this. But otherwise it seems to be kind of a secret.