Tracing the rise of U.S. government sponsored propaganda from campaigns in the 1980s [3] that supported U.S. actions in Central America to "the permanent conservative media machine that we know today," journalist Robert Parry [4] writes, "By now, the huge investment of money in this conservative media machine may mean that even if conservative 'journalists' did reach an honest conclusion that their behavior was damaging the United States, they would be hard pressed to change course. ... In that way, the conservative 'journalists' are like workers in a factory that's polluting a river which flows through the neighboring countryside. If the pollution is stopped, they fear they will lose their jobs. So it's in their interest to fight environmental controls, keep the factory running and leave it to someone else to clean up the mess."