I'll say it was effective. My first encounter with NPR when I spent a half-year at Cornell in 1987-88 was hearing a vomitous romanticization of the contras as guitar-strumming guerrileros. Obviously something written to please Reich.
"He warned the journalists that his office would be monitoring NPR's broadcasts. Buzenberg later suggested that Reich's attempt to intimidate people at NPR had been effective. He recounted in a speech how an editor had asked him, with regard to one of his stories, 'What would Otto Reich think?'" Tom Walker 604 255 4812
