Caption to photo: FICTITIOUS REPORTER: A public relations person using a false name reported on airport security.
This report is not about some "cute little thing the Bushies did today"--not a modern day newsreel tidbit. And definitely not a feel good article.
According to a comprehensive New York Times report, The Bush administration is making video features and spots about itself and it's actions and feeding them to news programs where they are being picked up and used without telling people that the "news" is propaganda from the US government.
Short summary of long Times article: The program started in early 2002. (If you remember that was the time that they admitted they would be creating their own "news", but maintained that it was for outside of US borders. A large public outcry forced them to say that they would abandon the program. Some of us knew better even then.--TB)
Now the New York Times has published a report of numerous instances of government packaged news videos.
The Bush administration maintains that each is identified when it leaves their hands as being from the government.
Yet, usually the reports are
not identified to TV News consumers as being government produced. They are distributed through networks who are paid for their efforts. The one network that receives the most money for that job is --wait for it---Yes, FOX. (CNN also does some of the distribution.)
One news reporter who took clips from a government produced feel good feature on Afghanistan and interspersed the clips with herself speaking from a provided script said she did not know that the videos and script had been created by the Bush administration.
Caption to photo:President George W. Bush (news - web sites) addresses a news conference at the White House in Washington, March 16, 2005. Bush said that the U.S. government's practice of sending packaged news stories to local television stations was legal and he had no plans to cease it. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)
(Click on picture to go to associated Reuters report on Yahoo News)
Other videos provided by the Agriculture department with leaders and trailers acknowledging that fact make their way to rural news programs with leaders and trailers lopped off to make it appear to be part of the news.
The article has accounts of similar news packages. See link below for details.
The GAO condemns the use of such videos as illegal. The Bush administration says that they will do fewer features in the future and more "news" spots.
End summary.
Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News
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Think about those news "spots". They will be much harder to identify than news video features. From now on, you can virtually depend on any TV news that shows the Bush administration in a favorable light is probably manufactured by their own offices.
The GAO's position on the news packages:
GAO's conclusion
A Jan. 4 letter to congressional leaders from the GAO's general counsel noted that "many television news organizations are willing to use [prepackaged news stories] since they help broadcasters reduce the cost of gathering and producing news." But the agency concluded that they violated 55-year-old rules against government spending on propaganda.
"If the material had been identified, it wouldn't be considered propaganda at all," said Susan Poling, GAO's assistant general counsel.
This wasn't the first time a government agency had written its own news reports. In 1987, the State Department paid writers for newspaper articles and opinion pieces supporting the Reagan administration's policies in Central America.
The GAO is attempting to avert repetition of that technique, issuing a Feb. 17 memo to all agency heads seeking "vigilance" in avoiding any new propaganda.
Chicago Tribune via Yahoo News
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