President Bush said that his administration will continue feed TV stations prepackaged news stories that do not disclose the government's role in producing them. His defense of the packages, which are designed to look like television news segments but are made with taxpayer money, came after they were deemed a form of covert propaganda by the Government Accountability Office watchdog agency.
Comptroller General David M. Walker wrote that such stories -- designed to resemble independently reported broadcast news stories so that TV stations can run them without editing -- violate provisions in annual appropriations laws that ban covert propaganda and are a misuse or federal funds. These video news releases are taxpayer-financed attempts by the administration to promote its policies in the guise of independent news reports. Walker said the administration's approach is both contrary to appropriations law and unethical.
Speaking of fake news the Bush Administration somehow allowed a writer for the conservative website TalonNews.com to take part in White House press briefings for two years, despite the fact he had been deemed ineligible for a long term press pass. Press Secretary Scott McClellan said he appreciated Gannon's methods, which were to ask "questions" that were attacks on the Bush administration's perceived opponents.
An attack on Democratic Sen. Harry Reid that was not only inaccurate but was cribbed verbatim from one of Rush Limbaugh's radio rants raised the curiosity of a number of liberal bloggers, who began Googling Gannon to learn more about him. They discovered his sole journalistic experience was a two-day, $50 seminar run by the right-wing Leadership Institute. Gannon’s real name turned out to be J.D. Guckert the owner of such Internet domain names as HotMilitaryStuds.com and he was a gay escort not a journalist. Investigators are now talking to officials in the White House press office to find out if anyone there was helping Gannon circumvent the screening process for press access, because how else could he be credentialed?
Thirdly, this year the Education Department paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to promote the No Child Left Behind and the administration has since been found to have paid several other journalist to report their viewpoint on various Bush agenda items. With this kind of use of the press it is hard to argue that the Bush administration is not violating government ethics and distributing propaganda supporting their agenda with taxpayer money. Why don’t they just stick to taking Air Force One around the country, screening people to participate in town hall meetings so that sound bites make the news every night about Social Security or another of Bush’s proposals and having cabinet members and the VP do the same? |
