GWB: The Most Trusted Name in Fake News

It's the same old story. Jon Stewart and his gang make a little show for Comedy Central called The Daily Show, and it becomes a hit. And pretty soon everybody comes out of the woodwork and starts jumping on the fake news bandwagon:

Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News
By DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN

It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets.

"Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.

To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.

Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.

People wonder how this can happen. I can tell you from experience that there is no greater center of laziness than the television newsroom. They're cash-strapped, under increasing pressure to drive ratings and come up with daily content, and they will react to a pre-packaged news report with the unaldulterated glee of a debutante at a cotillion.

This story from the New York Times is long, and I urge you to read it. Public relations are a great threat to the idea of a free press. Under the guise of "serving the client," they deliberately manipulate the public. This isn't about the Bush Administration so much as it is the unrestrained environment in which these types of things can happen. This is only slightly illegal, in other words. It's illegal in the sense of the use of government funds to create the fake news stories, and to pay for airtime, which is alleged in the article. And that's definitely not kosher. But most of what the Administration is doing with PR firms is simply an excellent example of working within the system. In fact, they come right out and say it in the article:

What is more, these officials argued, it is the responsibility of television news directors to inform viewers that a segment about the government was in fact written by the government. "Talk to the television stations that ran it without attribution," said William A. Pierce, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. "This is not our problem. We can't be held responsible for their actions."

It's the system (i.e. the mass media, particularly broadcast media) that's broken. They are REWARDED for this behavior. And that's where it has to stop.

Democrats in Congress do have a "Stop Propaganda" bill in the mix, but it's doubtful to move out of committee without some real grassroots pressure. Stop Fake News is a new site devoted to this issue. Go there and sign their petitions. And let the Democrats in the legislature know how important this issue is. Without an informed public, just look at what can be done in our name.