http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2113052&
The Propaganda President
George W. Bush does his best Kim Jong-il
By Jack Shafer
Posted Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005, at 5:58 PM PT
If "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il of North Korea and George W. Bush ever meet, I suspect the two will bond like long-lost brothers. Both men are first-born sons of powerful fathers who partied like adolescents well into their adult lives, after which they submitted to their dynastic fates as heads of state.
Both avoid critical thought, preferring to surround themselves with yes men and apply propagandistic slogans to the onrushing complexities of justice, culture, economics, and foreign policy. Bush churns out buzz phrases with the best of them: He believes in "compassionate conservatism" and fancies himself part of the "army of compassion." He's the "reformer with results" who embraces the "culture of life." He shouts his paeans to "liberty" and "freedom" (a combined 27 times during last night's State of the Union speech, according to today's Washington Post) while reducing civil liberties at home.
But slogan-chanting is only one small part of an effective propaganda operation. Successful propagandists must also discourage dissenters who might disrupt the party line. And the two best ways to keep people stupid and nodding is by shutting down the information flow and by stiffing the press. At these chores, Bush excels.
The administration's idea of a conversation is a long, platitudinous presidential monologue. Every administration has warred with reporters, but Bush's is the first to challenge the very legitimacy of the press. Inside the White House briefing room, press secretary Scott McClellan controls the topics discussed by playing rope-a-dope with reporters, absorbing and ignoring the tough questions until they give up. When Vice President Dick Cheney didn't like the campaign coverage he read in the New York Times, the Times reporter was tossed off the plane. In the February/March American Journalism Review, Los Angeles Times reporter Edwin Chen complains that his newspaper has yet to score an interview with President Bush. "This White House doesn't need California, has no use for California politically," says Chen, "so we carry no clout."
Bush regards the press as a filter—an unnecessary one. "I'm mindful of the filter through which some news travels, and somehow you just got to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the people," he said in October 2003 during a media push in which he gave interviews to five regional broadcasters about his Iraq policy because he disliked the national news coverage.
In fact, as Michael Kinsley wrote in Slate a year and a half ago, it's not that Bush favors unfiltered news; he wants everybody to receive it through his filter. In recent weeks we've learned what extremes he'll go to in working around reporters. The Armstrong Williams case, which may be a harbinger of a greater secret propaganda campaign by the administration, further illustrates Bush's distrust not only of the press, but of the public. The administration's Department of Education paid the conservative commentator $240,000 through the cut-out of a public relations firm to promote its No Child Left Behind law on his broadcasts, as USA Today reported on Jan. 17. The administration has also gotten busted for camouflaging video press releases as legitimate news segments to promote its Medicare drug plan and warn about the dangers of illicit drugs.
Persuasion, Aristotle taught, depends on the speaker's skill at portraying himself as a trustworthy source. With his "aw, shucks" demeanor and his maudlin speechifying, the former Andover cheerleader knows how to stage a "drama" and tap the audience's emotions. He and his co-propagandists arranged one such emotionally manipulative "gallery play" during the State of the Union. Rather than explain his Iraq policy, he had the mother and father of a slain U.S. Marine seated behind an Iraqi voter in Laura Bush's box. When the president paid tribute to the parents in his speech, the Iraqi turned and quite predictably embraced the sobbing mother.
Though he opposes filtration, Bush never hesitates to exploit national security as a tool to suppress and distort information. Steve Aftergood, head of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, describes the Bush administration's style as governance by fear. In the name of national security, Bush has extended the authority to classify information to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture, and the EPA, he says. After Sept. 11, his attorney general issued a new directive making it easier for agencies to reject Freedom of Information Act requests. Aftergood also criticizes the secrecy of the Bush administration's task forces on energy, its refusal to comply with congressional requests for information, and its ambiguity on the torture question.
"They've propagated the idea that we're all at risk of violent death at any moment and at any place, and we must all do everything we can to secure our borders, ports, parks, and miniature golf courses," Aftergood says.
Reporter Ron Suskind tagged the born-again Bush as the creator of the "faith-based presidency" in a New York Times Magazine feature last October. Bush's "with-us-or-against-us model … has been enormously effective at, among other things, keeping the workings and temperament of the Bush White House a kind of state secret," Suskind writes. Only the president is authorized to speak for the president. Sing the same song, or none at all, is the administration's law: Doubters and people with competing facts are shunned and ostracized for their disloyalty. Because the maximum leader trusts his instincts, we're supposed to trust them, too, Suskind explains. We know best is the Bush administration's unstated premise. You mustn't question our higher motives.
Two years ago, an unnamed Bush aide told Suskind, "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
George Wallace invented the politics of running for president by running against Washington. Richard Nixon, who perfected the technique and handed it forward to Ronald Reagan and the Bushes, pioneered the politics of running for president by running against the press. He and Vice President Spiro Agnew dished the press more savagely than Bush has. But battling the press ultimately backfired on Nixon, and Reagan found charm and manipulation worked better than overt hostility. "[James A. Baker III] decided early on that there were only two constituencies that mattered—the national media and Congress—and he devoted a great deal of time and energy to wooing the media," Reagan administration veteran Ed Rollins told Michael Kelly in an October 1993 New York Times Magazine feature.
It's been George II's good fortune to launch his campaign against the nattering nabobs of the media at a time when the Jayson Blair/Jack Kelley/60 Minutes Wednesday scandals have turned journalists into inviting targets of scorn. At this point, the average citizen thinks the average Washington reporter is a full-of-himself jackass. The Bush administration probably figures that if the press swings at it and connects, 1) the blow won't hurt and 2) over-aggressive reporting will only play to the White House's favor.
The upside of the information lock out, of course, is that few reporters find themselves sweetly spun by such head-patters as Baker. The Bush administration may be doing the press a small favor by snubbing it, freeing reporters to abandon the scripted palaver of the White House and dig elsewhere for stories.
But what of George W. Bush? How does he gain by fortressing himself and his administration away from critics, skeptics, and questioners? How, exactly, does it benefit him to follow the philosophy of Kim Jong-il?
Full Version: The Propaganda President
Common Ground Common Sense > Issues that Affect Our Lives > Civil Rights and Civil Liberties > Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Archive
I'm waiting for Bush to issue a National hair cut law, and I'll bet no homosexual will be consulted.
I've noticed how Bush is like Kim Jong-il and Sadam. He surrounds himself with yes men . No one would dare give him bad news. Those around him tell him what he wants to hear. That's how they survive.
kim jong il also holds "elections". Where he wins. Of course.
QUOTE(rayray222 @ Feb 6 2005, 04:50 AM)
kim jong il also holds "elections". Where he wins. Of course.
So does Bush.
White House Defends Video News Releases
Updated 12:21 PM ET March 15, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88rhjdo0&src=ap
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Monday defended the administration's use of video news releases that are sent to television stations across the country and frequently used without any acknowledgment of the government's role in their production.
In an opinion last week, the Justice Department concluded that the practice was appropriate as long as the videos presented factual information about government programs. The memo was sent to heads of federal departments and agencies.
"The prohibition does not apply where there is no advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and therefore it does not apply to the legitimate provision of information concerning the programs administered by an agency," according to the Justice Department memo.
The advice conflicts with the opinion of the Government Accountability Office, which is the investigative arm of Congress. The GAO says that video news releases amount to illegal "covert propaganda" when they fail to make plain that the government is behind the releases.....
The video news releases _ from the Pentagon, Agriculture Department, Census Bureau and other agencies _ have the appearance of other segments in news programs and frequently are not identified by local stations as being produced by the government.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan suggested the lack of disclosure was the fault of the broadcasters, not the government....
Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey criticized the Justice Department's memo and asked Bush to order that it be rescinded.
"It is wrong to deceive the public with the creation of a phony news story," the lawmakers wrote. "It is also illegal."....
Updated 12:21 PM ET March 15, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88rhjdo0&src=ap
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Monday defended the administration's use of video news releases that are sent to television stations across the country and frequently used without any acknowledgment of the government's role in their production.
In an opinion last week, the Justice Department concluded that the practice was appropriate as long as the videos presented factual information about government programs. The memo was sent to heads of federal departments and agencies.
"The prohibition does not apply where there is no advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and therefore it does not apply to the legitimate provision of information concerning the programs administered by an agency," according to the Justice Department memo.
The advice conflicts with the opinion of the Government Accountability Office, which is the investigative arm of Congress. The GAO says that video news releases amount to illegal "covert propaganda" when they fail to make plain that the government is behind the releases.....
The video news releases _ from the Pentagon, Agriculture Department, Census Bureau and other agencies _ have the appearance of other segments in news programs and frequently are not identified by local stations as being produced by the government.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan suggested the lack of disclosure was the fault of the broadcasters, not the government....
Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey criticized the Justice Department's memo and asked Bush to order that it be rescinded.
"It is wrong to deceive the public with the creation of a phony news story," the lawmakers wrote. "It is also illegal."....
I GUESS IT IS NOT ENOUGH FOR THIS ADMINISTRATION TO SPREAD IT'S PROPAGANDA ONLY IN THE U.S. NOW THEY ARE LOOKING TO DO IT WORLDWIDE.
Karen Hughes: Extreme World Makeover
By David Corn, The Nation. Posted March 15, 2005.
Have you been worrying about the image of the United States overseas? Have no fear, Karen Hughes is here. George W. Bush is nominating Hughes to be under secretary of state in charge of public diplomacy. That's the administration official who oversees the government's efforts to sell the United States abroad. No one has been in this position since the summer – which indicates just how much of a priority Bush has assigned to this task. With the United States' standing abroad at a frightening low level – even though Bush's belated response to the tsunami disaster did boost the United States' image in Indonesia – the White House has done little to enhance public diplomacy. That is, if you don't count Condi Rice strutting across Europe in high-heel, black leather boots. And the nomination of uber-hawk and UN-basher John Bolton to be UN ambassador hardly sent a signal that Bush is serious about working with other nations (and respecting their desires).
What are her Hughes' qualifications for this post? Well, she has been Bush's chief spin doctor since he entered politics. Once a local television reporter, she turned to the dark side. During the 2000 campaign, she actively misled the press about key aspects of Bush's past – most notably, his military service and his drunk-driving conviction. As a White House aide, she used PR tactics, not the truth, to push Bush's reckless policies. Now she'll do the same concerning the United States' image abroad. (If she could sell Bush to the American voters, maybe she can sell dirt as food.)
Of course, the problem is US policies, not the administration's PR efforts. As a report produced by the Defense Science Board last year notes, "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather they hate our policies [in the Middle East]." The Bushies talk about public diplomacy – when the bother to do so – as a marketing issue. ("Gee, I just don't understand why they don't want to buy our new chalk-tasting cola? We must not be pitching it right.") No, this is about product. True, you can successfully market crap and all sorts of stuff that harm consumers. But it sure helps to be peddling something that people want and that they consider high-quality.
Don't count on Hughes to acknowledge that. For her, PR trumps truth. In honor of her pending appointment, I'm posting below two of my favorite instances of Hughes going on a spin-bender. Coincidentally, each comes from my book, The Lies of George W. Bush. Isn't it comforting to know that the person responsible for improving the US image throughout the world is a political hack-loyalist who would say whatever was necessary – no matter how false or ridiculous – to achieve a political aim? Read on:
Soon after [Bush] entered the presidential race, the Associated Press discovered that Bush had not been honest about his military past when he had campaigned unsuccessfully for Congress in 1978. Back then, in an ad in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal, he boasted he had served "in the first U.S. Air Force and the Texas Air National Guard where he piloted the F-102 aircraft." But Bush had done time only in the Guard, not the Air Force. When AP asked Bush's presidential campaign about this, the Bush crew could have taken the opportunity to set the record straight. Instead, Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes told AP that the advertisement had been "accurate," considering the time Bush had spent on alert and in training. "As an officer," she maintained, "he was serving on active duty in the Air Force." Bush himself remarked, "I was in the Air Force for over 600 days." Not so, according to a definitive source – the Air Force. The AP reported that "the Air Force says that Air National Guard is always considered a guardsman and not a member of the active-duty Air Force." The 1978 ad had been a distortion, and Bush and Hughes refused to concede that."
Concerning his more wild days, Bush [during the 2000 campaign] adopted a best-defense-is-a-good-offense stance. He branded any questioning of his personal past illegitimate rumor-mongering. He equated being asked about booze-and-drug issues with being targeted by unfair innuendo. "I'm not ready for rumors and gossip," Bush told USA Today. "I'm ready for the truth. Surely people will learn the truth." What insincerity. He was claiming he wanted people to know the truth about him, but he would not answer a whole set of questions about his past.
One concealed truth Bush had not been "ready for" exploded on November 2, 2000, five days before Election Day. A Maine television channel reported that in 1976, Bush, then 30 years old, was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, for drunken driving. He had admitted to the arresting officer he had been drinking. He paid a $150 fine and had his driving privileges revoked in Maine. After the story broke, at a campaign press conference (his first in a month), candidate Bush acknowledged the report was accurate, and he said that he had never publicly revealed the DWI conviction out of concern he would set a bad example for his twin girls. In the same press conference, Bush maintained, "I have been very candid about my past." This was obviously not a factual statement, since Bush had neglected to disclose this arrest while supposedly being "very candid about his past."
As the story developed, the issue became not his post-youth crime, but one question: Had Bush lied to keep his arrest record a secret? Wayne Slater, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News and a longtime Bush watcher, recalled he had asked Bush in a 1998 interview whether Bush had ever been arrested after 1968. Slater told his media colleagues on the Bush campaign plane that Bush had said no. Slater also remembered that later in that 1998 interview Bush indicated his was about to return to this subject. But as Bush began to say something. Karen Hughes cut in, and Bush said nothing else on the topic.
While Slater was sharing this account, Hughes, several rows away, was presenting her own version to reporters "nervously," according to New York Times correspondent Frank Bruni, This was her line: not only had the governor not said anything false to Slater, he had somehow conveyed an accurate impression that an episode like the 1976 bush had occurred. Hughes, according to UPI, maintained that Bush in the 1998 interview with Slater was "hinting around that something had happened. That's why I stopped the conversation." Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank subsequently wrote that Hughes told the journalists, "I think the implication Wayne was left with was that in fact the governor was acknowledging that he had in fact been arrested." Notice the two "in facts" in one sentence. As Bush quipped, "An accurate impression of an unacknowledged event? It was an awfully weird concept."
This was spin at its most frantic. But that was the Bush camp's story. During a press conference, Hughes said Slater "was clearly left with the impression that the governor – an accurate impression that the governor had been involved in some incident involving alcohol." And she noted that on another occasion, in 1996, Bush was asked directly had he ever been arrested for drinking, and the governor replied, quote, 'I do not have a perfect record as a youth.'" That vague response supposedly was evidence Bush had not outright lied about this arrest. But his 1996 answer had not been responsive. And had he been a "youth" at the age of 30?
Hughes' "explanation" of Bush's exchange with Slater is one of the great examples of political spin. If I were teaching college students about spin, I'd make them study this episode. Hell, it's worth an entire class. Why did the reporters not laugh her into oblivion? How could she get away with this? Here's the kicker: it worked. As Bruni noted after the campaign in a book, he and the Times (that liberal bastion!) played down the DWI charges in the final days of the campaign. And, as we all know, how the Times covers a story often affects how other media will handle it. "Bush and his advisers," Bruni wrote, "didn't end up taking as much heat for [the DWI story] as they perhaps deserved." So Hughes, with the Times' assistance, helped saved Bush's butt at a crucial moment. Can her talents at spin do the same for our entire nation? I'm betting the rest of the world is not as gullible.
David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation and author of "The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception." He writes a blog at davidcorn.com.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21498/
Karen Hughes: Extreme World Makeover
By David Corn, The Nation. Posted March 15, 2005.
Have you been worrying about the image of the United States overseas? Have no fear, Karen Hughes is here. George W. Bush is nominating Hughes to be under secretary of state in charge of public diplomacy. That's the administration official who oversees the government's efforts to sell the United States abroad. No one has been in this position since the summer – which indicates just how much of a priority Bush has assigned to this task. With the United States' standing abroad at a frightening low level – even though Bush's belated response to the tsunami disaster did boost the United States' image in Indonesia – the White House has done little to enhance public diplomacy. That is, if you don't count Condi Rice strutting across Europe in high-heel, black leather boots. And the nomination of uber-hawk and UN-basher John Bolton to be UN ambassador hardly sent a signal that Bush is serious about working with other nations (and respecting their desires).
What are her Hughes' qualifications for this post? Well, she has been Bush's chief spin doctor since he entered politics. Once a local television reporter, she turned to the dark side. During the 2000 campaign, she actively misled the press about key aspects of Bush's past – most notably, his military service and his drunk-driving conviction. As a White House aide, she used PR tactics, not the truth, to push Bush's reckless policies. Now she'll do the same concerning the United States' image abroad. (If she could sell Bush to the American voters, maybe she can sell dirt as food.)
Of course, the problem is US policies, not the administration's PR efforts. As a report produced by the Defense Science Board last year notes, "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather they hate our policies [in the Middle East]." The Bushies talk about public diplomacy – when the bother to do so – as a marketing issue. ("Gee, I just don't understand why they don't want to buy our new chalk-tasting cola? We must not be pitching it right.") No, this is about product. True, you can successfully market crap and all sorts of stuff that harm consumers. But it sure helps to be peddling something that people want and that they consider high-quality.
Don't count on Hughes to acknowledge that. For her, PR trumps truth. In honor of her pending appointment, I'm posting below two of my favorite instances of Hughes going on a spin-bender. Coincidentally, each comes from my book, The Lies of George W. Bush. Isn't it comforting to know that the person responsible for improving the US image throughout the world is a political hack-loyalist who would say whatever was necessary – no matter how false or ridiculous – to achieve a political aim? Read on:
Soon after [Bush] entered the presidential race, the Associated Press discovered that Bush had not been honest about his military past when he had campaigned unsuccessfully for Congress in 1978. Back then, in an ad in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal, he boasted he had served "in the first U.S. Air Force and the Texas Air National Guard where he piloted the F-102 aircraft." But Bush had done time only in the Guard, not the Air Force. When AP asked Bush's presidential campaign about this, the Bush crew could have taken the opportunity to set the record straight. Instead, Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes told AP that the advertisement had been "accurate," considering the time Bush had spent on alert and in training. "As an officer," she maintained, "he was serving on active duty in the Air Force." Bush himself remarked, "I was in the Air Force for over 600 days." Not so, according to a definitive source – the Air Force. The AP reported that "the Air Force says that Air National Guard is always considered a guardsman and not a member of the active-duty Air Force." The 1978 ad had been a distortion, and Bush and Hughes refused to concede that."
Concerning his more wild days, Bush [during the 2000 campaign] adopted a best-defense-is-a-good-offense stance. He branded any questioning of his personal past illegitimate rumor-mongering. He equated being asked about booze-and-drug issues with being targeted by unfair innuendo. "I'm not ready for rumors and gossip," Bush told USA Today. "I'm ready for the truth. Surely people will learn the truth." What insincerity. He was claiming he wanted people to know the truth about him, but he would not answer a whole set of questions about his past.
One concealed truth Bush had not been "ready for" exploded on November 2, 2000, five days before Election Day. A Maine television channel reported that in 1976, Bush, then 30 years old, was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, for drunken driving. He had admitted to the arresting officer he had been drinking. He paid a $150 fine and had his driving privileges revoked in Maine. After the story broke, at a campaign press conference (his first in a month), candidate Bush acknowledged the report was accurate, and he said that he had never publicly revealed the DWI conviction out of concern he would set a bad example for his twin girls. In the same press conference, Bush maintained, "I have been very candid about my past." This was obviously not a factual statement, since Bush had neglected to disclose this arrest while supposedly being "very candid about his past."
As the story developed, the issue became not his post-youth crime, but one question: Had Bush lied to keep his arrest record a secret? Wayne Slater, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News and a longtime Bush watcher, recalled he had asked Bush in a 1998 interview whether Bush had ever been arrested after 1968. Slater told his media colleagues on the Bush campaign plane that Bush had said no. Slater also remembered that later in that 1998 interview Bush indicated his was about to return to this subject. But as Bush began to say something. Karen Hughes cut in, and Bush said nothing else on the topic.
While Slater was sharing this account, Hughes, several rows away, was presenting her own version to reporters "nervously," according to New York Times correspondent Frank Bruni, This was her line: not only had the governor not said anything false to Slater, he had somehow conveyed an accurate impression that an episode like the 1976 bush had occurred. Hughes, according to UPI, maintained that Bush in the 1998 interview with Slater was "hinting around that something had happened. That's why I stopped the conversation." Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank subsequently wrote that Hughes told the journalists, "I think the implication Wayne was left with was that in fact the governor was acknowledging that he had in fact been arrested." Notice the two "in facts" in one sentence. As Bush quipped, "An accurate impression of an unacknowledged event? It was an awfully weird concept."
This was spin at its most frantic. But that was the Bush camp's story. During a press conference, Hughes said Slater "was clearly left with the impression that the governor – an accurate impression that the governor had been involved in some incident involving alcohol." And she noted that on another occasion, in 1996, Bush was asked directly had he ever been arrested for drinking, and the governor replied, quote, 'I do not have a perfect record as a youth.'" That vague response supposedly was evidence Bush had not outright lied about this arrest. But his 1996 answer had not been responsive. And had he been a "youth" at the age of 30?
Hughes' "explanation" of Bush's exchange with Slater is one of the great examples of political spin. If I were teaching college students about spin, I'd make them study this episode. Hell, it's worth an entire class. Why did the reporters not laugh her into oblivion? How could she get away with this? Here's the kicker: it worked. As Bruni noted after the campaign in a book, he and the Times (that liberal bastion!) played down the DWI charges in the final days of the campaign. And, as we all know, how the Times covers a story often affects how other media will handle it. "Bush and his advisers," Bruni wrote, "didn't end up taking as much heat for [the DWI story] as they perhaps deserved." So Hughes, with the Times' assistance, helped saved Bush's butt at a crucial moment. Can her talents at spin do the same for our entire nation? I'm betting the rest of the world is not as gullible.
David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation and author of "The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception." He writes a blog at davidcorn.com.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21498/
Senator Asks FCC to Probe Gov't Videos
Updated 2:08 PM ET March 17, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88stb800&src=ap
By GENARO C. ARMAS
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Senate Democrat influential on telecommunications issues has asked federal regulators to investigate whether any laws were broken by broadcasters who aired video news releases produced by the government.
Stations may have violated the law if they used the video releases without disclosing that the government was the source of the information, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, wrote in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission.
The FCC should "take any remedial measures necessary to prevent station owners from misleading their viewers", said Inouye, adding that any lack of disclosure also represents "a serious breach of journalistic ethics."
Inouye, ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said the FCC should also scrutinize whether stations violated prohibitions against accepting "money, service or other valuable consideration for the airing of content......"
Updated 2:08 PM ET March 17, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88stb800&src=ap
By GENARO C. ARMAS
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Senate Democrat influential on telecommunications issues has asked federal regulators to investigate whether any laws were broken by broadcasters who aired video news releases produced by the government.
Stations may have violated the law if they used the video releases without disclosing that the government was the source of the information, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, wrote in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission.
The FCC should "take any remedial measures necessary to prevent station owners from misleading their viewers", said Inouye, adding that any lack of disclosure also represents "a serious breach of journalistic ethics."
Inouye, ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said the FCC should also scrutinize whether stations violated prohibitions against accepting "money, service or other valuable consideration for the airing of content......"
QUOTE(heritage @ Mar 18 2005, 11:02 AM)
Maureen Dowd has an op-ed in the NY Times about Bush's fake news strategy.
OP-ED COLUMNIST
A Wink and a Fraud
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 17, 2005
George W. Bush started his presidency with a chip on his shoulder. Now he's a barrel of laughs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/17/opinion/17dowd.html
.....The White House isn't backing off its plan to replace real news with faux news. The Bushies created their own reality to convince the country that Iraq was a threat to U.S. security. So even though the war has given birth to some of the very evils it was supposed to fix - like more recruits for Osama, and Saddam's formerly sealed weapons' falling into terrorists' hands - Bushies like the results of their war.
Now the White House has its own gulag: C.I.A. agents snatch suspects and fly them to places like Egypt and Syria to be strung up in chains and tortured. And The Times reported yesterday that at least 26 deaths of prisoners in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan may be criminal homicides. So it also has its own Soviet-style propaganda campaign.
At his news conference yesterday, the president bristled a bit when a reporter reminded him that after it was revealed that his administration was paying columnists to shill for agency programs, Mr. Bush had ordered that such tactics cease.
But, as the reporter noted, the administration is still using government money to produce stories about the government that are broadcast with no disclosure that the government is producing them.
David Barstow and Robin Stein wrote in The Times on Sunday that at least 20 agencies had made and distributed fake news segments to local TV stations; the administration spent $254 million in its first four years to buy self-aggrandizing puffery from P.R. firms.
The president joked that he could tack on an "I'm George W. Bush and I approved this disclaimer." But then he said he wouldn't - that it was up to local stations to reveal the truth.
He said his Justice Department had found that the fake news programs are "within the law so long as they're based upon facts, not advocacy."
And, of course, this is a White House that never makes up facts to suit its purposes or sell its programs. It serves its propaganda baldfaced, with no hint of its real agenda. .....
OP-ED COLUMNIST
A Wink and a Fraud
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 17, 2005
George W. Bush started his presidency with a chip on his shoulder. Now he's a barrel of laughs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/17/opinion/17dowd.html
.....The White House isn't backing off its plan to replace real news with faux news. The Bushies created their own reality to convince the country that Iraq was a threat to U.S. security. So even though the war has given birth to some of the very evils it was supposed to fix - like more recruits for Osama, and Saddam's formerly sealed weapons' falling into terrorists' hands - Bushies like the results of their war.
Now the White House has its own gulag: C.I.A. agents snatch suspects and fly them to places like Egypt and Syria to be strung up in chains and tortured. And The Times reported yesterday that at least 26 deaths of prisoners in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan may be criminal homicides. So it also has its own Soviet-style propaganda campaign.
At his news conference yesterday, the president bristled a bit when a reporter reminded him that after it was revealed that his administration was paying columnists to shill for agency programs, Mr. Bush had ordered that such tactics cease.
But, as the reporter noted, the administration is still using government money to produce stories about the government that are broadcast with no disclosure that the government is producing them.
David Barstow and Robin Stein wrote in The Times on Sunday that at least 20 agencies had made and distributed fake news segments to local TV stations; the administration spent $254 million in its first four years to buy self-aggrandizing puffery from P.R. firms.
The president joked that he could tack on an "I'm George W. Bush and I approved this disclaimer." But then he said he wouldn't - that it was up to local stations to reveal the truth.
He said his Justice Department had found that the fake news programs are "within the law so long as they're based upon facts, not advocacy."
And, of course, this is a White House that never makes up facts to suit its purposes or sell its programs. It serves its propaganda baldfaced, with no hint of its real agenda. .....
Editorial: Joint betrayal / Let the media, not the government, report the news
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Saturday, March 19, 2005
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05078/474014.stm
A disturbing report in last Sunday's New York Times revealed that the Bush administration is producing and distributing at taxpayer expense promotions for its policies that appear in the media as news. These "news segments," which end up primarily on television, do not acknowledge that they are government productions.
The target audience of this propaganda is not the Iraqis or other Middle Easterners whose hearts and minds the State Department would like to win. It is the American people.
Just as deceptive as the administration are some members of the media. Instead of giving an ethical response to government-produced and -provided material -- stony skepticism, at least before having a close look -- hundreds of TV stations have simply gobbled up the time-fillers that the government has provided and run them. They have also generally provided viewers no attribution for the source of the material.
This is the moral equivalent of the press reporting as news the claims of the purveyors of exercise machines without revealing who is promoting and trying to sell the purported ab-enhancers and fanny-shrinkers. Bush administration programs in 20 agencies (including the departments of State, Agriculture and Defense) have benefited from the TV promotions. Subjects covered have included Medicare and the post-Abu Ghraib training of military prison guards.
Media outlets that have carried the material, presumably saving themselves programming money, include CNN, Fox, Time-Warner, ABC and The Associated Press. Some programs have included "reporting" from fake journalists such as Karen Ryan, Jennifer Morrow and Chris Wuerther.
The 1948 Smith-Mundt Act is supposed to prevent the federal government from making and disseminating propaganda directed against the American people. During the Cold War the U.S. Information Agency, whose material was targeted at Communist and non-aligned countries, was strictly forbidden even to broadcast its material at home.
But now, starting with the Clinton administration and increasing during the Bush years, it is different, according to the Times. Although the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office called the government campaign improper covert propaganda, the White House said its lawyers at the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Justice considered the practice legal and that the GAO should mind its own business.
Legal or not, the U.S. government should not try to dupe the American people with policy promotions that are packaged as news. Nor should the media succumb to laziness or shoddy ethics in allowing such information to appear as news that it produces.
The unholy marriage of government and media in this practice is fundamentally dishonest. While the government uses taxpayer money to propagandize the population, members of the press collaborate in the action to mislead the American people. Both betray their correct roles, all the while betraying us. It needs to stop, now.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Saturday, March 19, 2005
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05078/474014.stm
A disturbing report in last Sunday's New York Times revealed that the Bush administration is producing and distributing at taxpayer expense promotions for its policies that appear in the media as news. These "news segments," which end up primarily on television, do not acknowledge that they are government productions.
The target audience of this propaganda is not the Iraqis or other Middle Easterners whose hearts and minds the State Department would like to win. It is the American people.
Just as deceptive as the administration are some members of the media. Instead of giving an ethical response to government-produced and -provided material -- stony skepticism, at least before having a close look -- hundreds of TV stations have simply gobbled up the time-fillers that the government has provided and run them. They have also generally provided viewers no attribution for the source of the material.
This is the moral equivalent of the press reporting as news the claims of the purveyors of exercise machines without revealing who is promoting and trying to sell the purported ab-enhancers and fanny-shrinkers. Bush administration programs in 20 agencies (including the departments of State, Agriculture and Defense) have benefited from the TV promotions. Subjects covered have included Medicare and the post-Abu Ghraib training of military prison guards.
Media outlets that have carried the material, presumably saving themselves programming money, include CNN, Fox, Time-Warner, ABC and The Associated Press. Some programs have included "reporting" from fake journalists such as Karen Ryan, Jennifer Morrow and Chris Wuerther.
The 1948 Smith-Mundt Act is supposed to prevent the federal government from making and disseminating propaganda directed against the American people. During the Cold War the U.S. Information Agency, whose material was targeted at Communist and non-aligned countries, was strictly forbidden even to broadcast its material at home.
But now, starting with the Clinton administration and increasing during the Bush years, it is different, according to the Times. Although the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office called the government campaign improper covert propaganda, the White House said its lawyers at the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Justice considered the practice legal and that the GAO should mind its own business.
Legal or not, the U.S. government should not try to dupe the American people with policy promotions that are packaged as news. Nor should the media succumb to laziness or shoddy ethics in allowing such information to appear as news that it produces.
The unholy marriage of government and media in this practice is fundamentally dishonest. While the government uses taxpayer money to propagandize the population, members of the press collaborate in the action to mislead the American people. Both betray their correct roles, all the while betraying us. It needs to stop, now.
POLITICAL CARTOON
Fake News
Sunday, March 20, 2005
http://www.post-gazette.com/robrogers/default.asp?id=1
Fake News
Sunday, March 20, 2005
http://www.post-gazette.com/robrogers/default.asp?id=1
Count on Helen Thomas to give it to us straight.
http://www.theomahachannel.com/helenthomas...085/detail.html
http://www.theomahachannel.com/helenthomas...085/detail.html
QUOTE
Screened Audiences, Fake News Promote Bush Agenda
Bush, Government Manipulate Media
Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist
POSTED: 9:33 am CST March 31, 2005
President George W. Bush has learned to use the bully pulpit that is the powerful prerogative of all presidents.
But this president has tried to tweak that power in ways that expand the definition of "managed news."
Let's start with his national campaign to change Social Security.
As he travels around the nation to make his pitch that Social Security is in a crisis, the president is limiting his congregation to screened, sanitized audiences. Why does he sermonize on the subject only to carefully selected audiences?
These are people who are vetted to make sure they agree with the president's views. If they pass that test, the local Republican Party or the groups sponsoring the event then issue tickets to the so-called "town meetings" or "conversations with the president."
Asked why the president speaks only to his supporters, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush's intention is to "educate" the people. He probably meant "indoctrinate."
Is this the president of all the people -- or just some of the people who agree with him?
It's bizarre. He's preaching to the choir, hardly the way to "educate" the public.
Controlling his audience was a prime goal of Bush's 2004 presidential campaign, when anti-war protesters were barred from his public appearances. People who openly disagreed with him were hustled out of the hall. We're now seeing the same audience control when Bush speaks about Social Security. The Secret Service and White House aides apparently spend a lot of time trying to handpick those permitted to hear him.
Bush seems satisfied that he has made Social Security a worry to people. That's the goal of his sky-is-falling campaign. But the president is not ready to handle genuine dialogue on the subject or deal with those opposed to his plan to partially privatize the government pension program.
Every administration tries to manage the message that the news media convey to the public about presidential policies, problems and successes. But the Bush White House is pioneering new methods that steer message management into outright government propaganda.
The New York Times on March 13 published an in-depth report on how the administration is cranking up its public relations campaign to manipulate broadcast news by distributing pre-packaged videos prepared by several federal agencies, including the Pentagon.
These videos use phony reporters to tout the administration's position on major issues. Thinly staffed TV stations are only too happy to receive the free videos, which they then pass along to viewers without any acknowledgement that the images and messages are government issue.
Spokespersons for the major TV networks say they would never disseminate government-prepared videos for their news broadcasts. But some financially strapped affiliates apparently are willing to air them without identifying the source.
The government agencies say it is up to the broadcast stations to attribute the origin of the report, if they want to do so.
This practice is far over the ethical line. Shame on both the government agencies and those TV stations.
The Government Accountability Office -- a congressional investigative unit -- has ruled that such government videos represent "covert propaganda." The GAO declared that agencies may not produce pre-packaged news reports "that conceal or do not clearly identify for the television viewing audience" that they were made by the government.
But the White House rejected that opinion and handed reporters a memorandum from the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget directing the federal agencies to ignore the GAO verdict.
The memo contended that the GAO did not distinguish between propaganda and "purely informational" news reports and claimed there was no requirement for a federal agency to label its disguised broadcasts.
This is consistent with the administration's other outrageous exercise in propaganda, which took the form of paying a few columnists and broadcasters, such as Armstrong Williams, to promote administration programs.
Williams pushed the Education Department's "No Child Left Behind" program without disclosing that he was on Uncle Sam's payroll.
The president called a halt to paying pundits, saying "there needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press."
He needs to pay more attention to other administration actions that threaten that independence.
Bush, Government Manipulate Media
Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist
POSTED: 9:33 am CST March 31, 2005
President George W. Bush has learned to use the bully pulpit that is the powerful prerogative of all presidents.
But this president has tried to tweak that power in ways that expand the definition of "managed news."
Let's start with his national campaign to change Social Security.
As he travels around the nation to make his pitch that Social Security is in a crisis, the president is limiting his congregation to screened, sanitized audiences. Why does he sermonize on the subject only to carefully selected audiences?
These are people who are vetted to make sure they agree with the president's views. If they pass that test, the local Republican Party or the groups sponsoring the event then issue tickets to the so-called "town meetings" or "conversations with the president."
Asked why the president speaks only to his supporters, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush's intention is to "educate" the people. He probably meant "indoctrinate."
Is this the president of all the people -- or just some of the people who agree with him?
It's bizarre. He's preaching to the choir, hardly the way to "educate" the public.
Controlling his audience was a prime goal of Bush's 2004 presidential campaign, when anti-war protesters were barred from his public appearances. People who openly disagreed with him were hustled out of the hall. We're now seeing the same audience control when Bush speaks about Social Security. The Secret Service and White House aides apparently spend a lot of time trying to handpick those permitted to hear him.
Bush seems satisfied that he has made Social Security a worry to people. That's the goal of his sky-is-falling campaign. But the president is not ready to handle genuine dialogue on the subject or deal with those opposed to his plan to partially privatize the government pension program.
Every administration tries to manage the message that the news media convey to the public about presidential policies, problems and successes. But the Bush White House is pioneering new methods that steer message management into outright government propaganda.
The New York Times on March 13 published an in-depth report on how the administration is cranking up its public relations campaign to manipulate broadcast news by distributing pre-packaged videos prepared by several federal agencies, including the Pentagon.
These videos use phony reporters to tout the administration's position on major issues. Thinly staffed TV stations are only too happy to receive the free videos, which they then pass along to viewers without any acknowledgement that the images and messages are government issue.
Spokespersons for the major TV networks say they would never disseminate government-prepared videos for their news broadcasts. But some financially strapped affiliates apparently are willing to air them without identifying the source.
The government agencies say it is up to the broadcast stations to attribute the origin of the report, if they want to do so.
This practice is far over the ethical line. Shame on both the government agencies and those TV stations.
The Government Accountability Office -- a congressional investigative unit -- has ruled that such government videos represent "covert propaganda." The GAO declared that agencies may not produce pre-packaged news reports "that conceal or do not clearly identify for the television viewing audience" that they were made by the government.
But the White House rejected that opinion and handed reporters a memorandum from the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget directing the federal agencies to ignore the GAO verdict.
The memo contended that the GAO did not distinguish between propaganda and "purely informational" news reports and claimed there was no requirement for a federal agency to label its disguised broadcasts.
This is consistent with the administration's other outrageous exercise in propaganda, which took the form of paying a few columnists and broadcasters, such as Armstrong Williams, to promote administration programs.
Williams pushed the Education Department's "No Child Left Behind" program without disclosing that he was on Uncle Sam's payroll.
The president called a halt to paying pundits, saying "there needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press."
He needs to pay more attention to other administration actions that threaten that independence.
Our tax dollars are paying for this propaganda.
Senator Santorum-PA, couldn't get a receptive audience in PA, so he went to Florida to preach to the choir about SS. Fortunately? for him, he canceled that town hall and went to promote himself in front of Terri Schiavo's hospice on Wednesday.
Senator Santorum-PA, couldn't get a receptive audience in PA, so he went to Florida to preach to the choir about SS. Fortunately? for him, he canceled that town hall and went to promote himself in front of Terri Schiavo's hospice on Wednesday.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.