Tactics and Substance in the 2004 Elections GoogleNews: Howard Dean

March 13, 2005

by V

One arm of the Red Propaganda effort and its enablers

Some fairly good in-depth reporting from the New York Times:

Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged Television News
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.

This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source.

Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the "reporters" are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration.

Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform. Others focused on less prominent matters, like the administration's efforts to offer free after-school tutoring, its campaign to curb childhood obesity, its initiatives to preserve forests and wetlands, its plans to fight computer viruses, even its attempts to fight holiday drunken driving. They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy...
It's not all the government's doing, though.. plenty of the other players very happily go along:
An examination of government-produced news reports offers a look inside a world where the traditional lines between public relations and journalism have become tangled, where local anchors introduce prepackaged segments with "suggested" lead-ins written by public relations experts. It is a world where government-produced reports disappear into a maze of satellite transmissions, Web portals, syndicated news programs and network feeds, only to emerge cleansed on the other side as "independent" journalism.
Interestingly:
The practice, which also occurred in the Clinton administration, is continuing despite President Bush's recent call for a clearer demarcation between journalism and government publicity efforts.
No administration should be doing this. But it's definitely increased under Bush:
Federal agencies have been commissioning video news releases since at least the first Clinton administration. An increasing number of state agencies are producing television news reports, too; the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department alone has produced some 500 video news releases since 1993.

Under the Bush administration, federal agencies appear to be producing more releases, and on a broader array of topics.

A definitive accounting is nearly impossible. There is no comprehensive archive of local television news reports, as there is in print journalism, so there is no easy way to determine what has been broadcast, and when and where.

Still, several large agencies, including the Defense Department, the State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services, acknowledge expanded efforts to produce news segments. Many members of Mr. Bush's first-term cabinet appeared in such segments.

A recent study by Congressional Democrats offers another rough indicator: the Bush administration spent $254 million in its first term on public relations contracts, nearly double what the last Clinton administration spent.
The 'news' channels are sometimes very complicit themselves, even if the government agency does identify itself as the source in the report (I found this mighty surprising):
Even if agencies do disclose their role, those efforts can easily be undone in a broadcaster's editing room. Some news organizations, for example, simply identify the government's "reporter" as one of their own and then edit out any phrase suggesting the segment was not of their making.

So in a recent segment produced by the Agriculture Department, the agency's narrator ended the report by saying "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture." Yet AgDay, a syndicated farm news program that is shown on some 160 stations, simply introduced the segment as being by "AgDay's Pat O'Leary." The final sentence was then trimmed to "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting."
The infamous Karen Ryan comes in for some sympathetic treatment from the Times; she palms off plenty of responsibility onto the lazy/deceptive media organizations who want to seem like they have more resources than they do --
Ms. Ryan said she was surprised by the number of stations willing to run her government segments without any editing or acknowledgement of origin. As proud as she says she is of her work, she did not hesitate, even for a second, when asked if she would have broadcast one of her government reports if she were a local news director.

"Absolutely not."
Amusingly, the Times called up some TV stations and asked about running government video releases without attribution, and of course they all said they would never do such a thing.. but the Times had proof that they did.
Confronted with such evidence, most news directors were at a loss to explain how the segments made it on the air. Some said they were unable to find archive tapes that would help answer the question. Others promised to look into it, then stopped returning telephone messages. A few removed the segments from their Web sites, promised greater vigilance in the future or pleaded ignorance.
A fine report; I recommend the whole thing.
Posted by V at March 13, 2005 10:30 AM
Comments

Excellent analysis

Posted by: Marrty at March 15, 2005 08:55 PM

"Confronted with such evidence, most news directors were at a loss to explain how the segments made it on the air."

I think it might be due to local TV news' tendency to be utterly worthless. just a hunch.

Posted by: ben at March 24, 2005 04:07 PM

No postings in the last month -- is this site dead?

Posted by: Shooter at April 9, 2005 09:18 PM

The U.S. government is doing a good job of instructing Americans through the media.

This brought to my mind one of the misleading/ untruth broadcast made by the US government when they wanted to build public support for a war against Iraq. manufactured story in 1990 invading Iraqi soldiers pulled Kuwaiti premature babies from their incubators and left them to die on the cold floor.

This message is a form of modern propaganda as its not blatantly untrue. But even if the message conveys only "true" information, generally contain partisan bias and fail to paint a complete and balanced picture. this form of propagandist may seek to influence opinion by attempting to get a message heard in as many places as possible, and as often as possible. The intention of this is to reinforce an idea through repetition, and drown-out or exclude any alternative ideas.

"MEDIA IS THE KNEW GOVERNMENT'S PROPAGANDA ARM"

Posted by: khudeja at April 24, 2005 05:57 PM

Recommended Reading:

The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity: A Diplomat's Memoir
The Politics of Truth... A Diplomat's Memoir


Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush
Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush


Against All Enemies by Richard Clarke
Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror


LIES by Al Franken
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right


The Great Unraveling
The Great Unraveling


The Great Big Book of Tomorrow
The Great Big Book of Tomorrow


Clinton Wars
The Clinton Wars


Blinded by the Right
Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative


Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat

Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture

Living History

The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton

John Adams

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace

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