Bush government competing with Jon Stewart and "The Onion" for Best Fake News, LOL.
usatoday.com
Last year, at least 40 TV stations across the USA carried reports by Karen Ryan about the new Medicare drug benefit. It was all happy news — nothing about the bill's expense or the controversy over the pharmaceutical industry's role in getting it passed. That's because Karen Ryan wasn't a reporter. She was imitating a reporter for federal agencies preparing fake news broadcasts.
At his press conference Wednesday, President Bush defended his administration's practice of sending these sorts of taxpayer-financed "news" stories to local TV stations. No wonder. To the White House, the fake-news programming generated by at least 20 government agencies looks like a winner. In video news releases, the administration gets to sell voters on its Medicare benefit, its policy in Iraq and the No Child Left Behind education law without the annoying objectivity a real reporter might bring to the subject.
Hundreds of stations have aired these packaged releases and, according to The New York Times, some have tried to pass the government "reporter" off as one of their own.
This cozy arrangement works for the White House, which gets to spread its spin, and for unethical TV stations, which get free material to fill their broadcasts. But it doesn't work for the public, which pays to have itself fed propaganda — a practice better suited to a banana republic dictatorship.
Stations "ought to tell their viewers what they're watching," Bush said.
Better yet, they shouldn't air it at all.
The legality of the videos, which the Clinton administration also used, is questionable at best. What's not in doubt is the power of the White House to steer public opinion. In the run-up to the Iraq war, the White House repeatedly associated Saddam Hussein with Osama bin Laden. Small wonder that 47% of those polled by Harris last month said Saddam helped plan the 9/11 attacks, even though there's no evidence he did.
The White House does have some standards on phony journalism. After USA TODAY revealed in January that the Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote No Child Left Behind, Bush put an end to such payments.
Video releases and commentator payoffs are very different, maintains the White House. Barely. With the video releases, there's no middleman.
Jon Stewart likes to bill his satiric Daily Show as "the most trusted name in fake news." He shouldn't have competition for that honor from the federal government — or from local broadcasters. |
