Bush Shows No Remorse for Fake Newscasts
by William Fisher

NEW YORK -- Despite a rising chorus of condemnation from journalists and
media critics, the George W. Bush administration shows no signs of
abandoning its distribution of taxpayer-funded "news" to U.S. newspapers,
radio and television stations.

Free press advocates are up in arms about what they say is the covert
dissemination of propaganda by government agencies.

In one case, the administration -- seeking to build support among black
families for its education reform plans -- paid a prominent African
American pundit, Armstrong Williams, 240,000 dollars to promote the "No
Child Left Behind" law on his nationally syndicated television show and
through his newspaper column, and to urge other black journalists to do
the same.

Two other nationally known journalists, Maggie Gallagher and Michael
McManus, have also admitted accepting thousands of dollars to endorse
government programs.

Since 2001, the Army and Air Force Hometown News Service has fielded 40
reporters, producers and public affairs specialists to create "good
military news" to be beamed to home audiences via local news stations. The
service's "good news" segments have reportedly reached 41 million
Americans via local newscasts -- in most cases, without the station
acknowledging their source.

More than 20 different federal agencies used taxpayer funds to produce
television news segments promoting Bush administration policies. These
"video news releases," or VNRs, were broadcast on hundreds of local news
programs. without disclosing their source.

And the military's TV outlet the Pentagon Channel, which formerly targeted
the armed forces, is now available to U.S. citizens via every satellite
and cable operator.

Regarding the VNRs, Pres. Bush said the government's practice of sending
"packaged news stories" to local television stations was legal and he has
no plans to cease it.

His defense of the packages, which are designed to look like television
news segments, came after the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a
Congressional watchdog agency, called them a form of covert propaganda.

The administration responded that, "Executive Branch agencies are not
bound by GAO's legal advice" but should be guided by the views of the
Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, part of the executive
branch.

GAO said that publications that are "misleading as to their origin and
reasonably constitute 'propaganda' within the common understanding of that
term." Its definition of propaganda includes "covert attempts to mold
opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties."

Last week, two influential media advocacy groups, Free Press and the
Center for Media and Democracy, filed a complaint with the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) urging Chairman Kevin J. Martin to
investigate broadcasters who distribute government-sponsored news reports
without identifying their source.

Nearly 40,000 concerned citizens have already signed a petition circulated
by the two groups last week calling on the FCC, Congress and local
broadcasters to "stop fake news", the groups reported.

Free Press is a nonpartisan organization working to increase informed
public participation in media policy and promote more public
interest-oriented media. The Center for Media and Democracy publishes "PR
Watch", a newsletter that investigates the public relations industry and
other professional propagandists.

According to Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, the petition
calls on the FCC to "take quick action to investigate and eradicate news
fraud and enforce the existing laws against payola. Congress must enact
new laws that will stop government-funded fake news from airing without a
disclaimer."

Other media critics were equally vocal.

"The administration practice of clandestine support for commentators and
video press releases reinforces the nagging suspicion that much of what
passes for news nowadays is actually bought and paid for in order to
advance a particular agenda," Steven Aftergood, who runs the Project on
Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, told IPS.

"Paying journalists to write positive stories is part of a pattern of
secrecy and manipulating the public that undermines our safety and our
democracy."

Rick Blum of OpenTheGovernment.org, another pro-transparency advocacy
group, charged that "The public expects journalists are credible and
independent, free of government money and conflicts of interest."

He told IPS, "Government actions should stand the scrutiny of an
enterprising, independent press. Using tax dollars to literally write the
news about government programs, new drug approvals, consumer protection
programs, and security efforts robs taxpayers of an effective watch on how
their tax dollars are spent."

Norman Solomon, a syndicated columnist on media and politics and founder
of the Institute for Public Accuracy, said in an interview that the
subterfuge involved was the most dangerous aspect.

"The 'video news releases' put out by the U.S. government are pernicious
because the TV broadcasts often do not tell the viewers that the
government is funding and controlling those supposed 'news' reports," he
said.

Martin Kaplan, head of the Lear Center at the University of Southern
California's Annenberg School for Communication, believes that as a
result, the legitimacy of all news has been undermined.

"It's bad enough that the Bush administration is disseminating domestic
propaganda," he told IPS. "But the consequence of their injecting fake
news into the media mainstream may be even worse than poisoning public
debate on specific issues. It corrodes the ability of real journalism to
do its job."

The federal government's practice of sending "packaged news" to media
outlets began under the Bill Clinton administration. Pres. Bush has not
only continued the practice, he has doubled the amount of federal tax
dollars that are used for this purpose, spending 254 million dollars in
his first term.

Free Press and the Center for Media and Democracy are also working with
local groups to establish "citizen agreements" with local stations, under
which broadcasters pledge to clearly identify or label pre-packaged
reports produced the government.

Soon after the Armstrong Williams scandal broke, Melanie Sloan of Citizens
for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) requests to 22 federal agencies. She is seeking evidence of
similar arrangements between the executive branch, PR firms and pundits.

FOIA was signed into law by President Johnson in 1966 to increase public
access to federal government records.

Since Bush entered office, the report says, there has been a more than 75
percent increase in the amount of government information classified as
secret each year. There has been a corresponding explosion in the number
of requests for information under FOIA.

"Yet an even more aggressive form of government information control has
gone un-enumerated and often unrecognized in the Bush era, as government
agencies have restricted access to unclassified information in libraries,
archives, Web sites, and official databases," says Steven Aftergood.

Copyright © 2005 IPS-Inter Press Service

www.washingtonpost.com

Administration Paid Commentator
Education Dept. Used Williams to Promote 'No Child' Law
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 8, 2005; Page A01


The Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $241,000 to
help promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law on the air, an
arrangement that Williams acknowledged yesterday involved "bad judgment"
on his part.

In taking the money, funneled through the Ketchum Inc. public relations
firm, Williams produced and aired a commercial on his syndicated
television and radio shows featuring Education Secretary Roderick R.
Paige, touted Bush's education policy, and urged other programs to
interview Paige. He did not disclose the contract when talking about the
law during cable television appearances or writing about it in his
newspaper column.

Congressional Democrats immediately accused the administration of trying
to bribe journalists. Williams's newspaper syndicate, Tribune Media
Services, yesterday canceled his column. And one television network
dropped his program pending an investigation.

Williams, one of the most prominent black conservatives in the media, said
he understands "why some people think it's unethical." Asked if people
would be justified in thinking he sold his opinions to the government for
cash, he said: "It's fair for someone to make that assessment."

The Education Department contract, first reported yesterday by USA Today,
increased criticism of the administration's aggressive approach to news
management. The department already has paid Ketchum $700,000 to rate
journalists on how positively or negatively they report on No Child Left
Behind, and to produce a video release on the law that was used by some
television stations as if it were real news. Other government agencies --
including the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention -- also have distributed such prepackaged videos, a practice
that congressional auditors have described as illegal in some cases.

The Williams incident follows a series of other media embarrassments in
the past 18 months involving such high-profile outlets as the New York
Times, USA Today and CBS News that have further eroded the credibility of
the news business.

Rep. George Miller (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House education
committee, said the Williams contract "is propaganda, it's unethical, it's
dangerous and it's illegal" and called it "worthy of Pravda." Committee
Chairman John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) agreed to join Miller in requesting an
inspector general's investigation, a spokesman said.

Miller cited two Government Accountability Office opinions that the
administration violated federal law with video news releases. In May, the
GAO criticized the Department of Health and Human Services for using the
technique to promote Medicare's new prescription drug benefit. This week,
it criticized the Office of National Drug Control Policy for distributing
similar reports with a contractor posing as a journalist, including a
"suggested live intro" for anchors to read.

Miller, joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other
Democrats, asked Bush in a letter to put an end to "covert propaganda."

In a separate letter, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and
Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked the
president to recover the money paid to Williams. "We believe that the act
of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies
undermines the integrity of our democracy," they wrote.

The Education Department defended the contract, which Paige knew about in
advance, as a minority outreach effort through Williams's syndicated
program, "The Right Side."

"Our contract was for advertising," said department spokesman John
Gibbons. "Our intent was to reach out to minority audiences. Armstrong
went out and talked about it -- we didn't have anything to do with that."

But the contract also required Williams to "utilize his long term working
relationship" with black producers to "encourage" them to "periodically
address the No Child Left Behind Act."

"Our objective was to put out basic information to audiences. . . . We
certainly had no intention to do it in an underhanded way," Gibbons added.
He said the department stopped putting out video news releases after the
first GAO report and has no other contract involving payments to
journalists. Ketchum executives declined to comment.

Alex Jones, director of Harvard's Shorenstein media center, said he is
"disgusted" by what he called "the worst kind of fakery and flackery" on
Williams's part. "It's propaganda masquerading as news, paid by
government, truly a recipe from hell," he said. "It would make any
thinking person hearing any pundit speak want to say, 'Okay, how much did
they pay you to say that?' " Jones said the contract also shows that "the
Bush administration neither understands nor respects the idea of an
independent media."

Williams, a onetime aide to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is the
founder and chief executive of the Graham Williams Group, a public
relations firm on Capitol Hill, and, according to his Web site, a
"multi-media wonder." He frequently discusses politics on CNN and other
networks and on his own radio show. "The Right Side," owned and hosted by
Williams, is carried by the Lynchburg, Va.-based Liberty Channel, which is
affiliated with Jerry Falwell; Sky Angel satellite network, a Christian
organization; and Sinclair Broadcast Group.

His other show, "On Point" -- on which Williams interviewed Paige last
year, as well as Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice -- is carried by TV One, a
Silver Spring-based network aimed at African Americans. Williams said he
had disclosed his contract to TV One, but chief executive Johnathon
Rodgers said the network knew nothing about it and has taken the show off
the air while it investigates.

"As a former journalist, I'm bothered by things like this -- people being
in the pay of various political groups and pressing their messages without
a declaration," Rodgers said.

As a longtime supporter of No Child Left Behind, Williams said, he was
receptive in the summer of 2003 when Education Department and Ketchum
officials approached him about buying an ad on "The Right Side" to promote
the law. Although he "agonized" over the first of two six-month contracts,
he said, the law "is something I believe in."

Williams said he aired the spot twice on each "Right Side" broadcast and
disclosed the contract on that show. He said he successfully urged another
black television personality, Steve Harvey, to twice interview Paige.

Williams has written several newspaper columns defending administration
education policy. Last January, he wrote that the No Child Left Behind law
"has provided more funds to poor children than any other education bill in
this country's history." In May, he wrote that the law "holds entire
schools accountable."

Chicago-based Tribune Media Services dropped Williams's column yesterday,
saying he had violated his contract. "Accepting compensation in any form
from an entity that serves as a subject of his weekly newspaper columns
creates, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest,"
prompting readers to ask whether his opinions "have been purchased by a
third party," a company statement said.

In October, Williams praised the law on CNN. He "didn't disclose to us
that he was a paid spokesman, and we believe he should have," said CNN
spokesman Matthew Furman. "We will obviously take that into serious
consideration before booking Armstrong in the future."

Williams said he will not accept such government contracts again.

Spokesmen for other federal agencies acknowledged yesterday that they also
have distributed prepackaged video news releases. Last March, the Census
Bureau sent out a video release to trumpet Women's History Month. "Women
are breaking the gender barrier in one field after another," contractor
Karen Ryan, who produced and narrated the videos, said, citing a Census
Bureau analysis. The story included comments by Sen. Susan Collins
(R-Maine) and Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and ended with the
sign-off: "I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

Census officials said yesterday that they no longer distribute tapes that
could be broadcast as complete news stories.

As recently as October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
shipped a video package on the flu vaccine that mimics a real news report.
Spokesman Tom Skinner said he expects broadcasters to use the information
as components of their own stories.

Staff writer Ceci Connolly contributed to this report.