Reply #14: Fake news makes foul government

[dzika]

March 16, 2005

Fake news makes foul government

Clarence Page

WASHINGTON -- Jon Stewart's satirical "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central likes to call itself "No. 1 in fake news." Team Bush seems determined to challenge the show for the title--with our tax dollars.

In memos sent last week to federal agency heads, the Bush White House rejected a Government Accountability Office ruling that it is illegal for federal agencies to feed TV stations prepackaged "news stories" that do not disclose the government's role in producing them.

Fake-news stories, called "video news releases" in the public relations industry, are a huge business. The PR trade produces thousands a year, mostly for corporate clients. Designed to resemble independently reported news stories, these video news releases can be broadcast without editing and, to their everlasting shame, some TV stations have chosen to run them without identifying their government source.

All White House administrations use public funds to push their agendas, but they should make a decent effort to inform the public as to where the hype is coming from. Then voters can decide whether they think the money is well spent. But when TV stations put stories on the air without announcing that the stories are government-produced, the stations become megaphones for government propaganda.

Three times in recent months the Government Accountability Office ruled that the made-for-TV stories from the Department of Health and Human Services about the Medicare drug benefit and from the Office of National Drug Control Policy for the administration's anti-drug campaign violate federal laws against such covert propaganda. But the Bush administration's latest memos, first reported Sunday by the New York Times, absolve the fake stories where there is "no advocacy of a particular viewpoint" in "the legitimate provision of information" concerning government programs.

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