http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21459/Spinning Out of Sight
By Diane Farsetta, AlterNet
Posted on March 10, 2005,
In some ways, Armstrong Williams got a bad rap. The conservative black commentator, who was paid by the U.S. Department of Education to advertise and advocate for the controversial “No Child Left Behind” law, lost his syndicated newspaper column and was pilloried for not disclosing the payment.
Williams did indeed betray the public trust, but he was a small fry – a subcontractor who received a mere $240,000 of a one-million-dollar deal between the Education Department and Ketchum, one of the world’s largest public-relations agencies.
And that deal is just the tip of the iceberg.
A recent House Committee on Government Reform investigation – launched after similar revelations about two other commentators besides Williams – identified Ketchum as the largest recipient of recent PR spending, with contracts totaling more than $100 million. Looking into federal procurement records for contracts with major PR firms since 1997, the committee's minority office also found that the Bush administration doubled the government's PR spending to $250 million, over its first term.
Yet there is little information about what that money was spent on. The lack of transparency is especially alarming given the recent spate of PR-related scandals, which include not just paid commentators but also the use of video news releases (VNRs) aired on TV stations as news reports. The Government Accountability Office issued two rulings declaring the VNRs produced for two federal agencies in violation of the ban on covert government propaganda.
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