Covert Propaganda

It has been reported for some time now that the Bush White House has a first class, USSR style, propaganda machine. Yesterday the New York Times wrote a very good article. They have paid political pundits to push their programs, placed a shill in the White House press corps and created fake news reports to promote their agenda. These "news reports" are made to look just like the news you are watching and shown during the regular news broadcast but they don't tell you are watching a government produced "commercial". "There needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press," Mr. Bush told reporters in January. This was after it came to light that pundits were being paid to push their agenda. Apparently this does not apply to their "news casts". The government says it's not a government problem, it is up to the TV stations to tell who made the news segments. The GAO told the White last month to stop this practice but yesterday the Justice department said don't worry about it, it's legal. It is hard enough for the public to wade through all the BS on TV, now we have to try and figure out if we are watching a CNN "report" or a government "infomercial". Bush did not start this kind of propaganda but apparently they have greatly expanded it, spending nearly double what the last Clinton administration spent. Of course this is "our money" they are spending. News organizations say they can't afford to produce all the news out there so it's cheaper to get pre-packaged productions. So it all comes back to the all mighty dollar. The Radio-Television News Directors Association has a code of ethics but obviously there is no enforcement. The FCC can enforce but never has disciplined a station for showing government-made news segments without disclosing their origin. I guess the FCC is to busy keeping us safe from all those bare nipples out there. The New York Times reports in there article, Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News, that some news stations don't seem to know that these programs are made by the government. Many of the "good news" reports that come out of Iraq and Afghanistan are actually produced totally by the State Department. A local news station just puts their own "look" on it by using their own reporter for the narration. Laurie Garrett is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science and medical writer, last week she quit Newsday. In her memo to her colleagues she wrote: "All across America news organizations have been devoured by massive corporations, and allegiance to stockholders, the drive for higher share prices, and push for larger dividend returns trumps everything that the grunts in the newsrooms consider their missions." Apparently news organizations have found a cheaper way of producing news stories, just let the government do it for them.