It looks like the media is catching up to All the President's Spin -- Jay Rosen, an NYU prof, wrote a widely publicized post last month arguing that the Bush administration is trying to delegitimize the press, which is the thesis of Chapter 2 of the book.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has been even more dishonest than we thought. In the conclusion to the book, we used the Karen Ryan story, in which the administration used a phony "video news release" to get its message into local newscasts unedited, as an example of how bad things could get if the public doesn't take a stand. But Sunday's New York Times revealed that the practice is shockingly pervasive:
Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.
Yesterday President Bush defended the practice during a news conference:
Q Mr. President, earlier this year, you told us you wanted your administration to cease and desist on payments to journalists to promote your agenda. You cited the need for ethical concerns and the need for bright line between the press and the government. Your administration continue to make the use of video news releases, which is prepackaged news stories sent to television stations, fully aware that some -- or many of these stations will air them without any disclaimer that they are produced by the government. The Comptroller General of the United States, this week, said that raises ethical questions. Does it raise ethical questions about the use of government money to produce stories about the government that wind up being aired with no disclosure that they were produced by the government?
THE PRESIDENT: There is a Justice Department opinion that says these -- these pieces are within the law, so long as they're based upon facts, not advocacy. And I expect our agencies to adhere to that ruling, to that Justice Department opinion. This has been a longstanding practice of the federal government to use these types of videos. The Agricultural Department, as I understand it, has been using these videos for a long period of time. The Defense Department, other departments have been doing so. It's important that they be based on the guidelines set out by the Justice Department.
Now, I also -- I think it would be helpful if local stations then disclosed to their viewers that that's -- that this was based upon a factual report, and they chose to use it. But evidently, in some cases, that's not the case. So, anyway.
Q The administration could guarantee that's happening by including that language in the pre-packaged report.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I don't -- oh, you mean a disclosure, "I'm George W. Bush, and I" --
Q Well, some way to make sure it couldn't air without the disclosure that you believe is so vital.
THE PRESIDENT: You know, Ken, there's a procedure that we're going to follow, and the local stations ought to -- if there's a deep concern about that, ought to tell their viewers what they're watching.
Bush was far too blithe about disclosing the government's role and relied on a ridiculous distinction between "facts" and "advocacy" (as if the videos don't constitute advocacy for the administration). This is similar to the lousy defense offered for the Ryan video by Health and Human Services spokesmen Kevin W. Keane and Bill Pierce that we quoted in ATPS (p. 253) -- but with one key distinction. Like Bush, Pierce put the onus on local broadcasters, saying, "There is no way this can be deceptive," to which he added, "If [local newscasts] run the whole package, that's their choice." But while Pierce cited the accuracy of the facts in the video as a defense, he described the package as advocacy in a different interview: "All we have done is promote our point of view. Everything that's in the video is true; none of the facts are incorrect."
Will anyone in the media notice the contradiction?
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