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Buying of news by Bush administration ruled illegal
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mithridates



Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency

PostPosted: Sat Oct 01, 2005 3:00 am    Post subject: Buying of news by Bush administration ruled illegal Reply with quote

Yes, it's Bush-bashing thread #55945, but OMG there's just so much to bash. "We're just giving out information to the public!" Laughing Laughing
Quote:

Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal

By ROBERT PEAR
Published: October 1, 2005

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.

The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the public relations campaign had been known for months. The report Friday provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities.

Lawyers from the accountability office, an independent nonpartisan arm of Congress, found that the administration systematically analyzed news articles to see if they carried the message, "The Bush administration/the G.O.P. is committed to education."

The auditors declared: "We see no use for such information except for partisan political purposes. Engaging in a purely political activity such as this is not a proper use of appropriated funds."

The report also sharply criticized the Education Department for telling Ketchum Inc., a public relations company, to pay Mr. Williams for newspaper columns and television appearances praising Mr. Bush's education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act.

When that arrangement became public, it set off widespread criticism. At a news conference in January, Mr. Bush said: "We will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet."

But the Education Department has since defended its payments to Mr. Williams, saying his commentaries were "no more than the legitimate dissemination of information to the public."

The G.A.O. said the Education Department had no money or authority to "procure favorable commentary in violation of the publicity or propaganda prohibition" in federal law.

The ruling comes with no penalty, but under federal law the department is supposed to report the violations to the White House and Congress.

In the course of its work, the accountability office discovered a previously undisclosed instance in which the Education Department had commissioned a newspaper article. The article, on the "declining science literacy of students," was distributed by the North American Precis Syndicate and appeared in numerous small newspapers around the country. Readers were not informed of the government's role in the writing of the article, which praised the department's role in promoting science education.

The auditors denounced a prepackaged television story disseminated by the Education Department. The segment, a "video news release" narrated by a woman named Karen Ryan, said that President Bush's program for providing remedial instruction and tutoring to children "gets an A-plus."

Ms. Ryan also narrated two videos praising the new Medicare drug benefit last year. In those segments, as in the education video, the narrator ended by saying, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

The television news segments on education and on Medicare did not state that they had been prepared and distributed by the government. The G.A.O. did not say how many stations carried the reports.

The public relations efforts came to light weeks before Margaret Spellings became education secretary in January. Susan Aspey, a spokeswoman for the secretary, said on Friday that Ms. Spellings regarded the efforts as "stupid, wrong and ill-advised." She said Ms. Spellings had taken steps "to ensure these types of missteps don't happen again."

The investigation by the accountability office was requested by Senators Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats. Mr. Lautenberg expressed concern about a section of the report in which investigators said they could not find records to confirm that Mr. Williams had performed all the activities for which he billed the government.

The Education Department said it had paid Ketchum $186,000 for services performed by Mr. Williams's company. But it could not provide transcripts of speeches, articles or records of other services invoiced by Mr. Williams, the report said.

In March, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel said that federal agencies did not have to acknowledge their role in producing television news segments if they were factual. The inspector general of the Education Department recently reiterated that position.

But the accountability office said on Friday: "The failure of an agency to identify itself as the source of a prepackaged news story misleads the viewing public by encouraging the audience to believe that the broadcasting news organization developed the information. The prepackaged news stories are purposefully designed to be indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public. When the television viewing public does not know that the stories they watched on television news programs about the government were in fact prepared by the government, the stories are, in this sense, no longer purely factual. The essential fact of attribution is missing."

The office said Mr. Williams's work for the government resulted from a written proposal that he submitted to the Education Department in March 2003. The department directed Ketchum to use Mr. Williams as a regular commentator on Mr. Bush's education policies. Ketchum had a federal contract to help publicize those policies, signed by Mr. Bush in 2002.

The Education Department flouted the law by telling Ketchum to use Mr. Williams to "convey a message to the public on behalf of the government, without disclosing to the public that the messengers were acting on the government's behalf and in return for the payment of public funds," the G.A.O. said.

The Education Department spent $38,421 for production and distribution of the video news release and $96,850 for the evaluation of newspaper articles and radio and television programs. Ketchum assigned a score to each article, indicating how often and favorably it mentioned features of the new education law.

Congress tried to clarify the ban on "covert propaganda" in a bill signed by Mr. Bush in May. The law says that no federal money may be used to produce or distribute a news story unless the government's role is openly acknowledged.
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EFLtrainer



Joined: 04 May 2005

PostPosted: Sat Oct 01, 2005 5:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jesus. Every time you think it cannot get worse, it does. Actual, real propaganda... Not just spin, not just hucksterism, not just lying, but honest-to-god propaganda. Amazing.
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mithridates



Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2005 11:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Um....

Everyone who jumped all over Dan Rather. Your government *buys* your news from time to time (actually bought). Don't care?
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Hater Depot



Joined: 29 Mar 2005

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2005 12:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've said it before. At this point it doesn't matter what revelations come out. Dick Cheney could be unmasked as a brain-eating alien and the National Review would rush to defend him.
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Red



Joined: 05 Jul 2004

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2005 12:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm shocked!

Shocked

Wait... no I'm not.

Rolling Eyes
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Bulsajo



Joined: 16 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2005 12:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hater Depot wrote:
*beep* Cheney could be unmasked as a brain-eating alien and the National Review would rush to defend him.

Are you going on the record here as saying he's not?
Countdown to IGTG appearance- 5... 4...
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The Bobster



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2005 6:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mithridates wrote:
Um....

Everyone who jumped all over Dan Rather. Your government *buys* your news from time to time (actually bought). Don't care?

I agree. The silence from that corner is deafening.

I'm a little interested about WHY this judicial ruling has no teeth, no repurcussions - if laws were broken, shouldn't someone be facing charges of some kind? Shouldn't someone at least be updating their resume and starting to look for work in the private sector?
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee



Joined: 25 May 2003

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2005 11:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mithridates wrote:
Um....

Everyone who jumped all over Dan Rather. Your government *buys* your news from time to time (actually bought). Don't care?


I think the Natl guard records case was careless journalism, however I still like Dan Rather , and I wish he were still there on CBS news.
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death from above



Joined: 31 Jul 2005
Location: in your head

PostPosted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 4:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

methinks perhaps the tide is finally beginning to turn...

but bush and the rest of the illuminati have already been entrenched by this point
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Gopher



Joined: 04 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 5:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

News (and advertising) information is complicated, biased sometimes to the point of being dishonest, and should always be treated with skepticism.

But this is not news.

Just ask the former Moroccan ambassador to Spain, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, who reported on the popularity of newspapers in Western Europe circa 1690, warning his superiors of "the writing mills which publish reports, purporting to contain the news, but full of sensational lies."

In the United States today, and everywhere else in the world, too, political operatives and political action committees, on the right on the left, even "apolitical" bureaucracies such as the Dept. of Education, all attempt to cultivate news reporters and news services, they all attempt to keep the news favorable to their interests, and they all attempt to suppress unfavorable news information.

It's important to be reminded that since the advent of radio this has become especially pernicious, particularly as the Nazi's used it -- which was, as we already know, extremely cynical. But on the other hand, to be so alarmed about the Bush Administration's behavior may also be a little naive.

Are they aiming to control all media? to destroy unfavorable media? If not, it isn't 1984 yet, public funds or not, which, in any case, I agree is outrageous and stupid. One might ask, that with all of their cumulative experience in govt, how, in their wisdom, could this administration attempt something like this. What were they thinking?


Last edited by Gopher on Mon Oct 03, 2005 11:36 am; edited 1 time in total
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The Bobster



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 8:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gopher wrote:
But on the other hand, to be so alarmed about the Bush Administration's behavior may also be a little naive.

Are they aiming to control all media? to destroy unfavorable media? It not, it isn't 1984 yet, public funds or not, which, in any case, I agree is outrageous and stupid.

Still waiting eagerly for the day when you do something other than apologize for things which are so beyond the pale as to be ludicrous to imagine, and make excuses for things which any sane person can see are inexcusable.

Manipulating news media and putting "spin" on issues is old hat. Here we see them using tax money to create and disseminate false "news" and offer it to the public without attribution of authorship or acknowledgment of the political intent behind it. This is wrong, it is far more than any other administration has done in the area of propaganda, and the judge here says it is illegal ... and you can come up with nothing more than calling the lot of us "naive."

Explain yourself, sir.
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Gopher



Joined: 04 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 8:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Bobster wrote:
Explain yourself, sir.


The sky is not falling. And this is not an apology.
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Gopher



Joined: 04 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 9:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Bobster wrote:
Explain yourself, sir.


Sorry, Bobster, you asked a question, I'll offer a more detailed answer.

I don't think the sky is fallling, and some of the comments on this thread strike me as alarmist and naive. I don't ever take my cue on anything from news information or analysis, if I can help it. I assume that most people who post on this thread don't either -- for the reasons I've alread listed.

I didn't offer any apology for the Republicans. There is nothing that they can do that might surprise me. If Nixon could sponser the things he sponsored, not just the Watergate break-ins, but the B&E re: Daniel Ellsberg and the so-called Pentagon Papers, and also Reagan and what I know about what he pulled with respect to the "findings" on covert operations concerning Iran and Nicaragua in the '80s...I am not shocked or appalled that Bush would authorize public funds to slant news information in favor of his administration -- even though this is the kind of thing a PAC should be doing with private funds.

I don't know what to say to you (and to others) who get excited, even angry, about these things. I don't. And I don't see this particular development as a sign of the apocalypse, either.


Last edited by Gopher on Mon Oct 03, 2005 9:26 am; edited 1 time in total
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EFLtrainer



Joined: 04 May 2005

PostPosted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 9:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gopher wrote:
The Bobster wrote:
Explain yourself, sir.


The sky is not falling. And this is not an apology.


This is perhaps the fundamental difference between you and I: You say thinking the effects of the Bush administration are not really all that serious (the sky is not falling), that the complicity of the American public in this is not a major issue (though it indicates a serious lack of intelligence and analytical ability), and that time will get us through (be patient; your anti-Bushism makes it worse), but I and others seriously believe that if it is not too late, it soon will be. And there is not a single sector of human endeavor where this is not the case. IMHO.

We are afraid. We are very afraid. Why? Because we are zealots? No. Because the future is in serious danger. We are heading into the end portion of a cycle (cycles) that should, if certain theories are correct, end in the complete alteration of everything we now take for granted as being the "American Way", or, even more simply, life as we (the global "we") know it.

The argument would be that 1. these things are natural, but 2. that we can affect them, so 3. why not affect them for the better, if possible, as opposed to the worst - as has been happening under Bush? And, 4. that we are running out of time, if we have not already.
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Gopher



Joined: 04 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 9:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

EFLtrainer wrote:
2. that we can affect them, so 3. why not affect them for the better, if possible, as opposed to the worst - as has been happening under Bush? And, 4. that we are running out of time, if we have not already.


So your chosen battlefield to reverse Time and stand up to injustice is...Dave's ESLCafe forums?

I'm not laughing at you. But couldn't you at least take the fight to the enemy in a more effective place?

And that is the first time that you haven't responded to my views with ridicule or that you haven't attempted to undermine them via sarcasm, and for that I thank you.
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