They never learn. The Bush gang hasn’t been shy about producing and distributing taxpayer-financed propaganda in the form of fake-news segments, and they haven’t hid the fact that the criticism hasn’t fazed them. As far as the administration is concerned, they’ve been doing it, they’ll keep doing it, and they’re not terribly concerned about independent analyses from the GAO over whether the practice is legal or not.
Suggestions that the Armstrong Williams debacle might temper the administration’s enthusiasm for fake news were wrong. As the Chicago Tribune reported today, the Bush administration is now using our money to produce fake-news segments promoting CAFTA.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has churned out three dozen radio and television news segments since the first of the year that promote a controversial trade agreement with Central America opposed by labor unions, the sugar industry and many members of Congress, including some Republicans.
Amid an intense debate over government-funded efforts to influence news coverage, the prepackaged reports have been widely distributed to broadcast outlets across the country for easy insertion into newscasts.
About a third of the reports deal specifically with the politically powerful sugar industry, which has emerged as the major obstacle to the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.
In taxpayer-financed ads, viewers are treated to administration talking points on trade, and questionable claims attacking critics. Some Dems on the Hill aren’t happy about it.
On Tuesday, Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), whose states produce sugar, sent a letter to Johanns objecting to pro-CAFTA news reports produced by the government.
“These releases, which are produced and distributed with taxpayer dollars, are provided to 675 rural radio stations and numerous televisions stations where they are run, without disclosure of their source, as news reports,” the senators wrote. “We are concerned that many listeners in rural America may believe these releases are objective news reports, rather than political statements from the USDA which are intended to advance a specific trade agenda.”
Now, the administration argues that the reports are identified as coming from the USDA, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. These “video news releases” feature a fake journalist identifying himself at the end of the piece, including his or her role in the administration. But there’s a catch: the segment is designed so that broadcasters can (and should) leave out the government disclosure.
In other words, the segment may conclude, “In Miami, I’m Joe Schmoe reporting … (ridiculously long pause) … for the Department of Agriculture.” Broadcasters want to air the segment as actual news, so they conveniently stop the tape after the word “reporting” — which is how the administration intended it to be aired, otherwise they wouldn’t have included the long pause in the first place.
That’s exactly what’s happened here.
[T]he taglines disclosing the USDA’s role generally are at the end of the reports, and some news stations have dropped those taglines, apparently in an effort to make the reports appear to be their own work.
Congress has not yet taken up the Lautenberg/Kerry Truth in Broadcasting Act, but now would be a good time to start getting aggressive about it.