A few years ago, Bush’s Department of Health and Human Services, like most other administration agencies, started creating fake-news segments and distributing them to local TV news stations. In HHS’s case, the agency hired a fake-reporter to do taxpayer-financed propaganda about various initiatives the department wanted to highlight. In each video, the fake-news segment included the sign-off, “In Washington, I’m Karen Ryan reporting,” and in too many instances, the segment was shown to viewers without disclosure.
Since then, HHS has curtailed its propaganda efforts a bit, and hasn’t produced similar fake-news segments. But that doesn’t mean the agency has completely given up on media manipulation.
Four regional directors of the Department of Health and Human Services signed their names on copycat letters sent to editorial pages across the country, spreading misinformation about opposing children’s health insurance proposals.
At minimum, in the southeast Chris Downing sent the letter to the Lincoln Tribune, Charlotte Observer, Beaufort Gazette, The News-Journal (Daytona Beach), The Ledger (Lakeland, FL) and Tallahassee Democrat. Maureen Lydon sent the same to the Indianapolis Star and Battle Creek Enquirer in the Midwest. Gordon Woodrow got it in the The Register-Herald (Beckley, WV), Charleston Gazette (WV) and Baltimore Sun. Out west, Tom Lorentzen placed the letter in the San Francisco Chronicle and Las Vegas Review-Journal.
All four somehow managed to come up with identical wording for the same dishonest points.
As a rule, newspapers tend to avoid these p.r.-driven, mass-produced letters to the editor, especially when they include errors of fact. But, unfortunately, that clearly wasn’t the case here.
Here’s the letter, mass-produced for newspapers across the country, and signed by various regional HHS officials:
Press reports may be raising fears that American children will lose their health insurance because of a debate in Washington over renewing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). President Bush supports reauthorizing this important program for low-income children with enough new funding to ensure that no one enrolled loses coverage. His budget also calls for enough funding so that eligible children not already enrolled can be covered. But the Senate and House are each proposing bills calling for a massive expansion of the program to those in higher-income families, moving them from private insurance onto public assistance.
The president does not support those proposals, which would more than double SCHIP spending and extend eligibility to millions of children who already have private insurance or whose parents earn enough to afford private insurance. Do we really want to force taxpayers to pay for government insurance for children whose parents earn $70,000 or $80,000 a year? That’s what this bill would do.
The bills proposed by Congress are not about helping low-income children; they’re about using SCHIP to stage a gradual government takeover of American health care. Some members of Congress have said publicly that this is what they intend, but neither the president nor the American people will stand for it. Congress should stop trying to use SCHIP to provide coverage for those who can afford it on their own and concentrate on keeping its commitment to the low-income children SCHIP is meant to help.
Bill Scher did a thorough job tearing the propaganda apart, point by point.
But in the big picture, I think news editors should realize by now that anything that comes from the Bush administration should necessarily be considered suspect. These letters were part of a scheme to defend Bush’s opposition to healthcare for children, and they fell short of practically every newspaper’s standards for genuine letters to the editor.
I don’t entirely blame HHS for trying to pull a fast one — it’s what the Bush administration does — but editors have to pick up the slack and look at its propaganda with a little more scrutiny. If the mark knows the con is coming, he shouldn’t fall for it so easily.