Just when you thought the Bush administration is no longer capable of surprising you, we learn that the administration has been paying actors to pose as journalists to praise the new Medicare law for videos sent to TV stations nationwide.
The videos are intended for use in local television news programs. Several include pictures of President Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd cheering as he signed the Medicare law on Dec. 8.
The materials were produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, which called them video news releases, but the source is not identified. Two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, “In Washington, I’m Karen Ryan reporting.”
But the production company, Home Front Communications, said it had hired her to read a script prepared by the government.
Another video, intended for Hispanic audiences, shows a Bush administration official being interviewed in Spanish by a man who identifies himself as a reporter named Alberto Garcia.
Another segment shows a pharmacist talking to an elderly customer. The pharmacist says the new law “helps you better afford your medications,” and the customer says, “It sounds like a good idea.” Indeed, the pharmacist says, “A very good idea.”
The government also prepared scripts that can be used by news anchors introducing what the administration describes as a made-for-television “story package.”
This hybrid of commercials/journalism/political propaganda — sometimes called a “video news release” — has been a round for about a decade now, and has been used effectively by some corporate lobbying groups, particularly the pharmaceutical industry. An organization will prepare studio-quality video with pseudo-news segments. Naturally, these segments are made to look like real news, but are slanted overwhelmingly to favor those who produce them. Local TV stations, with limited news budgets for anything other local crime and sports, broadcast these segments as legitimate news and the viewers are none-the-wiser.
Unfortunately, now the Bush administration is on the game, the latest in a series of efforts to deceive the public.
In one script, the administration suggests that anchors use this language: “In December, President Bush signed into law the first-ever prescription drug benefit for people with Medicare. Since then, there have been a lot of questions about how the law will help older Americans and people with disabilities. Reporter Karen Ryan helps sort through the details.”
The “reporter” then explains the benefits of the new law.
What’s worse, this isn’t just offensive government propaganda, created to hide the facts behind Bush’s ridiculous Medicare scam; it’s taxpayer-funded propaganda.
Lawyers from the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, discovered the materials last month when they were looking into the use of federal money to pay for certain fliers and advertisements that publicize the Medicare law.
One of the potential legal difficulties for the Bush administration is in the videos’ misrepresentation of their source. TV stations in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and other states have seen these segments, presented as genuine “news,” without knowing that the Bush administration was responsible for creating them.
Federal law prohibits the use of federal money for “publicity or propaganda purposes” not authorized by Congress. In the past, the General Accounting Office has found that federal agencies violated this restriction when they disseminated editorials and newspaper articles written by the government or its contractors without identifying the source.
A Bush administration spokesperson said the commercials were technically legal because the Medicare law empowers the administration to inform beneficiaries about changes to the Medicare system.
That’s nice spin, but it’s total nonsense. Seniors can and should be told about changes to the law and their benefits, but this isn’t a public education campaign; it’s propaganda, filled with half-truths and distortions of reality. These spots are campaign commercials in an election year that the Bush administration wants all of us to pay for.
Expect congressional Democrats to scream about this one for a while.