Propaganda Watch

Your tax payer dollars at work.

Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged News
By DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN

Published: March 13, 2005

It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets.

"Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.

To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.

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.

This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source.

Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the "reporters" are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration.

Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform. Others focused on less prominent matters, like the administration's efforts to offer free after-school tutoring, its campaign to curb childhood obesity, its initiatives to preserve forests and wetlands, its plans to fight computer viruses, even its attempts to fight holiday drunken driving. They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy.

Some of the segments were broadcast in some of nation's largest television markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta.

An examination of government-produced news reports offers a look inside a world where the traditional lines between public relations and journalism have become tangled, where local anchors introduce prepackaged segments with "suggested" lead-ins written by public relations experts. It is a world where government-produced reports disappear into a maze of satellite transmissions, Web portals, syndicated news programs and network feeds, only to emerge cleansed on the other side as "independent" journalism.

It is also a world where all participants benefit.

Read the entire New York Times Article.

Moral Bancruptcy

You win some, you lose some.

Sadly, as Salon points out, no one really cares if the House Dems have documented 150 pages worth of abuses of power by the House Republicans.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have won their first real victory for big business in 2005.

"The short answer is fairness," declared Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "Those who can pay their bills should pay their bills. That's the American way."

Hmm. I always thought that upholding certain unalienable rights - among them Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness - was the American Way. I mean, when I think about Superman fighting for "truth, justice, and the American way," I tend to think of things like establishing Justice, insuring domestic Tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general Welfare, and securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

But paying off credit card debt seems to be pretty American, too. So pay up, scumbags! It's the American way!

Great news for diplomacy!!

No. Not really.

So:

President Bush on Monday nominated John Bolton, a blunt long-time critic of the United Nations, to be U.S. ambassador to the world body in a move that raised doubts about Bush's new emphasis on diplomacy.

That's awesome. I'm sure he'll really be able to gain some much-needed international support.

Oh, wait. What was that he said about the UN?

"The (U.N.) Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference," Bolton said in a 1994 panel discussion sponsored by the World Federalist Association.

Yeah. That's wicked diplomatic. Way to reach out with an olive branch.

This does not bode well. Plus, the dude has a giant, 1970's porn 'stach.

You Pull Out, We Pull Out!

(Via Raw Story) In a fit of political pique, two community colleges in California have ceased their participation in a study-abroad program in Spain because the Spanish government chose to withdraw its troops from Iraq after the Madrid train bombings in March of 2004.

According to one of the trustees who voted for axing the program, "Spain has abandoned our fighting men and women, withdrawing their support." The former head of the Republican Party in Orange County continued, "I see no reason to send students of our colleges to Spain at this moment in history."

I think this is a great idea. Why don't we take it a step further, and cancel ALL the programs in ALL the countries that have pulled out of the "Coalition of the Willing"... hell, let's cancel programs to countries that never helped at all, too! And then, just to screw those anti-freedom bastards even further, let's just cancel all our courses in the languages of those countries. I mean, if you can't go there to study, why learn the language, right? That'll teach those pro-terrist, anti-murican, non-coalition-joining for'ners!

I just hope Poland doesn't pull out... 'cause that's the only foreign language program they'll have left... I mean, other than the one to Uzbekistan.

Idiots.

Media takes it sitting down from Gannon

According to Matthew Cooper, the White House correspondent for Time Magazine, Washington has been lapping up this case of sex and subterfuge in the city.

"It's got everything that gets gossip going. It's got sex, it's got national security, how did he get so close to the president? The pseudonym, it's got intrigue, so it's the kind of thing that gets people talking," Mr Cooper said.

So, why isn't Time writing a story on it? And why hasn't this received more attention? The mainstream media has dropped this story, like a right-wing lawyer dropping a c-note for Guckert in a motel room.

Where are the answers to the serious questions? And how is it that not only was a he a working (gay male) prostitute with ties to a National Security leak, but no one in the White House is being questioned about it?

The BBC story opens:

The Bush administration has already come under fire for paying commentators to espouse its views.

And now journalists themselves are questioning whether their profession is being undermined.

The answer is OF COURSE THEIR PROFESSION IS BEING UNDERMINED. The White House placed an actual male prostitute in the middle of the White House Press Corps, and no one noticed for 2 years!!

The media is ignoring this story, but not because of partisan politics or even laziness. No, the Mainstream Media is ignoring this story because it reveals its own incompetence. And every working journalist who currently identifies themselves as a "professional" should feel shame and embarressment at how easily they were rendered useless.

Bankruptcy Legislation? More Like a big F-You to Middle Class America

The Rude Pundit is pissed off about this, and you should be, too.

The Senate is teeing up to pass the so-named "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005," which, if we were living in a reality based community, would prevent abuse of bankruptcy laws and protect consumers. But we aren't living in a reality based community, and this bill is about nothing but screwing over the little guy, again.

This bill shifts the idea of debt from one that says you can discharge your debt through bankruptcy, to protect your future earnings, to one that says that your future earnings are fair target for your creditors, even if bankruptcy is declared.

In addition, some experts say, the changes proposed in the Senate bill would fundamentally change long-standing American legal policy on debt. Under bankruptcy laws as they have existed for more than a century, creditors can seize almost all of a bankrupt debtor’s existing assets, but they can’t lay claim to future earnings. The proposed law, by preventing many debtors from seeking bankruptcy protection, would compel financially insolvent borrowers to continue trying to pay off the old debts almost indefinitely.

“Until now, the principle in this country has been that people’s future human capital is their own,” said David A. Moss, an economic historian at Harvard University. “If a person gets on a financial treadmill, they can declare bankruptcy and have what can’t be paid discharged. But that would change with this bill.”

Sounds good, huh? As it is, I'm only scratching the surface here. This is a 500 page bill, with tons of crappy ideas for hurting the little guy, so please read on through the links, and also DailyKos, which is doing a typically fine job dismantling the nuts and bolts on this issue. But let me sum up with a choice quote from the Rude guy:

"The bankruptcy bill is class warfare in its purest form: it states that the poor and middle class are bad and that the rich are good. And maybe it's time to start considering how we respond to such blatant, intentionally barbarous acts by those in power."

P.S. - TPM has a special section up with blanket coverage of this issue... including posts by Justin Spitalnick, who I went to college with, so check it out.

Santorum Hearts Sweatshops

This has me incensed. Sen. Santorum (R-PA) has introduced a bill that allows expansion of sweatshops, attacks workers' overtime benefits, and undermines state minumum wage laws, all at once!

"That's impossible," you say. "How could someone be so detached that he would want to screw over the American worker while claiming to be helping?"

Well, I don't have the answer to that, but I do have a place to find details on this bill, which, while it proposes to raise the mimium wage by $1.10, is actually a wolf in sheep's clothing (pdf file).

1) Santorum wants to do ban states from requiring a guaranteed wage for employees who receive tips, like waitresses and bartenders. As if waitresses and bartenders need more financial uncertainty added to their lives... and what about valets? What about the coat check girl? Are they supposed to just survive on tips, too? This is insane.

2) The bill also abolishes the 40 hour work week. Instead moving to an 80 hour, two week schedule. And here's where that makes a difference. Currently, if I work 50 hours one week, and 30 hours the next week, I still make 10 hours of overtime, for the 10 hours over 40 that I worked the first week. under this new bill, I wouldn't make any overtime, because my hours would add up to 80 hours over the course of the two week period. This means that employers could eff around with workers' schedules, driving them hard in the busy weeks and cutting them back in the slower weeks, because the incentive for the regularly scheduled week (i.e. overtime) would be gone, or at least totally hampered.

3) And finally, the wonderful senator from Pennsylvania (though he doesn't actually live there... ever.) has proposed that businesses with revenues less that $1 million be exempted from that little minimum wage increase I mentioned above. According to Labor Blog, this means that, while 1.2 million workers would receive the minimum wage benefit, another 6.8 million workers would lose minimum wage protection entirely. Pretty sweet plan.

And additionally, businesses with revenues below $7 million would be exempted from fines under a set of health, safety, pension, and other labor laws.

Sounds like the promotion of sweatshops to me.

Atrios is campaiging today to flood the good Senator's offices with calls about this issue. He's got all the numbers posted HERE. So if you have five minutes, give em a call to ask about this issue.

And be sure to check in on Labor Blog's coverage of this issue HERE.