Bush administration defends use of covert propaganda in US

The phrase—generally associated with police-state dictatorships—was used by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the US Congress, in describing the proliferation of video news releases produced by the Pentagon, State Department and at least 18 other US agencies. The GAO ordered a halt to the dissemination of such videos on the grounds that they “conceal or do not clearly identify for the television viewing audience that the agency was the source of those materials.”

In a front-page article published Sunday, the New York Times detailed the government’s increasing use of the videos, which simulate genuine television news segments. They include the use of public relations employees posing as on-the-spot reporters and “interviews” with government officials that have been scripted and rehearsed.

The Times cited a report issued by Congressional Democrats estimating that during its first term the Bush administration spent $254 million on public relations contracts that pay for the production of these videos, nearly doubling the amount spent by the Clinton administration in its last four years.

It described a system in which thousands of such video news releases, or VNRs, are produced annually. They are sent out to television networks as well as local stations, which in turn broadcast them to tens of millions of viewers as if they were the independent product of the stations’ news departments.

In some cases, television producers edit out brief lines identifying the segments as having been produced by a government agency. In others, they have had their own reporters do new audio voice-overs, reading directly from scripts provided by the government.

Included in this massive propaganda operation is the production by the State Department and the Pentagon of video news segments aimed at selling the US war in Iraq to the American people. Various agencies have done television spots that attempt to cast controversial programs pushed by the Bush administration in the best possible light.

The US Defense Department has set up its own “Pentagon Channel,” providing fake news reports, interviews and video clips to US television stations. The State Department runs a vastly expanded Office of Broadcasting Services with the same purpose.

US Comptroller General David Walker drafted a February 17 memo denouncing the practice as a violation of appropriations laws that bar the use of government money to pay for covert propaganda directed against the American people.

In response, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued its own ruling last Friday. It stated that the administration “does not agree with the GAO that the covert propaganda prohibition applies simply because an agency’s role in producing and disseminating information is undisclosed or ‘covert,’ regardless of whether the content of the message is ‘propaganda.’”

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury wrote on behalf of the administration: “Our view is that the prohibition does not apply where there is no advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and therefore it does not apply to the legitimate provision of information concerning the programs administered by an agency.”

At a Monday press conference, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher echoed this official line in defending the department’s own videos. “One, these are basic facts and material on what's going on in Afghanistan or Iraq or often in the United States related to important issues,” he said. “And it’s not — I wouldn’t describe it as propaganda. It’s, you know, video clips that are put together and people can use to report on things.”

At his Wednesday press conference, President Bush mocked a reporter’s question of why the government did not include clear attribution in its “pre-packaged reports.” Imitating the closing line of his own campaign commercials, Bush replied, “You mean a disclosure, ‘I’m George W. Bush and I...[authorized this message].’”

The Times report points to a symbiotic relationship between the government and the media that underlies the use of the video news releases, while attributing the media’s complicity largely to the economics of public relations and television news.

The report states: “Local affiliates are spared the expense of digging up original material. Public relations firms secure government contracts worth millions of dollars. The major networks, which help distribute the releases, collect fees from the government agencies that produce segments and the affiliates that show them. The administration, meanwhile, gets out an unfiltered message, delivered in the guise of traditional reporting.”

In an editorial published Wednesday, the Washington Post condemned the government’s practice as “illegal and unwise,” while lamenting, “It’s humiliating that local news stations, however short-staffed and desperate for footage, would allow themselves to be used this way.”

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http://wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/prop-m17.shtml