NYT-Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged News

[LiviaOlivia]

NY Times
March 13, 2005
Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged News
By DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN

~snip~

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.

~snip~

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html?hp&ex=1110690000&en=13c49ccf73932e2e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Roxy66]

1. Finally...they are looking in the mirror...and BUSH!!

[ailsagirl]

2. Good piece but, as with so many other good pieces...

it seems that they just kind of fade away.

I keep looking for the piece that will ignite everything and spell the end for this BS fascist administration we're currently being tortured by but it just doesn't seem to be happening.

Will it ever?

[LiviaOlivia]

3. Agreed

but it's good to see the Times publishing this stuff.

[ailsagirl]

4. Yes. Absolutely. Always.

In fact, I was going to post it here but saw that you already did.

We'll keep fighting.

:)

[liveoaktx]

5. Suppose we individually called up the tv stations and asked

for the source of each of the *news* clips on the *news* shows or that they start putting identifiers on their pieces.