NYT Editorial: And Now, the Counterfeit News

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Wed, 16 Mar 2005 08:26:25 -0800

[Zepps_News] #NYT Editorial: And Now, the Counterfeit News

 

 

 

 

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/16/opinion/16wed1.html?hp>

 

And Now, the Counterfeit News

 

Published: March 16, 2005

 

o Gets It? Hillary

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The Bush administration has come under a lot of criticism for its

attempts to fob off government propaganda as genuine news reports.

Whether federal agencies are purchasing the services of supposedly

independent columnists or making videos extolling White House

initiatives and then disguising them as TV news reports, that's wrong.

But it is time to acknowledge that the nation's news organizations have

played a large and unappetizing role in deceiving the public.

 

As documented this week in an article in The Times by David Barstow and

Robin Stein, more than 20 federal agencies, including the State

Department and the Defense Department, now create fake news clips. The

Bush administration spent $254 million in its first four years on

contracts with public relations firms, more than double the amount spent

by the Clinton administration.

 

Most of these tapes are very skillfully done, including " interviews "

that seem genuine and " reporters " who look much like the real thing.

Only sophisticated viewers would easily recognize that these videos are

actually unpaid commercial announcements for the White House or some

other part of the government. Some of the videos clearly cross the line

into the proscribed territory of propaganda, and the Government

Accountability Office says at least two were illegally distributed.

 

But too many television stations run government videos anyway, without

any hint of where they came from. And while some claim they somehow

stumbled accidentally into this trap, it seems obvious that in most

cases, television stations that are short on reporters, long on air time

to fill and unwilling to spend the money needed for real news gathering

are abdicating their editorial responsibilities to the government's

publicity teams. Bush administration officials now insist that they

carefully label any domestic releases as government handouts.

 

However disingenuous those assurances may be, in at least some cases the

stations are the main culprits in the deception - as at the Fox

affiliate in Memphis, where a station reporter narrated a State

Department video, using the text that came with it. The Times also

reported on a small central Illinois station that was so eager to snap

up this low-cost filler that it asked the Agriculture Department to have

its " reporter " refer to its morning show in his closing lines. The Times

tracked station malpractice into bigger markets, like San Diego (the ABC

affiliate) and Louisville, Ky. (the Fox affiliate).

 

If using pretend news is one of the ways these stations have chosen to

save money, it's a false economy. If it represents a political decision

to support President Bush, it will eventually backfire. This kind of

practice cheapens the real commodity that television stations have to

sell during their news hours: their credibility.

--

 

Election 2004

The Triumph of the Swill

" The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost

duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation.

It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our

nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation

of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national

life. "

Adolph Hitler, My New World Order,

Proclamation to the German Nation

at Berlin, February 1, 1933

 

 

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Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.

 

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