Fake News

“It just doesn't get any lower than this... With all the money the military contractors, energy monopolies, and oil companies are giving Jr. ... it still isn't enough... he has to use our taxpayer money for propaganda and to plant reporters on local news stations with 'fake news spots' that are actually advertisements advocating Bush admin policies. LOL.

Will they ban backpacking as the paganist worship of nature and demand we go to church to cleanse our inhuman thoughts?
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Feds paid pundit to push Bush policy
Democrats demand Bush recover payment

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/07/bush.journalist.ap/index.html


Friday, January 7, 2005 Posted: 4:43 PM EST (2143 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration paid a prominent commentator to promote the No Child Left Behind schools law to fellow blacks and to give the education secretary media time, records show.

A company run by Armstrong Williams, the syndicated commentator, was paid $240,000 by the Education Department. The goal was to deliver positive messages about Bush's education overhaul, using Williams' broad reach with minorities.

The deal, which drew a fast rebuke from Democrats on Capitol Hill, is the latest to put the department on the defensive for the way it has promoted Bush's signature domestic policy.

The contract required Williams' company, the Graham Williams Group, to produce radio and TV ads that feature one-minute "reads" by Education Secretary Rod Paige. The deal also allowed Paige and other department officials to appear as studio guests with Williams.

Williams, one of the leading black conservative voices in the country, was also to use his influence with other black journalists to get them to talk about No Child Left Behind.

The law, a centerpiece of President Bush's domestic agenda, aims to raise achievement among poor and minority children, with penalties for many schools that don't make progress.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday that the decisions on the practice were made by the Education Department. He did not directly answer when asked whether the White House approved of the practice, saying it was a department matter.

The Education Department defended its decision as a "permissible use of taxpayer funds under legal government contracting procedures." The point was to help parents, particularly in poor and minority communities, understand the benefits of the law, the department said.

Williams called criticism of his relationship with the department "legitimate."

"It's a fine line," he told The Associated Press on Friday. "Even though I'm not a journalist -- I'm a commentator -- I feel I should be held to the media ethics standard. My judgment was not the best. I wouldn't do it again, and I learned from it."

Three Democratic senators -- Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Harry Reid of Nevada -- wrote Bush Friday to demand he recover the money paid to Armstrong. The lawmakers contended that "the act of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies undermines the integrity of our democracy."

Rep. George Miller of California, the top Democrat on the House education committee, asked for an inspector general investigation into whether the deal with legal and ethical. He and other Democrats also wrote Bush to call for an end to "covert propaganda."

The department's contract with Williams, through the public relations firm Ketchum, dates to 2003 and 2004. It follows another recent flap about the agency's publicity efforts.

The Bush administration has promoted No Child Left Behind with a video that comes across as a news story but fails to make clear the reporter involved was paid with taxpayer money. It has also has paid for rankings of newspaper coverage of the law, with points awarded for stories that say Bush and the Republican Party are strong on education. The Government Accountability Office, Congress' auditing arm, is investigating those spending decisions.

The GAO has twice ruled that the Bush administration's use of prepackaged videos -- to promote federal drug policy and a new Medicare law -- is "covert propaganda" because the videos do not make clear to the public that the government produced the promotional news.

"There is no defense for using taxpayer dollars to pay journalists for 'fake news' and favorable coverage of a federal program," said Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, a liberal group that has tracked the department's spending.”

“This sucks, poor judgement all the way around, even if one may agree with the goals "The law, a centerpiece of President Bush's domestic agenda, aims to raise achievement among poor and minority children, with penalties for many schools that don't make progress.", the means of getting this out are inappropriate.

Just like ABC (or one of the news agencies, I THINK it was ABC) "planting" the reporter in Baghdad to prompt a soldier to ask Rumsfeld why Troops didn't have the armour they needed... good to have the info out, however VERY POOR judgement to have the news media prompt one of our soldiers to act as a reporter & feed him the question.

Point is... it's seemingly done ny everyone in Washington & in the news business... and wrong all the way around when it misrepresents the source.”

“Wow Trail Turtle, ya only got one bite in 15 hours and he agrees with ya. I'm sorry for your loss. :)”

“You might want to check on that "reporter fed the question" story before you go repeating it. I know how big you are on not accepting propaganda at face value and all.”

“LOL... Oh the reason none of the whitie-righties never rose to the occassion on this one is simple...

They aren't going to defend the government giving $240,000 to a black guy, even if it is to help Jr. get elected, LOL.


I also understand Supreme Court is going to review, possibly overturn the Arthur Anderson conviction. Apparently Jr. used the law improperly in creating the conviction, which I have always seen as scapegoating Ken Lay and Enron (who screwed their employees out of 40,000 pensions).

For those who never 'got it' with Enron, basically what Ken Lay did is they would go to banks & investors, and borrow money, they would then report this money as revenue and their stock would rise. They would use the higher value of the stock to borrow MORE money and report as revenue. They also paid all their employee pensions in company stock so it looked like an asset, but the entire business was vapor, and the result was the 40,000 low-level employees who worked for the few small parts of the company that did generate revenue all got screwed out of their pensions.

And during this Ken Lay is telling the employees to buy stock (while he takes $80 million of his own and sells it... like you and I do on the stock market? LOL, no, he trades the stock directly for company cash and since he's chair of the board, he approves the transfer, even though it is about as illegal as it can get for a public company).

Just like Bush's daddy's, O'Neill's, and Jeb's S&L scandal (which we are still paying $500B+ for).”

“I simply love it when a troll thread sits there and rots. Then the troll comes back and says, "What? No takers? See, I was right!" just to bump it back to the top and fish again.

HAHA!”

“Actually, you bumped it for me after it died, LOL.

I also love your defense for these things. Ain't none of us going away Nigal. I can deal with a little bit of corruption. For instance there is a lot of merit to the criticisms of Clinton, but if you add up all of the alleged scandals, they total less than $1B total cost to the taxpayers.

That's not even a rounding error for Jr.

But they get away with it because people are too distracted by religion and flag-waving to pay any attention to the details.

I am personally undecided on whether to give the Bush family credit for their very successful manipulation of the people, or weap at the pitiful attention span of my fellow Americans.

But, like I said... we'll *ALL* be paying for the CBO projected tax increases... the largest in all of American history.

CBO said we've got 3 years to reverse the situation or the largest tax increases in American history will be unavoidable just to keep the country solvent.
last edited: 1/08/05 10:07:20 AM”