Bush Administration Disguises Political Ad as News Reporting at Public Expense

[Fear_Itself]

Bush Ad Surfaces As News Story on Schools

The Bush administration has promoted its education law with a video that comes across as a news story but fails to make clear the reporter involved was paid with taxpayer money.

The government used a similar approach this year in promoting the new Medicare law and drew a rebuke from the investigative arm of Congress, which found the videos amounted to propaganda in violation of federal law.

[snip]

The story ends with the voice of a woman saying, “In Washington, I’m Karen Ryan reporting.”
It does not identify the government as the source of the report. It also fails to make clear the person purporting to be a reporter was someone hired for the promotional video.
Those are the same features — including the voice of Karen Ryan — that were prominent in videos the Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Department used to promote the Medicare law and were judged covert propaganda by the Government Accountability Office in May.

View an excerpt from the “news report” here

This is just more evidence that this administration believes it is accountable to no one, and can employ whatever sleazy, dishonest methods it wants to to deceive the public for the purpose of winning re-election. This is indefensible, and there should be harsh penalties for this kind of deception, especially when it is employed so close to the election.