Is it wrong for the government to control media with payments?

[rjung]

@BrainGlutton

You say “propaganda,” somebody else might say “public service announcement.”

At least with the PSAs, you know who’s funding the message.

The problem with the Armstrong Williams thing is that he was misleading his audience into believing he was an independent supporter of the program, when in actuality he was a sock puppet.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@Martin Hyde

Anyways it certainly isn’t immoral or illegal as long as the administration was paying the man as a spokesperson, and wasn’t paying him to influence his opinions as a journalist.

The person who we should have a problem with is the journalist. As a journalist he shouldn’t be a spokesman for anything to maintain his integrity, he chose to forego that, he wasn’t forced.

So Bush is clean but Williams is dirty? You’re one of those “arrest the whore and send the John on his way” kind of guys aren’t you?

[Age_Quod_Agis]

@Apos

There is something grossly absurd about our own taxdollars going to sell us the ideas we are supposed to decide whether or not get passed. Taking my money to build a fire department is one thing. But taking my money in order to tell me what to vote for and support politically? I defy anyone to try and squeeze that into any sort of conservative principle. If this sort of thing had happened on this scale under a Democratic administration, Republicans would be writing hordes of schreecy books about government mind control.

Except that every Administration in recent memory has used federal funds to promote its message. Who do you think paid Mike McCurry and Scott McClellan’s salary? Do Condi Rice and Colin Powell forgo their salaries when they go on tv to sell the Administration’s message? Who do you think pays for those enormous backdrops when Bush or Kennedy speak about their government programs.

It’s incumbant upon each Administration (and in fact each politician) to sell its message to the American people. The federal government gives money to the parties and to individual politicians for the specific purpose of getting their messages out, which encourages political discourse.

As I’ve said, I think the Administration went over the line here, but that doesn’t mean I oppose all federal funding to educate the public about government programs.

And for the record, conservatives are pissed about this, and are giving the Bush Admin some well-deserved hell about it. And despite your insinuation, I’m not aware of any conservatives that have defended the payments to a supposedly independent journalist.

@Apos

Can you seriously not tell the difference between paying random people to campaign for you with campaign funds and the Bush administration paying a journalist under the table with tax dollars to promote a partisan policy?

If you’re against the use of federal funds to promote a partisan message, then you must oppose the matching federal funds that are offered to every Presidential candidate (until he spends too much money).

@Washington Post

After detailed exploration of opting out of the public financing system, key strategists in the presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) are planning to accept $75 million in federal money for the general election.

I think Kerry ended up raising enough money that his campaign was able to forego federal matching funds, but $75 million! And all $75 million was given by the federal government to promote a partisan message!

Heaven forfend!

While the conservative in me thinks it’s a bad idea to spend government money on much of anything, I don’t have a huge problem with the government paying spokespeople. I have a problem with the government paying people that are supposed to be independent, and who are supposed to appear independent.

By the way, I thought this was an especially effective fisking of Williams’ apology. Earlier, I said that the Bush Admin didn’t appear to control Williams, but the linked fisking seems to indicate that his opinion was not necessarily so independent.

Despite Williams’s insistence that “I did not change my views just because my PR firm was receiving paid advertising promoting the No Child Left Behind Act,” there is strong evidence suggesting otherwise. In a May 16, 2001 column, Williams laments that “Bush scooped out the soul of his own education proposal” and that “the spirit that ought to animate such legislation has been bargained away.” After he got paid, Williams lavished unadulterated praise upon the No Child Left Behind Act.