Capital Ideas had an excellent post today that included a note on faux news produced by the House Democratic caucus, and a link to the clip itself. Note:
The audio clip you just heard was created earlier this week by state House Democrats and made available to radio stations around Pennsylvania as a way of getting the word out on Stimulus-funded transportation spending.
In every way that matters, that audio "actuality," as it's known in the business, sounds exactly like any news report you might hear on your local station as you're driving into work in the morning.
But there's one critical distinction: At no point will you hear a disclosure that the report is actually a taxpayer-funded piece of propaganda produced by the House Democratic Caucus.
He does say that House Republicans and both Senate caucuses do similar things. Radio and television stations are also sent video and audio clips from organizations and special interest groups. These all air, often without any notation that they information was produced elsewhere by people who might have a bias of some kind. People could also least include a "from the inbox" note.
In today's Inky, Angela Couloumbis writes in "Rendell seeks PR aid on stimulus money,":
Despite his call to drastically slash budgets to deal with a worsening recession, Gov. Rendell is paying $100,000 to a Philadelphia political strategist and media consultant to help him with publicity.
The administration has hired Ken Snyder on a monthly retainer of $9,090 between now and Jan. 31 for part-time work, or a minimum of 30 hours a week. Snyder will assist Rendell's Communications Office in the Capitol with media strategy, with a focus on helping provide information about the billions of dollars in federal stimulus aid coming to Pennsylvania.
You know, the federal government is doing pretty well at disseminating information about the stimulus. I get an email from some branch of the feds something like four days a week. They are also very good at niche marketing as many of these emails are directly related to Pennsylvania, with links to further information. I see similar information showing up in various newspapers so they probably get the same emails. There is an omnibus website, www.recovery.gov.
I'm not sure I want any more of my tax money going to pay someone else to distribute the same information. Fellow residents of Pennsylvania, I post as many of these state-based emails from the federal government as possible, in hopes that no additional state monies will be spend on this. So, there you have it, check this blog every day and we can save $9,000 a month for the rest of 2009.
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1 comment:
I'd like to draw a line between taxpayer-funded creation of propaganda & taxpayer-funded placement of propaganda...the latter costing boatloads more. And I'm curious how often whole quotes you've seen in the same presser you got, printed verbatim in articles as if the reporter actually picked up the phone?
Several things happening here, unfortunately none are new & it's only getting worse. We've got billions going into public relations budgets, while "newsgathering" institutions of all shapes and sizes are downsizing. Ready-made happy meal news packages have been provided for print forever, for radio almost forever, for television for decades & for the interwebs since their inception. It's the responsibility of professional journalists, and the institutions that employ them, not to regurgitate them whole.
For the record, there are laws that govern this activity. But only for rebroadcasting over the public airwaves. While government gets the bulk of attention & moral outrage, the majority of fake news is issued by corporations...including some we've bailed out. Some of it's to sell product, otherwise more insidiously to shape public opinion on policy. Report the sloppy broadcasters to the FCC, and check out the ongoing efforts of Center for Media & Democracy exposing the Video News Release (VNR) epidemic:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Video_news_releases
But when Government's buying ad space for propaganda or other purposes, the taxpayers that foot the bill should definitely get warning and a receipt. Senator Folmer has a bill, SB 109, that would make that happen...almost. Ads we the people bought on TV, radio, displayed in magazines & newspapers would get a new warning label of sorts: Government placed, paid for by citizens. But it wouldn't carry the price tag. And worse, an entire category of overpriced advertising -- Legal Advertising -- would be exempted from public disclosure. The tiny print in the classified sections of paid-only newspapers, totaling over $26 Million a year to taxpayers, would get a pass from scrutiny.
Get used to communications folks using all the tools in the collective toolboxes, the twits will tweet. Journalists need to stop transcribing & pressing replay button. But when we all paid for actual placement and broadcast, we have the right to know, see the receipt & get duly outraged.
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