Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal
By Robert Pear
The New York Times
Saturday 01 October 2005
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100105A.shtml
Washington - Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.
In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.
The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the public relations campaign had been known for months. The report Friday provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities.
Lawyers from the accountability office, an independent nonpartisan arm of Congress, found that the administration systematically analyzed news articles to see if they carried the message, "The Bush administration/the GOP is committed to education."
The auditors declared: "We see no use for such information except for partisan political purposes. Engaging in a purely political activity such as this is not a proper use of appropriated funds."
The report also sharply criticized the Education Department for telling Ketchum Inc., a public relations company, to pay Mr. Williams for newspaper columns and television appearances praising Mr. Bush's education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act.
When that arrangement became public, it set off widespread criticism. At a news conference in January, Mr. Bush said: "We will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet."
But the Education Department has since defended its payments to Mr. Williams, saying his commentaries were "no more than the legitimate dissemination of information to the public."
The GAO said the Education Department had no money or authority to "procure favorable commentary in violation of the publicity or propaganda prohibition" in federal law.
The ruling comes with no penalty, but under federal law the department is supposed to report the violations to the White House and Congress.
In the course of its work, the accountability office discovered a previously undisclosed instance in which the Education Department had commissioned a newspaper article. The article, on the "declining science literacy of students," was distributed by the North American Precis Syndicate and appeared in numerous small newspapers around the country. Readers were not informed of the government's role in the writing of the article, which praised the department's role in promoting science education.
The auditors denounced a prepackaged television story disseminated by the Education Department. The segment, a "video news release" narrated by a woman named Karen Ryan, said that President Bush's program for providing remedial instruction and tutoring to children "gets an A-plus."
Ms. Ryan also narrated two videos praising the new Medicare drug benefit last year. In those segments, as in the education video, the narrator ended by saying, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."
The television news segments on education and on Medicare did not state that they had been prepared and distributed by the government. The GAO did not say how many stations carried the reports.
The public relations efforts came to light weeks before Margaret Spellings became education secretary in January. Susan Aspey, a spokeswoman for the secretary, said on Friday that Ms. Spellings regarded the efforts as "stupid, wrong and ill-advised." She said Ms. Spellings had taken steps "to ensure these types of missteps don't happen again."
The investigation by the accountability office was requested by Senators Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats. Mr. Lautenberg expressed concern about a section of the report in which investigators said they could not find records to confirm that Mr. Williams had performed all the activities for which he billed the government.
The Education Department said it had paid Ketchum $186,000 for services performed by Mr. Williams's company. But it could not provide transcripts of speeches, articles or records of other services invoiced by Mr. Williams, the report said.
In March, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel said that federal agencies did not have to acknowledge their role in producing television news segments if they were factual. The inspector general of the Education Department recently reiterated that position.
But the accountability office said on Friday: "The failure of an agency to identify itself as the source of a prepackaged news story misleads the viewing public by encouraging the audience to believe that the broadcasting news organization developed the information. The prepackaged news stories are purposefully designed to be indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public. When the television viewing public does not know that the stories they watched on television news programs about the government were in fact prepared by the government, the stories are, in this sense, no longer purely factual. The essential fact of attribution is missing."
The office said Mr. Williams's work for the government resulted from a written proposal that he submitted to the Education Department in March 2003. The department directed Ketchum to use Mr. Williams as a regular commentator on Mr. Bush's education policies. Ketchum had a federal contract to help publicize those policies, signed by Mr. Bush in 2002.
The Education Department flouted the law by telling Ketchum to use Mr. Williams to "convey a message to the public on behalf of the government, without disclosing to the public that the messengers were acting on the government's behalf and in return for the payment of public funds," the GAO said.
The Education Department spent $38,421 for production and distribution of the video news release and $96,850 for the evaluation of newspaper articles and radio and television programs. Ketchum assigned a score to each article, indicating how often and favorably it mentioned features of the new education law.
Congress tried to clarify the ban on "covert propaganda" in a bill signed by Mr. Bush in May. The law says that no federal money may be used to produce or distribute a news story unless the government's role is openly acknowledged.
-------
Ray McGovern; Barbara Lee; Judith Miller; Bush Administration guilty of buying the news; and more ... Browse our continually updating front page at http://www.truthout.org
Camp Casey Goes to Washington
http://truthout.org/campcaseydc.shtml
TO's coverage of Cindy Sheehan's efforts to rally the nation against war continues with powerful new videos, first-hand reports and comments. Stay with our coverage.
Mayday Mississippi Delta
http://www.truthout.org/mayday.shtml
TO continues to provide information support for everyone impacted by Katrina and Rita. We will continue to provide the best sources available for the most up-to-date and expansive coverage possible.
Join fellow bloggers at the t r u t h o u t Town Meeting. Get perspective on today's important issues from TO's editorial team and prominent guest bloggers.
Join the debate! http://forum.truthout.org/blog
t r u t h o u t | 10.01
Bush Administration Guilty of Buying the News
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100105A.shtml
Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.
Prosecutor Quiet after Miller's Testimony
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100105B.shtml
It has been two years since a grand jury began looking into the Valerie Plame CIA identity case, a criminal investigation that could close up shop shortly or cause more pain for the Bush White House.
Deal with Fitzgerald, Phone Call with Libby Led to Miller's Testimony
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100105C.shtml
Two developments drove the decision of Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter jailed for refusing to testify about conversations with a confidential source, to appear before a grand jury in Washington yesterday in exchange for her freedom, she and her lawyers said yesterday. One was a long phone call with the source. The other was a deal with the special prosecutor in the case.
Joe Conason | The GOP's Spreading Plague
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100105D.shtml
Joe Conason asserts that to be an honest Republican these days must be to wonder what awful revelation is coming next - and how the Grand Old Party, which once claimed to represent political reform, became a front for sleaze, corruption and cynical criminality.
Officials Fear Chaos if Iraqis Vote Down the Constitution
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100105E.shtml
Senior American officials say they are confident that Iraq's draft constitution will be approved in the referendum to be held Oct. 15, even though Sunni Arabs in Iraq are mobilizing in large numbers to defeat it.
The New York Times | The Wrong-Way Congress
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100105F.shtml
The indictment of the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, should have been an opportunity for Republicans to show the nation that they are ready to turn the page on the abuses of big-money politics and lobbyist pandering. Buy According to the New York Times, in choosing Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri as Mr. DeLay's immediate replacement, the members presented as their new face of leadership still another political wheeler-dealer best known for his deep ties to Washington's corporate lobbying industry.
Mark Engler | Hook, Line and Suckers
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100105G.shtml
Mark Engler argues that in the past 15 years, the rise of cable news has spawned a class of pundits who are not leftists but play them on TV. As the watchdogs at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have documented, political talk shows offer "balance" by routinely matching up representatives of the far right, like Pat Buchanan, with centrist Democrats and New Republic editors.
Barbara Lee | Permanent Occupation
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100105X.shtml
Anyone familiar with the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) should be skeptical about the administration's claims that it does not have plans for a permanent military presence in Iraq. According to Barbara Lee, PNAC, many of whose founders, including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, went on to serve in the Bush administration, published a document in 2000 titled 'Rebuilding America's Defenses.' It plainly cites the objective of an increased US military presence in the region as a rationale for invading Iraq.
Ray McGovern | Rogue Soldiers or Rogue President?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100105Y.shtml
Ray McGovern: The news that yet another Army private, Lynndie England, 22, of Fort Ashby, West Virginia, has been convicted and sentenced for posing for the infamous photos of torture at Abu Ghraib, while her superiors duck responsibility, is a sad commentary on the extent to which the Bush administration has corrupted the US Army.
Juan Cole | America Speaks: Will the Democratic Party Listen?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100105Z.shtml
Even Democrats who are not veterans of Iraq need to find the courage to speak out on the war if they are effectively to challenge the Republicans. Simply waiting around for things to get worse in Baghdad is a dangerous strategy, not so much because the situation is likely to improve any time soon but because the American people want real leadership on this issue and they know they are not getting it from Bush.
Message Board by American Patriot Friends Network [APFN]
