The pro-Bush crowd reflexively defended the administration when it came to light that the Pentagon was placing bogus stories in the Iraqi press. Propaganda, they said, is part of war.

So what’s their defense of this:

Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies’ products.

[...]

The range of VNR is wide. Among items provided by the Bush administration to news stations was one in which an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying “Thank you Bush. Thank you USA” in response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad. The footage was actually produced by the State Department, one of 20 federal agencies that have produced and distributed such items.

My guess? White House apologists will say there’s nothing wrong with government propaganda, and that the fault here lies with the “media” outlets who failed to disclose the source of the reports. Which is true. But which also glosses over the very creepy notion that the government is not only spending taxpayer dollars to promote policy (which is illegal), but is disguising the slick PR material as legitimate news.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 at 8:12 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.