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Mon 11 Oct, 2004 08:39 am
I remember reading about this with the Medicare ad/ "news" segment. They already were rebuked, but they're doing it again...
Quote:Bush Ad Appears to Be News Story
2 hours, 39 minutes ago
By BEN FELLER, AP Education Writer
WASHINGTON - 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.
Yahoo link... never seems to stick, haven't found it anywhere else yet.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041011/ap_on_el_pr/school_ads
This kind of stuff should really make people nervous. I know it does me.
BTW, it's those derned ampersands with yahoo. They are getting encoded with 'amp;', somehow when you click.
Unfortunately, the news is filled with promotional pieces.
Why do you think Consumer Reports does those "news" segments? It's self-promotion, and nothing less.
We have health segments now and again and those are preformatted press releases, too.
The newspapers are no different. Look for anything which is a press release. Press releases usually don't say "Press Release" in the byline.
Instead, it will be credited to a media agency, or a local reporter--the reporter who typeset the press release.
FYI, press releases are written by companies and organizations for the sole purpose of self-promotion. They are written as, and usually published as, news stories.
I wish people would finally learn that you can't trust the news media!
Do you think that's the ultimate lesson here?
I agree, by the way, and think that everything should be taken with several chunks of salt. I've been on the receiving end of journalism several times, most recently a profile in a national magazine, and each time I'm shocked at how skewed/ inaccurate they are. They're going for the story, and they take what fits the story and leave out what doesn't fit the story -- whether or not the "story" they have chosen is, strictly speaking, accurate.
That said, I think this is an entirely different beast. It is an out-and-out ad masquerading as a news segment, and is something that they have already been chastised for. I hope they get more than a slap on the wrist this time. (If it was even a slap -- more like a little tiny rub...)
I think it's different because it's coming from the government. Isn't that the actual definition of propaganda? Facts are capable of standing on their own. If you have to go to these lengths to get your story out there then something is wrong with your story.
Couldn't be much of a penalty if they keep doing it.
I would be surprised, if not for the past four years...
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