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FAIR on Bush Admin Funding of Armstrong Williams
Conservative pundit Armstrong Williams admits to taking almost a quarter of a million dollars from the U.S. government to promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind legislation and the GAO scolds the Bush administration for the second time for using prepackaged video news releases the media runs as news.
The Bush administration paid prominent African American pundit Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote its controversial No Child Left Behind legislation on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.
Williams was required "to regularly comment on No Child Left Behind during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.
His contract was part of a 1 million dollar government deal with public relations firm Ketchum that produced fake, prepackaged new reports - known as video news releases, or VNRs - that were designed to look like news reports and were used to promote No Child Left Behind. The Bush administration used similar releases last year to promote its Medicare prescription drug plan, prompting a scolding from the Government Accountability Office, which called them an illegal use of taxpayers" dollars.
Just last week, the GAO scolded the Bush administration a second time for distributing VNRs, this time produced by the Office of National Drug Control Policy concerning the dangers of marijuana. They featured former reporter Mike Morris, and were aired, at least in part, on 300 news shows. The GAO called it "illegal government propaganda." This is an excerpt of that video news release.
* Excerpt of Anti-Drug Video News Release by Gourvitz Communications.
An excerpt of a video news release paid for with taxpayers dollars by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. After the news of Armstrong Williams and the video news releases emerged, Democratic leaders in Congress called on President Bush to stop using "covert propaganda to influence public opinion."
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/11/1446234
Williams was required "to regularly comment on No Child Left Behind during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.
His contract was part of a 1 million dollar government deal with public relations firm Ketchum that produced fake, prepackaged new reports - known as video news releases, or VNRs - that were designed to look like news reports and were used to promote No Child Left Behind. The Bush administration used similar releases last year to promote its Medicare prescription drug plan, prompting a scolding from the Government Accountability Office, which called them an illegal use of taxpayers" dollars.
Just last week, the GAO scolded the Bush administration a second time for distributing VNRs, this time produced by the Office of National Drug Control Policy concerning the dangers of marijuana. They featured former reporter Mike Morris, and were aired, at least in part, on 300 news shows. The GAO called it "illegal government propaganda." This is an excerpt of that video news release.
* Excerpt of Anti-Drug Video News Release by Gourvitz Communications.
An excerpt of a video news release paid for with taxpayers dollars by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. After the news of Armstrong Williams and the video news releases emerged, Democratic leaders in Congress called on President Bush to stop using "covert propaganda to influence public opinion."
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/11/1446234
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On Democracy Now! today:
Today's program covers recent media news: the recent firing of CBS journalists, Bush Administration propaganda directed at citizens, and CNN's axing "Crossfire".
Amy interviews Steve Rendall of Accuracy and Fairness In Reporting (http://www.fair.org/) who describes ongoing events and trends.
Generous clips of patriot Jon Stewart's adversarial appearance on Crossfire are aired again.
Too bad Time magazine did not choose Stewart as its Person of the Year! (Stewart's 15 minutes of unadulterated truth arguably did more to reveal our naked "emperors" running amok than even Michael Moore's revelatory film, Fahrenheit 911, which focused almost solely on the "Cheerleader from Andover".)
Amy interviews Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights (http://www.ccr-ny.org) who mentions that Canada's Time magazine chose Maher Arar as its Person of the Year.
Ratner describes his hopes that prisoners being held by the United States, its secret agencies, and allied third parties will receive justice. He also describes a state of affairs so dire and a government so unreflective or evil that one can conclude George Orwell's dystopian prophesies are coming to pass.
More Americans should have access to news such as this program delivers. That we are today so woefully and deliberately misinformed becomes clearly evident when facts are revealed as in this program.
Who is Maher Arar?
Why are European courts accusing Bush administration officials as war criminals?
Why does Dan Rather keep his job when others are dismissed?
Why doesn't the New York Times sufficiently deal with its monumental distortions of the run-up to war in Iraq, and ongoing events?
Are both Democrats and Republicans tacitly approving of America's use of torture?
These questions and more are addressed in this program.
That so many questions are candidly and publically asked here and less elsewhere in the United States shows again how Democracy Now! leads the way toward a renaissance of democracy for our now benighted country.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?V2DD3263A
Today's program covers recent media news: the recent firing of CBS journalists, Bush Administration propaganda directed at citizens, and CNN's axing "Crossfire".
Amy interviews Steve Rendall of Accuracy and Fairness In Reporting (http://www.fair.org/) who describes ongoing events and trends.
Generous clips of patriot Jon Stewart's adversarial appearance on Crossfire are aired again.
Too bad Time magazine did not choose Stewart as its Person of the Year! (Stewart's 15 minutes of unadulterated truth arguably did more to reveal our naked "emperors" running amok than even Michael Moore's revelatory film, Fahrenheit 911, which focused almost solely on the "Cheerleader from Andover".)
Amy interviews Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights (http://www.ccr-ny.org) who mentions that Canada's Time magazine chose Maher Arar as its Person of the Year.
Ratner describes his hopes that prisoners being held by the United States, its secret agencies, and allied third parties will receive justice. He also describes a state of affairs so dire and a government so unreflective or evil that one can conclude George Orwell's dystopian prophesies are coming to pass.
More Americans should have access to news such as this program delivers. That we are today so woefully and deliberately misinformed becomes clearly evident when facts are revealed as in this program.
Who is Maher Arar?
Why are European courts accusing Bush administration officials as war criminals?
Why does Dan Rather keep his job when others are dismissed?
Why doesn't the New York Times sufficiently deal with its monumental distortions of the run-up to war in Iraq, and ongoing events?
Are both Democrats and Republicans tacitly approving of America's use of torture?
These questions and more are addressed in this program.
That so many questions are candidly and publically asked here and less elsewhere in the United States shows again how Democracy Now! leads the way toward a renaissance of democracy for our now benighted country.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?V2DD3263A
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