I’m Not a Reporter But I Play One on TV
The bush administration is dishonest!
Yeah, I didn’t think that headline would really surprise anyone. Seriously though, it’s pretty amazing what an evildoer can do with a [perceived] presidential mandate and a complete disregard for honesty. (Full disclosure: I didn’t like the president before I started righting this post)
It turns out the Whitehouse used Taxpayers Dollars to bribe [eh-hem] pay a radio commentator $240,000 to tout the No Child Left Behind Act (No Teacher Left Standing Act seems a more fitting a title). The commentator, one Armstrong Williams, has said “Even though I’m not a journalist — I’m a commentator — I feel I should be held to the media ethics standard. My judgment was not the best. I wouldn’t do it again, and I learned from it.”
While he may indeed have learned from it, he doesn’t seem to be in a rush to give the money back, do something noble with it, or in anyway else make restitution for his ethical transgressions.
Some may feel that this guy is a sell out, a charge which is in my opinion both accurate and a gross understatement, but I think the true tragedy of this scandal is that he will no doubt loose much of his credibility for his part in this mess, and George W. Bush and his administration, the people responsible for funding this guy, using tax-payers dollars for what were in effect campaign commercials will get by without having to break a sweat.
“I’m not a reporter, but I play one on TV”.
Along with their bought and paid for (yet secret) mouthpieces like Armstrong Williams, they have employed a technique known as a VNR (Video News Release), which is basically a spin laden puff piece that touts the pluses of something, like the No Child Left Behind Act, with no concern about reporters showing the bad sides of the policy.
The part that would make me chuckle a bit if it weren’t so sad is that they don’t even have to bribe public figures anymore, to piggyback on their public image. They can just hire actors or actress to pretend to be credible individuals, or in the case of one Karen Ryan, just use an employee of the production company making the VNR to pretend to be a real reporter with real journalistic integrity.
This isn’t the first time the Shrub Club has tried to use tax dollars to bullshit the American people through advertising. (not including the UN Presentation RE:WMD)
He did the same with commercials touting the Medicare drug plan with a commercial that looked strikingly similar to a news report. When the Medicare commercial ended with the words, “In Washington, I’m Karen Ryan, reporting,” democrats finally got off their collective ass and started pushing the GAO to look into it. After the GAO investigation was completed, they found that the ads were in violation of a ban on using government funds for publicity and propaganda.
Of course, this didn’t stop them from using the same approach to pushing the No Child Left Behind VNRs, which also ended with our good friend Karen Ryan.
In an even more bizarre twist, according to The Center for Media and Democracy, some local news stations got in on the act, reading the script, in many cases verbatim, with their own reporters.
In yet again another situation of the government trying to trick the American people, the Office of National Drug Control Policy aired a VNR right before the Super Bowl about Whitehouse plans for a new anti-drug advertising campaign, as well as showing the American people exactly what Bush was doing about the Drug problem in America.
This was a step even closer to actively trying to trick Americans into thinking it was done by independent journalists as they provided text for the News Anchors at the local stations to lead into the “report” with, and ended it with “For more information about marijuana and advice on raising drug-free teens, visit TheAntiDrug.com. This is Mike Morris reporting.”
I was actually surprised at how blatant the organization that produced this was about the goal of the VNR. On their homepage, they had the following message: “Imagine the credibility to be gained by having your message delivered by a trusted news anchor as opposed to a paid commercial spot, and you begin to realize the power of Broadcast Public Relations.”.
Huzzah! At least they are telling the truth. An irony Chekhov himself would get a kick out of.