Corp. Watch: Spinning Media for Government (excellent read)

[NVMojo]

by Chris Raphael, Special to CorpWatch
February 10th, 2005

A television pundit gets secret payments to promote a new United States government education policy. Columnists are paid to provide support for a White House marriage stance. Actresses play news reporters to promote drug laws. A system of ranking reporters who criticize official policy. These, and possibly many other public relations stunts, are some examples of publicity contracts paid for by the U.S. government, which has spent more than a quarter billion dollars on public relations in the past four years.

For example Armstrong Williams, a conservative African-American broadcaster, was paid $240,000 to produce advertisements on the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and plug the law in his syndicated television broadcasts. (see Leaving Children Behind)

The deal was brokered by Ketchum public relations, a subsidiary of media giant Omnicom, and approved by the U.S. Department of Education (DoE). In addition to the Williams contract, Ketchum was also paid $700,000 to rate media coverage of NCLB and produce video news releases on the law.

When the news of the Williams deal became public, Democratic members of Congress took a look at government contracts with PR firms, and the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform produced some quick but startling numbers. In a January report, the committee found that federal agencies spent more than $250 million on contracts with PR agencies between 2001 and 2004 – nearly twice as much as the $128 million that Clinton spent between 1997 and 2001.

“There used to be a time when our government would let the facts speak for themselves,” lamented Richard Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois, during one Congressional debate. “It apparently is the position of the Bush administration that the facts in and of themselves are not articulate.”


more...

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11836

[ClintonTyree]

1. That's "more than $250 million" that we KNOW of.................

I'm willing to bet the actual number is 5 times that amount. That's bush's solution to everything, throw money at it. Except of course all of the programs he SHOULD be throwing money at. Those, he's either slashing the budgets or eliminating them all together.

There's much money for guns and propaganda, very little for butter. The citizens of this country can't eat guns, although I'm sure the bush administration and their ilk would like to feed us all a heaping helping of hot lead.

Big business runs this country with the help of their toadies, the Republicans. They've never met a corporate give away program they didn't like. There's never ENOUGH for these greedy pricks, and the cost of their greed lies squarely on the backs of every American that takes home a paycheck.

[NVMojo]

2. duly noted ...true on all accounts ...the bastards are beyond corrupt

in all of their dealings and they are trying to squeeze the life and honesty from the soul of this nation ...