WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 - The comptroller general has issued a blanket warning that reminds federal agencies they may not produce newscasts promoting administration policies without clearly stating that the government itself is the source.
Twice in the last two years, agencies of the federal government have been caught distributing prepackaged television programs that used paid spokesmen acting as newscasters and, in violation of federal law, failed to disclose the administration's role in developing and financing them.
And those were not isolated incidents, David M. Walker, the comptroller general, said in a letter dated Thursday that put all agency heads on notice about the practice.
The two best-known cases of such video news releases - one concerning the new Medicare law, the other an antidrug campaign by the Bush administration - drew sharp rebukes from the G.A.O. after separate investigations last year found that the agencies involved had violated the law.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/19/politics/19gao.html?ex=1109480400&en=9686cc137fcaf872&ei=5070
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