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News :: Media |
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WCIA Broadcasts Government Propaganda from Ag. Dept. |
Current rating: 0 |
by Tarbell
(No verified email address) |
12 Mar 2005
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In a detailed feature from today's New York Times about the use of covert propganda by the United States government through video news releases, WCIA is exposed as being party to a special relationship with the Agriculture Department in producing and airing segments on behalf of Department promotions and policies. WCIA News Director Jim Gee is extensively quoted in the article about these practices, which he defends. This exposure of WCIA's propaganda practices comes near the end of the extensive article, which exposes such practices across federal government departments and at television broadcasters throughout the nation. The excerpt about WCIA and a link to the full article comes after the jump. |
WCIA is a small station with a big job in central Illinois.
Each weekday, WCIA's news department produces a three-hour morning program, a noon broadcast and three evening programs. There are plans to add a 9 p.m. broadcast. The staff, though, has been cut to 37 from 39. "We are doing more with the same," said Jim P. Gee, the news director.
Farming is crucial in Mr. Gee's market, yet with so many demands, he said, "it is hard for us to justify having a reporter just focusing on agriculture."
To fill the gap, WCIA turned to the Agriculture Department, which has assembled one of the most effective public relations operations inside the federal government. The department has a Broadcast Media and Technology Center with an annual budget of $3.2 million that each year produces some 90 "mission messages" for local stations - mostly feature segments about the good works of the Agriculture Department.
"I don't want to use the word filler, per se, but they meet a need we have," Mr. Gee said.
The Agriculture Department's two full-time reporters, Bob Ellison and Pat O'Leary, travel the country filing reports, which are vetted by the department's office of communications before they are distributed via satellite and mail. Alisa Harrison, who oversees the communications office, said Mr. Ellison and Mr. O'Leary provide unbiased, balanced and accurate coverage.
"They cover the secretary just like any other reporter," she said.
Invariably, though, their segments offer critic-free accounts of the department's policies and programs. In one report, Mr. Ellison told of the agency's efforts to help Florida clean up after several hurricanes. "They've done a fantastic job," a grateful local official said in the segment.
More recently, Mr. Ellison reported that Mike Johanns, the new agriculture secretary, and the White House were determined to reopen Japan to American beef products. Of his new boss, Mr. Ellison reported: "He called Bush the best envoy in the world."
WCIA, based in Champaign, has run 26 segments made by the Agriculture Department over the past three months alone. Or put another way, WCIA has run 26 reports that did not cost it anything to produce.
Mr. Gee, the news director, readily acknowledges that these accounts are not exactly independent, tough-minded journalism. But, he added, "We don't think they're propaganda. They meet our journalistic standards. They're informative. They're balanced."
More than a year ago WCIA asked the Agriculture Department to record a special sign-off that implies the segments are the work of WCIA reporters. So, for example, instead of closing his report with "I'm Bob Ellison, reporting for the U.S.D.A.," Mr. Ellison says, "With the U.S.D.A., I'm Bob Ellison, reporting for 'The Morning Show.'"
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Mr. Gee said the customized sign-off helped raise "awareness of the name of our station." Could it give viewers the idea that Mr. Ellison is reporting on location with the U.S.D.A. for WCIA? "We think viewers can make up their own minds," Mr. Gee said.
Ms. Harrison, the Agriculture Department press secretary, said the WCIA sign-off was an exception. The general policy, she said, is to make clear in each segment that the reporter works for the department. In any event, she added, she did not think there was much potential for viewer confusion. "It's pretty clear to me," she said. |
See also:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html
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This work is in the public domain. |
Comments
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Re: WCIA Broadcasts Government Propaganda from Ag. Dept. |
by Wayne D. Pickette
waynedougpick (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
13 Mar 2005
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There was yesterday a nice full of factual material article from a man in Minnesota (P. Neuman). It includes real facts, statistics, diagrams, graphs, etc.. The article disappeared without any trace in hidden and/or deleted units less than one day after its appearance. This one (the current one) has no information, but usual political name calling, and propaganda (also a very cheap one) What was the reason for such strange exchange of articles, ah? Are real facts too eloquent and therefore should be substituted by traditional political quarrels to dust eyes and ears of beholders or what? My condolences, ML! You, sure, have a tough job, no doubts about it. |
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Re: WCIA Broadcasts Government Propaganda from Ag. Dept. |
by karl roenfanz ( rosey )
k_rosey48 (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
13 Mar 2005
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and after a few months the sign-off will change again. leading to the feeling "its a local boy" but have less information. such is the power of propaganda. |
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Re: WCIA Broadcasts Government Propaganda from Ag. Dept. |
by Wayne D. Pickette
waynedougpick (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
13 Mar 2005
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Sorry, I found the article, which I have mentioned in my previous comment, in Elsewhere. Though graphs and pictures are not coming up as well as they did before, but all comments and article's original text are the same. THE PICTURES OF THIS ARTICLE CAN BE REVIEWED AND SAVED ON THE COMPUTERS CURRENTLY BY DIFFERENT THAN MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER BROWSER. I retrieved them with the help of Modzilla Firefox. Everybody, who is interested in this extremely important and very dangerous issue of the rapid climate changing around the area of our residence, and of Arctic climate, can do the same.
Rosey, I agree with your comment as my experience is confirming it. I and my Wife , being not allowed to work according to our knowledge and professions in the times when the great demand on such kind of specialists has been advertised everywhere, know, unfortunately, by our own experience how destructive and powerful brainwashing and propaganda might be. |
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Re: WCIA Broadcasts Government Propaganda from Ag. Dept. |
by Ed Mandel
frozenthought (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
13 Mar 2005
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I wonder if WCIA will soon present an informative report on Monsanto & modified seeds that cannot reproduce. So WCIA does not feel it is cost effective to hire a single reporter to cover agricultural issues? Then they might as well fire everyone except for an engineer to service the transponder----a signal recieved from another source. That would be highly cost effective although, I'm not entirely certain who their viewers might be. |
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Re: WCIA Broadcasts Government Propaganda from Ag. Dept. |
by Ed Mandel
frozenthought (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
13 Mar 2005
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Dear Voter:
I am a twice associate elected member of WEFT's Board of Directors. I have a radio program that has been broadcasting there for 5 years. I assist the "News from Neptune" show among other broadcasts at the station. I am also a conservative Repulican who voted for George W. Bush both times. I am glad he won---I feel he was the better option that was offered to the voters. Voter---you are invited to the next WEFT airshifter training class so that you might join us & propose for a show & express your opinion on the air. I feel it is very important that a broad range of opinions be allowed on the air. I recognize that a great deal of WEFT's programming is anti-Bush; but I feel that this programming balances the programming & editorial commentary of Rush Limbaugh & Sean Hannity. The article presented here about WCIA & the absence of an agricultural reporter is disturbing because it implies there are no agricultural issues that need to be investigated. Our food supply is endangered when farmers are not allowed to continue the centuries old practice of saving seeds for the next spring planting---they are under contract to buy seeds from Monsanto to plant genetically modified seeds that do not reproduce after each season. That is merely an example of why a conservative Republican would support an independent source of information like WEFT. |
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FYI |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
13 Mar 2005
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Ed,
"voter" is Jack Ryan.
Since WEFT doesn't present the opportunities for trolling that the IMC website does, I doubt if you'll hear from him -- he is always making lame challenges that he'll "show up" somewhere (at the IMC, a coffeehouse, etc) but can never quite manage the courage to defend his convictions and behavior to anyone in public.
Here, you can count on his appearance on any article made into a Feature or at the top of the Local Newswire. Just like a dog that can't pass a fire hydrant without pissing on it, this is where his stench promptly appears -- and is now washed away. He wants to mkae his mark, but the message is irrelevant to the sheer joy he takes in the quick -- but ultimately briefly transient -- one-liner.
I would certainly encourage him to get involved with WEFT. However, that would involve the actual work of coming up with something that expresses a viewpoint in long form, rather than simply taking a dump and running, which is his style here. Good luck in this resulting in anything productive for WEFT, but you never know. However, he seems to prefer being a hemorhoid on the body politic, rather than a brain cell.
The irony is that, if Jack Ryan hadn't sealed his fate at the IMC with his boorish disregard for our website use policy, he could have simply shown up and participated in the IMC Radio group making a segement that expresses his own opinion in the program he complains about.
This is all quite off-topic, so this is the end of discussion of this particular subject here. If anyone has questions about this, they are welcome to address them to imc-web (no spam) ucimc.org. But please take your discussion of trolling elsewhere, as trolling is fundamentally irrelevant to the matter of a local TV station presenting government propaganda as real news. Whatever one thinks of the viewpoint that the news is reported from, the source of the IMC News on WEFT is clearly indicated and attributed -- unlike the subject at hand on WCIA. |
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Re: WCIA Broadcasts Government Propaganda from Ag. Dept. |
by bob
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
13 Mar 2005
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Just read the Times but missed the story.
Thanks much, Tarbell. Excellent thread. |
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Re: WCIA Broadcasts Government Propaganda from Ag. Dept. |
by Babs
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
13 Mar 2005
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If WILL-AM can afford to run a local daily agricultural show, why can't WCIA hire a full-time ag reporter (or ANY ag reporter, for that matter)? The Closing Market Report doesn't address controversial issues very often (although I have heard them reported on, so they don't avoid it altogether), but even so, it IS local reporting and commentary.
Regarding WEFT, I just can't imagine the Old Timer going on an anti-Bush rant. |
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From Free Press |
by via email
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
14 Mar 2005
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On Sunday, the New York Times reported that at least 20 federal agencies have made and distributed pre-packaged, ready-to-serve television news segments to promote President Bush's policies and initiatives.
Congress' Government Accountability Office determined that these "video news releases" were illegal "covert propaganda" and told federal agencies to stop. But last Friday, the White House ordered all agencies to disregard Congress' directive.
The Bush administration is using hundreds of millions of your tax dollars to manipulate public opinion. Here's how to stop them:
1. Sign our petition (http://www.freepress.net/act/fakenews) and help us get 250,000 people to join our call to Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and local television stations. Tell Congress and the FCC to toughen and enforce laws against "covert propaganda" and demand that broadcasters come clean with viewers about using government-produced news.
2. Join others in your community to create "citizen agreements" with your local TV stations to stop fake news broadcasts. These agreements are official documents filed at the FCC that -- if broken -- can be used to deny license renewals. Free Press will connect you with others in your area working to ensure local broadcasters identify the sources behind the "news."
Unless we speak out now, the White House will continue to act with impunity -- taking advantage of understaffed and incautious local news operations to manipulate public opinion.
Please take a few moments to sign the Free Press petition and forward this message to everyone you know.
Onward,
Timothy Karr
Campaign Director
Free Press
John Stauber
Executive Director
Center for Media and Democracy
P.S. To learn more, read the in-depth report (http://www.freepress.net/propaganda/) from Free Press on the systematic effort by the Bush administration to manipulate journalists and the American public.
http://www.freepress.net
http://www.prwatch.org/ |
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White House to Agencies: Ignore GAO's Ruling On 'illegal' TV News Releases |
by Ken Herman
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
15 Mar 2005
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Shameless Bush Intent on Continuing Taxpayer-Funded Propaganda
WASHINGTON -- The White House, intent on continuing to crank out "video news releases" that look like television news stories, has told government agency heads to ignore a Government Accountability Office memo criticizing the practice as illegal propaganda.
In a memo on Friday, Joshua Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the lawyers the White House depends on disagree with the GAO's conclusions.
Accompanying Bolten's memo was a letter from Steven Bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, who said video news releases "are the television equivalent of the printed press release."
"They can be a cost-effective means to distribute information through local news outlets, and their use by private and public entities has been widespread since the early 1990s, including by numerous federal agencies," Bradbury said.
Comptroller General David Walker of the GAO said Monday that his agency is "disappointed by the administration's actions" in telling agency heads to ignore the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.
"This is not just a legal issue, it's also an ethical matter," Walker said. "The taxpayers have a right to know when the government is trying to influence them with their own money."
Bradbury's memo said video news releases are legal and legitimate as long as they don't "constitute advocacy for any particular position or view."
The GAO, in a Feb. 17 memo to agency heads, said its review of video news releases distributed to television stations by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of National Drug Control Policy showed violations of federal law barring the use of government money for propaganda. The GAO said, "Television-viewing audiences did not know that stories they watched on television news programs about the government were, in fact, prepared by the government."
Giving no indication that the administration would change its policy, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "It's very clear to the TV stations where they are coming from."
But the GAO, in the Feb. 17 memo from Walker, said that's not enough.
"They are intended to be indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public by independent television news organizations," Walker wrote. "To help accomplish this goal, these stories include actors or others hired to portray 'reporters' and may be accompanied by suggested scripts that television news anchors can use to introduce the story during the broadcast."
Former White House press secretary Mike McCurry, who held the job in the Clinton administration, said there was a "considerable amount of video news release activity" during those years, but much of it was limited to raw footage."
Β© 2005 Cox Newspapers, Inc
http://www.coxnews.com/cox/ |
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'Purely Informational' Propaganda |
by Molly Ivins
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
16 Mar 2005
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Calling all conservatives. Yo, libertarians. Also, wing-nuts, believers in black-helicopter conspiracies and mouth-foaming denouncers of government and all its works β yoo-hoo. Where are these people when you need them?
THEY are making us pay to have ourselves brainwashed. All good conspiracy theories begin with "they" β and in this case, it's the usual suspect of the right wing: the ever-evil federal government. Rush Limbaugh, get on this case. Stealth propaganda now goes by the beguiling moniker "pre-packaged news." And our government, the one supposedly run by us, is using our money to secretly brainwash us. Is this gross, or what?
No joke, this is seriously creepy: The U.S. government is in the covert propaganda business, and it's not aiming this stuff at potential terrorists, it's aiming it right square at your forehead.
The New York Times did a huge Sunday take-out on the practice of "pre-packaged news" by government agencies. "The government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration."
The Bush administration did not invent this practice β it's an adaptation of a corporate public relations ploy. P.R. firms make what look like normal news segments designed to fit into regular news broadcasts, but they are actually sales pitches.
You have probably wondered, "This is news?" when you see a "report" along the lines of: "This is Joe Doaks reporting from the World Headache Remedy Expo on a terrific new advance in headache cures that has everyone here really excited. The product that has the whole Expo buzzing is Megaconglomerate's new remedy No Brain, No Pain. It completely wipes out your headache by wiping out your entire brain, so that you become so stupid you believe this segment is actual news." Or words to that effect.
We're not talking about the old public service announcements that used to hand out useful info clearly attributed to the government: "Uncle Sam wants you to stop smoking," or, "It's a good idea to get your child a polio vaccination: This message brought to you by the Health Department."
It's bad enough that corporate shills burn up journalistic credibility with this cheap trick, but the government has produced hundreds of these fake news segments. The Clinton administration started this vile practice, and the Bush administration has doubled it, spending $254 million on public relations contracts in its first term, twice what the last Clinton administration spent. I suspect it is part and parcel of Karl Rove's mania for "message control."
So how did something this sleazy become so common? Money. The Times reports: "It is ... a world where all participants benefit. Local affiliates are spared the expense of digging up original material. Public relations firms secure government contracts worth millions of dollars. The major networks, which help distribute the releases, collect fees from the government agencies that produce segments and the affiliates that show them. The administration, meanwhile, gets out an unfiltered message, delivered in the guise of traditional reporting."
The only patsy in the set-up is you, sitting there thinking you're seeing something real AND paying for the fake news with your taxes.
Of course, the television stations that play along with this deserve all the opprobrium that can be heaped on them. Thanks for corrupting journalism, guys β thanks for burning everyone's credibility.
The Radio-Television News Directors Association code of ethics says: "Clearly disclose the origin of information, and label all material provided by outsiders." But many stations don't, even those in large city markets with strong professional reputations. More stations are going to more news shows because they're cheaper to produce β but they are not adding reporters or editors, they're just stretching their staffs thinner and thinner. This is happening across the board in the news business. It's about money.
Meanwhile, back at government propaganda central, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has held that the government-produced "news" segments may constitute "covert propaganda." Glad somebody noticed.
But, the Times reports, just last Friday the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget circulated a memo telling all the executive branch agencies to ignore the GAO. The memo says the GAO failed to distinguish between covert propaganda and "purely informational" news segments.
Well, gee, I guess it's purely informational when you see a joyful Iraqi-American, in a segment on the reaction to the fall of Baghdad, saying: "Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A."
Another segment described in the Times reports "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security." The fake reporter calls it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." That would be informational if it weren't misinformational, instead. As the Times reported the next day in an unrelated story, the government's aviation security program is, in fact, riddled with dangerous loopholes.
If I were a hawk-eyed conservative looking for waste, fraud and abuse in government spending, I'd go after this one faster than small-town gossip.
Β© 2005 Daily Camera
http://www.dailycamera.com/ |
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Sorry, The Lips of Local Conservatives Are Sealed on This Subject |
by Dose of Reality
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
16 Mar 2005
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It doesn't really surprise those of us who monitor the local media scene, but the only reaction from the local dominant media has been -- silence.
The News-Gazette, busy turning it's rag into an even more worthless rag with a redesign said to offer "more local news," has said nothing about this. I rarely watch Ch. 15, but somehow I don't think Mark Hyman is going to say anything about this, either. And WCIA itself. Well, it's not CIA for nothing -- they sure won't be investigating and exposing their own shenanigans.
I'm sure glad the IMC is here -- plus the occasional story on WILL, AM 580 -- and we can count on News from Neptune on WEFT bringing it up this Saturday. But most of the local press is complicit in this corrupt practice by their silence. They are probably hoping that they'll be the next ones to get paid to broadcast government propaganda. |
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Nearly a Week later, the News-Gazette Finaly Condemns Fraudulent News on WCIA |
by Dose of Reality
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Mar 2005
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Well, the News-Gazette finally got around to publishing an editorial dressing down WCIA for its foray into faux-news. I don't believe they ever did run a news story on the important local angle to a national story.
But I could've missed it. The "new" N-G is a jumbled mess of mostly "happy news" that is harder to read than ever, despite their hyping new, improved supposedly easier to read typefaces.
The fact that a major local TV station is feeding the public unattributed government propoganda IS a news story, even if the N-G just thinks it's their staff opinion that it's a bad idea to do so. Their readers, and WCIA's viewers, deserve better journalism than that. |
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Re: WCIA Broadcasts Government Propaganda from Ag. Dept. |
by David Higgins
sniggih2divad (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
18 Mar 2005
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Cointelpro is alive and well. If the actions of our government need 'spin' then such actions are not worth taking. Yes, I do believe that when simply doing the right thing, one need not explain one's actions-even to taxpayers. The greatest government on the planet does not need propaganda. |
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CONFRONTING EXECUTIVE BRANCH PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES |
by via Secrecy News
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
25 Mar 2005
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The Bush Administration's repeated use of taxpayer funds to engage
in unacknowledged public relations advocacy in possible violation
of laws that are supposed to constrain such activity is the subject
of a detailed Congressional Research Service analysis, newly
updated this week and obtained by Secrecy News.
See "Public Relations and Propaganda: Restrictions on Executive
Agency Activities," updated March 21, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32750.pdf
Last month, the Comptroller General issued a legal opinion stating
that "several prepackaged news stories produced and distributed by
certain government agencies violated [the] prohibition" on the use
of appropriated funds for purposes of "publicity or propaganda."
See:
http://www.gao.gov/decisions/appro/304272.htm
But two weeks ago, a White House memo rebutted that opinion with a
Justice Department memo declaring that "simply because an agency's
role in producing and disseminating information is undisclosed or
'covert'" does not mean that it is propaganda prohibited by law.
"Our view is that the prohibition [against propaganda] does not
apply where there is no advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and
therefore it does not apply to the legitimate provision of
information concerning the programs administered by an agency," the
White House stated.
The March 11 White House memo from Joshua B. Bolten of the Office of
Management and Budget, with an attachment from the Justice
Department Office of Legal Counsel, was first cited by the New York
Times on March 13 and reported in detail in the Washington Post on
March 15. A copy is here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2005/03/omb031105.pdf
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, send email to
secrecy_news-request (at) lists.fas.org
with "subscribe" in the body of the message.
Secrecy News is archived at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
Secrecy News has an RSS feed at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.rss |
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