Tornado Alley (PROG)

[teapeebubbles]

Fake News Clipon "No Child Left Behind" - produced using tax dollars

The Bush administration has promoted its education law with a video that comes across as a news story but fails to make clear the reporter involved was paid with taxpayer money.

The government used a similar approach this year in promoting the new Medicare law and drew a rebuke from the investigative arm of Congress, which found the videos amounted to propaganda in violation of federal law.

The Education Department also has paid for rankings of newspaper coverage of the No Child Left Behind law, a centerpiece of the president's domestic agenda. Points are awarded for stories that say President Bush and the Republican Party are strong on education, among other factors.

The news ratings also rank individual reporters on how they cover the law, based on the points system set up by Ketchum, a public relations firm hired by the government.
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The story ends with the voice of a woman saying, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

It does not identify the government as the source of the report. It also fails to make clear the person purporting to be a reporter was someone hired for the promotional video.
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The GAO declined comment on the Education Department's video and its similarities to the Medicare video. Both promote laws that the administration has highlighted during Bush's re-election campaign as successes despite debate about how they are being implemented.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/10/10/national1239EDT0473.DTL