[Mb-civic] White House to Agencies: Ignore GAO's Ruling on 'Illegal' TV News Releases

[Michael Butler]

    TO Editor's Comment: This story appears to be gathering steam quickly.
In addition to considerable public outrage, the White House's position was
further complicated by a ruling from the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) that the practice described was illegal, violating laws prohibiting
the U.S. government from producing covert propaganda. In response to the
GAO's ruling, an attorney for the Justice Department issued a statement in
opposition to the GAO's position, stating the White House had not broken the
law and is within its rights to continue the practice.

    While the attorney who drafted the opinion was Steven Bradbury, the
final decision on whether or not to take legal action against the White
House would have to be made by the head of the Justice Department, Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales, the man who has been George W. Bush's personal
attorney for decades. Accordingly, we are reporting that the Justice
Department, under the direction of Gonzales, is shielding the White House
rather than acting on the recommendation of the GAO. - ma.

    Go to Original

    White House to Agencies: Ignore GAO's Ruling on 'Illegal' TV News
Releases
    By Ken Herman
    Cox News Service

    Tuesday 15 March 2005

    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." advertisement

    "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."

 

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