BASH CORPORATE MEDIA
author: Democrat Troll
|
The Federal Government now functions like the Ministry of Truth in 1984. The New York Times has just released (about 50 years too late) a report on how what was once journalism in the U.S. has been replaced by news releases written by PR departments of big corporations. The only real news in the NYT story is how PUBLIC GOVERNMENT money is being used by Republicans at the national and state levels (Schwarzenegger in California) to do the same thing from government agencies -- in violation of democratic principles and existing law.
|
For regulars here at PDX indymedia, this is old news. The purpose of this article is to ask people to carry the word out to everyone else -- don't let a single news story or attribution to any corporate news source go by without questioning its veracity on grounds that NOTHING put out by corporate media is anything but GOVERNMENT controlled propaganda! Most of the public is open to this idea and already suspects that it's true, but they still sometimes find themselves talking about what they have seen lately on the mainstream media.
And don't make much, if any, exception for NPR -- the most you can say for NPR is that there is a POSSIBILITY that the story has some validity, but NPR is as guilty as any of them of running canned pre-recorded bits from corporate PR offices.
If you run across any of those dwindling few ditto-heads who actually seem to believe that the "only" valid news source is Fox News -- shake your head and walk off mumbling, "Yeah, right, and 'Pravda' means 'Truth' in Russian." Eventually it may sink in. Or try asking them how much they are willing to pay out of their pockets -- at the pump or as a result of the run on the dollar and rising interest rates -- to finance the delusions that they seem to think other Americans are stupid enough to buy into.
In particular, "Video News Releases" ("VNR's") are being used extensively. These include the now common scripted and staged "interviews" of Bush or Schwarzenegger (aka, the "Fabricator") by actors hired to portray journalists -- or by actual talking-head type "journalists," and that distinction is obviously dubious.
HOW IT'S DONE
PR firms send polished well-produced VNR's out daily, just like conventional press releases. The conventional press releases have been used by newspapers -- to replace more expensive actual reporting -- for decades now. The only thing different is that tv news is much more expensive to produce than print. Therefore, it has rapidly replaced real reporting on tv, so that 100 percent of American television newsrooms now use VNRs in their newscasts.
News editors around the country, desperate for a few minutes of professionally produced but costless content, downlink the stuff and stick it in their broadcasts.
There is also suspicion that, behind the scenes, the Republican-controlled F.C.C. is putting pressure on stations to run certain VNR's. That may be what is really behind the huge increase in the F.C.C. penalty fees. Law suits have been threatened. The F.C.C. also has the power to revoke revoke or review broadcast licenses.
This means that many times what people think are "actual" newscasts have been produced by PR teams with a product to sell. The term "product" today includes anything that can be "packaged", ranging from political parties to candidates to political campaigns like the recently successful (from a corporate point of view) Republican campaigns to "reform" tort law and bankruptcy law.
BOTH PARTIES HAVE DONE IT
The problem isn't just with the Bush administration. Indymedia regulars will have no problem believing that Clinton did it too. The Republicans, in fact, have made "Clinton did it too" into their main, almost their only, comment on their increasing use of this corporate PR technique.
When the Government Accounting Office published findings warning the Bush administration that the taxpayer-produced propaganda pieces are in violation of law, the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget circulated a memorandum instructing all executive branch agencies to ignore the G.A.O. findings. The memorandum said the G.A.O. failed to distinguish between covert propaganda and "purely informational" news segments made by the government. Such informational segments are legal, the memorandum said, whether or not an agency's role in producing them is disclosed to viewers.
The point of the Bushies saying "Clinton did it, too!" is to try to give Bush some cover and say it doesn't really matter. So what we need to do is to agree, "Yes, Clinton did it and it was wrong then and it's wrong now!" Democrats need to stop knee-jerk defense of Republican-Lite! The Democratic Party has to take some well-deserved hits from angry critics if we are to survive.
That doesn't mean that there isn't, as usual, an enormous quantitative difference between the two parties. A recent study by Congressional Democrats offers a rough indicator: the Bush administration spent $254 million in its first term on public relations contracts, nearly double what the last Clinton administration spent.
CALIFORNIA
The Fabricator is using the same stuff in California. It is being sent and actually used by some bimbo TV stations in the sticks. Everyone is laughing at it and it is adding to Arnold's burgeoning unpopularity.
The following is from TruthOut  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031205Z.shtml
reporting on an AP story --
"Calif. Gov. 'News' Videos Cause a Stir"
Sacramento (Friday 11 March 2005) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration has acknowledged making several videos masquerading as news stories to promote its agenda, creating an uproar from Democrats and labor leaders in a controversy parallel to one ignited by the Bush administration.
"When the governor produces official government propaganda and tries to fake it to look like news it's very, very corrosive to democratic values," said Barry Broad, a labor lobbyist who compared it to efforts by totalitarian regimes.
Criticism initially focused on a video promoting labor regulations altering workers' meal breaks. But the administration later said it made videos on Schwarzenegger's efforts to reshape state government, stall rules that would increase nurse staffing at hospitals and alter teacher pay and tenure requirements, said aides to Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles.
[End of AP story]
PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS TRY TO STOP IT (samo samo, too little, too late?)
It's worth noting that House Democrats managed to introduce H.R. 373 on Jan. 26, 2005. Of course, this legislation will never make it out of committee, or even get a hearing, in the Republican controlled House, but it shows that there are Democrats in the House (including Peter De Fazio of Oregon) who are at least trying to do something about the scandalous problem and documenting it in the Congressional Record.
H.R. 373
Introduced on January 26th by Rep. Rosa DeLauro:
SEC. 5. REQUIREMENT FOR DISCLOSURE OF FEDERAL SPONSORSHIP OF ALL FEDERAL ADVERTISING OR OTHER COMMUNICATION MATERIALS.
(a) Requirement- Each advertisement or other communication paid for by an Executive agency, either directly or through a contract awarded by the Executive agency, shall include a prominent notice informing the target audience that the advertisement or other communication is paid for by that Executive agency.
Co-sponsors: 34
Rep Ackerman, Gary L. [NY-5] - 2/8/2005
Rep Blumenauer, Earl [OR-3] - 2/8/2005
Rep Brown, Sherrod [OH-13] - 2/2/2005
Rep Capps, Lois [CA-23] - 2/2/2005
Rep Capuano, Michael E. [MA-8] - 2/17/2005
Rep Davis, Danny K. [IL-7] - 2/17/2005
Rep DeFazio, Peter A. [OR-4] - 2/8/2005
Rep Delahunt, William D. [MA-10] - 2/2/2005
Rep Eshoo, Anna G. [CA-14] - 2/2/2005
Rep Evans, Lane [IL-17] - 2/2/2005
Rep Farr, Sam [CA-17] - 2/8/2005
Rep Gonzalez, Charles A. [TX-20] - 2/17/2005
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7] - 2/2/2005
Rep Inslee, Jay [WA-1] - 2/8/2005
Rep Kennedy, Patrick J. [RI-1] - 2/17/2005
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] - 2/8/2005
Rep Lynch, Stephen F. [MA-9] - 2/2/2005
Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. [NY-14] - 2/17/2005
Rep Markey, Edward J. [MA-7] - 2/8/2005
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] - 1/26/2005
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] - 2/8/2005
Rep Miller, George [CA-7] - 1/26/2005
Rep Olver, John W. [MA-1] - 2/17/2005
Rep Owens, Major R. [NY-11] - 2/2/2005
Rep Price, David E. [NC-4] - 2/17/2005
Rep Sanders, Bernard [VT] - 2/2/2005
Rep Scott, David [GA-13] - 2/2/2005
Rep Slaughter, Louise McIntosh [NY-28] - 1/26/2005
Rep Stark, Fortney Pete [CA-13] - 2/8/2005
Rep Tierney, John F. [MA-6] - 2/17/2005
Rep Watson, Diane E. [CA-33] - 2/2/2005
Rep Waxman, Henry A. [CA-30] - 1/26/2005
Rep Wexler, Robert [FL-19] - 2/8/2005
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6] - 2/2/2005
See also: S. 266, introduced by Sen. Lautenberg on February 2nd.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
As for myself, I have stopped watching all TV newscasts. I don't have cable (no CNN, Fox, etc.) and I rarely read any U.S. sources except my local newspaper (which I read at a public library). My major source of news is indymedia. Otherwise, for national and world news sources, I go outside the U.S. via the iNet.
There has been talk of encouraging people who do subscribe to cable or satellite services to inform their cable or satellite providers with their opinion of news by canned VNR's (propaganda disguised as neww) and the ethical obligation of either the provider and/or the offending channels to clearly identify such canned crap as NOT independently produced news and WHO WAS THE SOURCE.
There's also talk of targeting the Sinclair conglomerate, as the most outrageous example of the problem.
Can the American people curb this anti-democratic practice by direct action?
Can the American people even be made aware of the problem?
Are the American people willing to take any responsibility for the problem?
Whether the people accept responsibility and begin to think for themselves, or not, they will pay dearly for cover-ups that have enabled the corruption that is currently leading us into a Second Great Depression or worse. Keeping people in the dark about economic issues now -- Bush's stinky budget, trade deficits, the global trend away from using the US$ as their currency of choice, the bankruptcy bill -- is going to hit people harder: their savings, their homes, irretrievably lost jobs, their kids' college aspirations and the "rest of the story," as yet unknown.
CONCLUSION
It's all one big infomercial now. Mass media has become an arm of the government which is increasingly an arm of global capital. They will drag out all their tricks to make you think that it's real news. Bush will be heard with cheers artfully dubbed into the background soundtrack. "Terror mastermind Bin al Din Ali was captured today but his cousin Bin al Din Achmed remains at large. President Bush says freedom is on the march."
Can they be stopped? I don't know, but I think we should try.
JUST TURN IT OFF. It's all a load of shit.
"A society of sheep must beget in time a government of wolves." Bertrand de Jouvenel
"Don't talk to me about the American people -- they watch the Shopping Channel because it's free of commercials." Al Franken
Wake up, Sheeple, wake up!
|
add a comment on this article
add a comment on this article
|
