BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...

Subject: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 07:05 PM

Well, well, well...

Now if this ain't somethin'??? Yep,seems that the Bush adminsitration has been using PR firms to make "fake" news segments and provide these segments to local news stations, which get regularilly aired on the public air waves...

Yep according to a story in yesterfays New York Times ("under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged RV News, by David Barsow and Robin Stein, March 13, 2005) "ar least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years... Mnay were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the govrenemnt's role in their production."

Hmmmmmmm?

This explains a lot about a few folks here in Mudville who get most of their information/propaganda from TV...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Troll
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 07:23 PM

Bobert, do you know if any other administrations have done this or similar things?

troll

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 07:34 PM

Today there is a story about Ahnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, doing the same thing. You suppose that there was a GOP meeting recently where they discussed and okayed this kind of propogandizing?

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: artbrooks
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 07:46 PM

Troll: I saw the same article, and the Clinton administration was specifically mentioned as doing the same thing. It also seems that the "news articles" are distributed with complete information in the cover material about where they come from, but the news organizations apparently choose not to disclose that.

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 07:47 PM

Yeah, troll, other administrations have done it but no where near to the degree that the Bush folks have been doing it... I mean, these guys have raised the bar big time. Read the article... Iy's easy to foind with a little Google search... Then if you'd like even more on it Google "Democracy Now" and check out Amy Coodman's report of this morning on it... Seems like it has become a run away train under Bush with the propaganda machine cranking out "thousands" of fake news pieces for public consumption....

And they look like real news people reporting... And many of them were and who now work for PR firms where the money is better...

Hey, like I've said before. This ain't gonna make Thomas Jefferson too happy at all...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Troll
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 07:55 PM

Is it "fake news" or just news that is presented in a light that is "more favorable to the Administration".

There IS a difference.

Not, you understand, that I think that it's right. I don't believe that public money should be spent in such a way.

If the financing is private, that's another question entirely.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Alba
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 08:10 PM

propaganda perhaps?
News that only shows a favorable side of the issue.
Bush Administration have spent...to date 240 million dollars on this particular PR exercise and yes it is Tax Payers money...

One of the many channels available: clicky thing!

For those inclined, watch for yourselves and decided if it actual News with bias or fake News. I have a dial up modem so I won't be viewing....well that's one of my reasons:>)

Blessings
Jude

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Peace
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 08:32 PM

"US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed..."

A light rinse would do, IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 08:33 PM

Yeah, I reckon one has to be well informed (from other sources) to know if it fake news or not... To me, what I have heard on "Democracy Now" and read in the Times I'd have to say that it closer to fake news than just shining the best light on a situation...

Hwy, I wouldn't mind these segments being broadcast nearly as much if there was a caption that read "Paid Government Advertsing" which is really what it is... But I'd rather see Congress pass a law that would forbid the use of tax dollars to sell anything... Let the political parties pay for stuff that is obviuosly partisan... And use the tax bucks for the general welfare of the people...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 08:39 PM

Hmmm, Germany 1930's and USA now - They are both using the available media to the limit to promote themsleves...

As George Orwell put it (paraphrased - from memory) near the end of Animal Farm - the animals looked from the pigs to the men and back again, and could tell no difference....

and they are trying it on in both the UK and Australia too.

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 08:43 PM

Meet the new boss... same as the old boss...

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 09:18 PM

A Technology Review Guest Commentary may be of interest. It gives a brief outline of some "historical changes" in public media, by "Paul Starr … professor of sociology at Princeton University and cofounder of the American Prospect. He won a Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction in 1984; his most recent book is The Creation of the Media."

In part:

"… Under legislation passed in 1927, the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) began awarding licenses to stations or withholding them. The most basic choices about broadcasting involved the allocation of the spectrum. The FRC could have divided up the spectrum among large numbers of low- and moderate-powered stations. But instead it emphasized high-powered stations and adopted criteria for awarding -licenses that favored commercial organizations. Within a short time, CBS and NBC dominated the medium.

"Informally, even before 1927, American broadcasters began to work out a set of rules for political access to the airwaves that virtually amounted to a system of private regulation of politics. The key element was a distinction between news (to be covered at the expense of the broadcaster) and advertising (to be paid for by the candidate or party).

"Subsequently, Congress required stations to "afford equal opportunities" to opposing candidates. An important extension of the equal-opportunities principle came in 1949, when the Federal Communications Commission which had succeeded the FRC in 1934 adopted the "fairness doctrine." The doctrine required stations to air controversial news and public-affairs programming and to offer reply time to people who disagreed with their views.

"Recent decades have seen radical transformations of the media, and many people tend to see those changes as entirely driven by technology. But legal and political decisions have remained central in determining what kind of media develop. In 1987, the FCC discarded the fairness doctrine, and it no longer uses its authority to promote public-affairs programming. The abandonment of the fairness doctrine also released the broadcast media from requirements for balance and opened the way to the targeting of ideological audiences. …"

(italics added)

John

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 10:07 PM

Yeah, John, while manipulation of public opinion thru the use of the public airwaves has been around for a long time, the point of this thread is less about how we got here but more about just how the Bushites have taken propaganda into the ionisphere....

But I enjoyed your post, none the less...

And I would think that the recent setback for the media monopolists in the courts have bought us a little time to *** try *** to inform the American people that we have one last chance... for the real story.

Purdy big deal here...

Hey, I resent my tax dollars being used for PR folks (ad-men) who are Hell-bent on trying to get me to think they want me to...

Hey, Pat 2... Ya know, it ain't my that I'm worried about as much as Joe-Sixpack who thinks he's being a good American who tries to keep up by watching the TV news at night... He's got the right to vote and he's making decisions on bad information....

Sound familiar?

Lot o' misinformation going 'round... Sho nuff is...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 12:24 AM

Actually the US Gov'mint has been one of the largest producers of "media stuff" for several decades, and using radio, movies, etc., for propaganda is nothing new. The extensive use of "commercial services" such as ad agencies is only a little more recent, but isn't all that new. McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover were big users in their "primes."

The TV stations have the option of airing the stuff or not, and those that show it have the option of revealing or not revealing where the stuff comes from. While the "fairness principle" was occasionally invoked, there was always the possibility that someone would demand, and sometimes even get, an opportunity to offer a rebuttal. No such chance exists today (unless you can afford to pay for it and the media owners aren't offended). [And I'm not sure the plural "owners" is still even vaguely correct.]

The situation is only a little better for print media, not because the ownership and ability to dictate "the boss's line" is less restricted; but because if you have it in print you can more easily check it out with other sources. At least a few people do sometimes notice if it gets too inconsistent. Of course the fraction of people in our population who can still read at the "fourth grade level of comprehension" targeted by the newsrags is so low that they're ignored more and more, as being "politically insignificant."

John

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 07:34 AM

Yeah, my largest problems with print media is that the fabricated news gets printed on the front page and the retractions buried deep within Secrion A....

,,,or not at all.

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 09:05 AM

I recently went through some papers (on microfilm) from 1912. You wouldn't believe the number of "stories" that were obvious ads, but were not so noted. "Hair rinse restores youth to 90-year-old woman" or "Man's disease cured by electro-magnetic belt" sort of things. I still see 'em, only they now say "advertisement" at the top.

If it's good info, like suggestions about what to do in a blizzard or something, or an explanation of how to get your social security benefits, then fine -- that's informating the public. But if it's "how this proposed legislation will make you more potent and sexually desirable," forget it or label it for what it is (I suggest a "BS" tag).

(Why didn't the feds just give the money to public libraries, and let us spend it on materials on both sides of the issue?   -- Just asking.)

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 12:15 PM

I'd like to see the issue discussed outside the context of which administrations have been the most guilty of doing this. The problem will never be solved if we allow the discussion of it to be used as yet another political tool. Let's talk about the fact that it is a problem, regardless of who does it, and that we don't want anyone to do it any more.

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 03:13 PM

One of the reasons this practice is so successful is that the pieces are produced by PR firms who know exactly what TV stattions want. When they are delivered they are ready to be broadcast which saves the TV stations lots of money. So, the stations are encouraged to run the stuff even when they know it's propoganda.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 03:52 PM

Give 'Joe Sixpack' a bit of credit, not every one is an over educated know-it-all with too much time on his hands

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 05:34 PM

"Why didn't the feds just give the money to public libraries, and let us spend it on materials on both sides of the issue?"

Because then the people would think independently, and not as Our Masters wish - and that can be dangerous - just ask the now extinct French Royalty....

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 05:40 PM

I know that. But I'm just asking. Laura Bush got her hubbie to spend USD 10 million on library scholarships and the US library profession thought she was a goddess; in reality was a teeny drop in the bucket. But then, libraries of all sorts are so discounted, so unwanted, and so underfunded that we'll take whatever we can get.

Tom Jefferson would be ashamed.

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 09:38 PM

If Tom Jefferson was around today he'd be on Bush's "watch list"...

Subject: RE: BS: US taxpayers pay to be brainwashed...
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 12:25 PM

the Daily show just interviewed journalist Tom Fenton whose new book,
Bad News talks about the fact that there is very little factual reporting despite 24 hour news networks, and a great deal of opinion and bias.. everything is dumbed down for the US audience, because there isnt enough time to really discuss the issues.
One really has to search for the factual reporting and unbiased discussions, and coverage of issues outside of the US, its ironic that there is so much NEWS and yet so little content.
The other irony is that even the 'fake news' of the Daily show is
in fact more informative than a great deal of the real news being reported.