Post your reaction to the disclosure that a prominent syndicated TV host did not disclose to viewers for more than a year that his coverage of Bush's
"No Child Left Behind Act" (NCLB) and administration policies related to it, was an obligation that he had agreed to carry out because he accepted more
than $240,000 to do so from the Bush administration.
If Bush's NCLB act was good policy, why did the administration feel the need
to sell it; in this case to the black community, via an expensive PR agency
that, among other things, made hefty, undisclosed payments to a black
syndicated TV host, who then publicized and promoted NCLB as if he was
vouching for it on it's merits alone ?
Quote:
<h3>TV Host Says U.S. Paid Him to Back Policy</h3>
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK Published: January 8, 2005
Armstrong Williams, a prominent conservative commentator who was a protégé of Senator Strom Thurmond and Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court, acknowledged yesterday that he was paid $240,000 by the Department of Education to promote its initiatives on his syndicated television program and to other African-Americans in the news media..............
.......The disclosure about the arrangement coincides with a decision by the Government Accountability Office that the administration had violated a law against unauthorized federal propaganda by distributing television news segments that promoted drug enforcement policies without identifying their origin. More than 300 news programs reaching more than 22 million households broadcast the segments. The accountability office made a similar ruling in May about news segments promoting Medicare policies, and the Drug Enforcement Agency stopped distributing the segments then. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/08/national/08education.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/08/national/08education.html</a>
or <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=TV+Host+Says+U.S.+Paid+Him+to+Back+Policy+kirkpatrick&btnG=Search">here</a>
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And.....over at the Pentagon, a debate rages about information management:
Quote:
<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/13/MNGOEAB3HR1.DTL">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/13/MNGOEAB3HR1.DTL</a>
Critics of the proposals say such deception could shatter the Pentagon's credibility, leaving the U.S. public and a world audience skeptical of anything the Defense Department and military say -- a repeat of the credibility gap that roiled America during the Vietnam War..........
.................The fervent debate today is focused most directly on a secret order signed by Rumsfeld late last year and called "Information Operations Roadmap." The 74-page directive, which remains classified but was described by officials who had read it, accelerated "a plan to advance the goal of information operations as a core military competency."
Noting the complexities and risks, Rumsfeld ordered studies to clarify the appropriate relationship between Pentagon and military public affairs -- whose job is to educate and inform the public with accurate and timely information -- and the practitioners of secret psychological operations and information campaigns to influence or deter or confuse adversaries. .......
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If you can point out a better comparison than what is contained in
the link below to what has been disclosed in the past four years relating to
the methods and the content of the Bush administration's unprecedented
attempts to communicate it's policies and agenda to the American people,
and to the world, I'll apologize to other forum members and delete the
following link:
<a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4433.htm">Propaganda: Did Goebbells Write The Bush Administrations speeches?</a>
and, unfortunately, this comparison. too:
Quote:
<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm">http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm</a>
Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland,
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