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Whose fault is the fakery?

21 comments on Whose fault is the fakery?

Whose fault is the fakery?

: Jay Rosen praises the Boston University journalism faculty for condeming the use of “fake reporters” in video news releases.

Joe Territo says the fault here isn’t in the White House but in the newsrooms that run them.

: More fakery: I got email headlined “Innovative Companies Interview Request on Forbes Radio Channel.” Well, shucks, we’re flattered.

But reading down to the seventh paragraph, I find the reason this smelled fishy: They want to charge $5 grand for the privilege of being “interviewed.”

: UPDATE: Jay educates Joe.

21 responses to “Whose fault is the fakery?”

  1. Ruth Avatar
    Ruth

    Wonderful touch that, offering to interview the paying public. Have you received your invitation to buy your way into “Who’s Who” yet?
    These clowns must be reading Gary Trudeau.

  2. sbw Avatar
    sbw

    Surely you’ve gotten the “opportunities” to be highlighted by a TV production company featuring Terry Bradshaw for only $35,000. Gotta love the entrepreneurial spirit.

  3. Skate Avatar
    Skate

    “Joe Territo says the fault here isn’t in the White House but in the newsrooms that run them.”
    The blame needs to start at the source–the Administration. The fix is simple: put a superimposed logo on all government VNRs that says they are government VNRs and what department they are from.
    Of course, that easy solution won’t get any support from the Bush Administration because the goal of the VNRs is not to state the governments position, it is to state the government’s position disguised as objective news.
    We need to lobby for truth in labeling laws for government propaganda.

  4. Jay Rosen Avatar
    Jay Rosen

    Why would Territo fail to mention that the Boston U resoluton roundly condemns the television news operations that run VNR’s?

    Condemn the deliberate use by television news outlets of material knowingly obtained from the Administration without clear identification of its origin, and urge all members of the media to cease this deceptive practice at once.

  5. SloppyDawg Avatar
    SloppyDawg

    Certainly TV newsrooms should take a cue from the print media on press releases. I edit a string of weeklies and we get press releases all the time, but we don’t just drop them into the paper without doing a little checking and rewriting.
    But that doesn’t excuse the White House. They should, as my mother used to say to me all the time, know better.

  6. Skate Avatar
    Skate

    “But that doesn’t excuse the White House. They should, as my mother used to say to me all the time, know better.”
    I’d say they do “know” better, but Bush is used to being able to do what he wants without consequences. Just as Bush can’t think of a single thing he would do differently from his last term, I can’t think of a single thing he has done–whether it be completely wrong about WMDs, mischaraterize his service record or claim to a “uniter, not a divider”– where he has ever had to suffer any significant consequences. The man has enough hubris for a dozen Greek tragedies.

  7. paladin Avatar
    paladin

    SaltyDawg and others: Don’t be such a tool. VNRs have been around for 30 years. Bill Clinton spent over $100 mil on them. Where was all the hysteria in the ’90’s? Those who think VNRs were invented by George Bush are poorly informed. Yes, when news outlets use VNRs they should identify them as such. But to blame GWB for this lack of indentification is just lame—-either blame the press for “fake news” or look like a DNC dittohead. George Bush has done nothing different than presidents have done for the past 30 years. This is just more lame Bush bashing.

  8. paladin Avatar
    paladin

    Skate – Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Tom Daschle, Madeleine Albright, Wm Cohen, Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, Nancy Pelosi, etc. plus a bazillion UN Security Council resolutions said Saddam had WMD. Why single out GWB? Don’t be a dittohead.

  9. Skate Avatar
    Skate

    “But to blame GWB for this lack of indentification is just lame—-either blame the press for “fake news” or look like a DNC dittohead. ”
    Yes, the press deserves lumps for going along, but the blame starts at the top.
    “George Bush has done nothing different than presidents have done for the past 30 years. This is just more lame Bush bashing.”
    Really? How many other administrations have secretly paid a media pundant/talk show host to plug one of their programs?
    I’ll wait right here while you get back to me…
    The fact is that the Bush Administration has taken the government’s role in disseminating propaganda to an all-time record.
    The administration is busy deleting factual information about cancer from the HSS website, supporting scientifically false information in stupefied sex ed programs, deleting the scientific conclusions about the cost / benefit ratio of mercury regulation from EPA press releases, secretly paying pundants to plug political programs, arranging for a Pentagon propaganda TV channel to be aired inside the US on cable, putting propaganda about the coming “bankruptcy” of the Social Security program on the “on-hold” recording at the agency, having the supposedly non-political director of the Department of Homeland Security consult with Republican pollster/strategist Frank Luntz…
    And there is so much more. Your position that the Bush administration is no different in its use of propaganda from other administrations is demonstrably false. Calling the Bush Administration on the facts is not “Bush Bashing,” and you say “Bush Bashing” as if it were a bad thing.
    Some people deserve to be criticized. Bush is clearly one of those people.

  10. Skate Avatar
    Skate

    “Skate – Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Tom Daschle, Madeleine Albright, Wm Cohen, Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, Nancy Pelosi, etc. plus a bazillion UN Security Council resolutions said Saddam had WMD. Why single out GWB? Don’t be a dittohead.”
    Interesting and ironic use of the term “dittohead,” normally reserved for the unthinking fans of Rush Limbaugh.
    Yes, Saddam *had* WMDs once. The Democrats who voted to give the authority to go to war did so based on the knowingly false presentation of evidence given by the Bush Administration. Bush claimed that Saddam was actively working on a nuclear program, that he had chemical and biological programs and we knew where they were, that the anodized aluminum tubes could only be used for a centrifuge (patently false), that he was buying Yellow Cake from Niger (disproved by Joe Wilson who was sent by the administration to investigate–they ignored his conclusions.)
    It if false to say that the Senate had access to the same information the President did. They do not.

  11. paladin Avatar
    paladin

    OK, Skate, whatever.

  12. Skate Avatar
    Skate

    <flaimbait>
    Paladin: “Blah, blah, blah, you are all Bush Bashers.”
    Skate: Facts.
    Paladin: “Whatever.”
    Paladin, you are just as hostile to facts and science as the current administration
    </flaimbait>

  13. Hunter McDaniel Avatar
    Hunter McDaniel

    So far I haven’t seen much evidence that the Bush administration has broken new ground here.
    There are really two issues as I see it:
    1) As a conservative, I don’t like the idea of government promoting itself with my money.
    2) There are a lot of damn lazy reporters who would rather use a pre-packaged article (be it a VNR or traditional press release) instead of doing real reporting. But I don’t know why we are fixated on administration VNRs – it’s not a whit better when they take something prepared by a foundation or corporation (e.g., Sierra Club or General Motors).

  14. Skate Avatar
    Skate

    <trolling>
    Paladin, if you really want to get me, start with something you can win, like my misspelling “</flamebait>” I think that is about as far as you can get.
    </trolling>

  15. Skate Avatar
    Skate

    Hunter McDaniel wrote:
    “But I don’t know why we are fixated on administration VNRs – it’s not a whit better when they take something prepared by a foundation or corporation (e.g., Sierra Club or General Motors).”
    While it is a good point to note that corporations and special interest groups also use VNRs and press releases and that we should be concerned about them, there is a fundamental difference between corporate propaganda and government propaganda.
    A corporations and special interest groups have a right to free speech and the power to regulate what they can say and how they can say it is limited. I do think that corporate and special interest VNRs should all be labeled with a super describing the source of the footage when aired by news organizations, but it may not be constitution to require it.
    Government speech is different. We have a right to hold the government accountable and regulate the way it promotes itself and the extent to which the infrastructure of the government can be usurped to promote the political agenda of a particular political party. We expect elected officials and political appointees to be partisan, but we have a right to expect that the information the government as a whole disseminates to be accurate and accurately labeled.
    It is not legal for a political party to usurp the infrastructure of the government to covertly disseminate partisan political propaganda. The main issue is one of attribution. The Bush Administration has been very active in keeping the origin of their political propaganda hidden to prevent it from being properly scrutinized by a public who would think more skeptically about it if they knew where it came from.
    The Administration excells at making partisan political statements look like something they are not. From the erzatz “Town Hall Meetings” filled only with hand picked supporters to fake news reports with fake reporters, the Administration claims these are all legitimate forms of government communication. The intent of the Administration is clear and undeniable. The intent is to deceive.
    We can’t have a free democracy without an accurately informed electorate. An administration bent on secrecy and deception is anathema to freedom and democracy. Covert propaganda–whether it is in the form of secretly paid pundants or propaganda VNRs designed to look like objective news–is anti-democratic.

  16. Ruth Avatar
    Ruth

    Skate:
    Good points. What scares me even more is allowing the corporate interests involved to write the legislation they are subject to as in the “Blue skies” legislation and Ag. Dept giving the inspection process over to voluntary compliance. If these eventualities were actively covered by the press, would the public be more concerned for its own welfare? I think so. Which makes propaganda necessary.

  17. paladin Avatar
    paladin

    Ruth, while you rail against “corporate interests”, don’t forget who owns the press: Viacom, Time-Warner, GE, Disney, NYTimes Corp, Dow-Jones, etc. The press IS corporate interests.

  18. Skate Avatar
    Skate

    paladin wrote:”Ruth, while you rail against “corporate interests”, don’t forget who owns the press: Viacom, Time-Warner, GE, Disney, NYTimes Corp, Dow-Jones, etc. The press IS corporate interests.”
    [sound of hell freezing]
    I agree.
    However, your point, paladin, doesn’t conflict with what Ruth is saying. Instead, your statement supports Ruth’s conclusion.

  19. Charlie (Colorado) Avatar
    Charlie (Colorado)

    Guys, it might be worth noting that the Bush administration simply continued a program of VNRs that the Clintons started.
    Personally, I don’t find it all that astonishing or disturbing on either side. Administration VNRs, the anti-Administration VNRs that MSNBC does — if you haven’t learned that you need to look at everyone’s output with some skepticism, you should get rid of your TV anyway.
    I’m more interested in Jeff’s original point: Jeff, are you saying that Forbes is offering to interview you for the magazine for $5 grand? Or that some PR firm is saying that they can get you interviewed by Forbes for $5 grand?

  20. Ruth Avatar
    Ruth

    Skate:
    Good one.

  21. Skate Avatar
    Skate

    “Guys, it might be worth noting that the Bush administration simply continued a program of VNRs that the Clintons started.”
    Sorry, Charlie, but the Bush administration isn’t just continuing the programs of previous administrations, they are expanding government propaganda to a literally unprecedented level. Clinton bash all you want, but the current problem has a name, and it is “Bush.”