Government Sponsored News

  • As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the United States military has been secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to further the U.S. cause in Iraq. The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.21


  • The Pentagon created The Office of Strategic Influence, constructed to provide media outlets with misleading information to influence public sentiment. After severe public criticism the office was shut down.22


  • $240,000: Amount given to Armstrong Williams, a syndicated television commentator and newspaper columnist, to publicly endorse the "No Child Left Behind Act."23


  • $254 million: Spent during the Bush administration's first term on "faux news" contracts (almost twice as much as the Clinton administration had spent). The Comptroller General of the GAO, David Walker, criticized the practice as illegal propaganda and stated that he was "disappointed by the administration's actions," because video press releases are an "ethical matter." Walker argued that "taxpayers have a right to know when the government is trying to influence them with their own money." 24


  • Karen Ryan, a former journalist for ABC and PBS, worked on a dozen reports for seven federal agencies in 2003 and 2004, earning a little under $5,000 a story. Ms. Ryan's response: "I just did what everybody else in the industry was doing."25


  • The Office of Broadcasting News, with close supervision from the White House, began to produce narrated feature reports promoting White House policies while highlighting government achievements. The State Department has produced 59 of these segments since 2002.26


  • The Pentagon Channel, once only broadcast inside the Defense Department, is now offered to every cable and satellite operator in the U.S.27


  • The Army and Air Force Hometown News Service, a unit of 40 reporters and producers, send local television stations stories of American servicemen's military accomplishments. In 2004, 50 stories were broadcast 236 times, reaching 41 million households in the U.S.28


  • The Lincoln Group, a government contracted Public Relations Firm based in Washington D.C, is responsible for disseminating positive news stories about American forces and interests in hostile areas. Its operations in Iraq included paying newspapers to print "good news" articles written by American soldiers in Iraqi papers. The Lincoln Group also paid Iraqi journalists between $400 and $500 each to write favorable opinion pieces in local papers.29


  • The United States Agency for International Development (AID) finances about 30 radio stations in Afghanistan, but keeps that information from listeners.30