FAIR on Bush Admin Funding of Armstrong Williams

The Bush administration paid prominent African American pundit Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote its controversial No Child Left Behind legislation on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

Williams was required "to regularly comment on No Child Left Behind during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

His contract was part of a 1 million dollar government deal with public relations firm Ketchum that produced fake, prepackaged new reports - known as video news releases, or VNRs - that were designed to look like news reports and were used to promote No Child Left Behind. The Bush administration used similar releases last year to promote its Medicare prescription drug plan, prompting a scolding from the Government Accountability Office, which called them an illegal use of taxpayers" dollars.

Just last week, the GAO scolded the Bush administration a second time for distributing VNRs, this time produced by the Office of National Drug Control Policy concerning the dangers of marijuana. They featured former reporter Mike Morris, and were aired, at least in part, on 300 news shows. The GAO called it "illegal government propaganda." This is an excerpt of that video news release.

* Excerpt of Anti-Drug Video News Release by Gourvitz Communications.

An excerpt of a video news release paid for with taxpayers dollars by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. After the news of Armstrong Williams and the video news releases emerged, Democratic leaders in Congress called on President Bush to stop using "covert propaganda to influence public opinion."

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/11/1446234